Weight Loss with An Acient Chinese Twist
by: Debra Clydesdale LAc DNBAO
Acupuncture Weight Loss Solutions
I remember the first time I took Chinese herbs. One of my patients told me “You look really tired – Here take these herbs” and handed me a bagful of different colored packages. It hurt to have it put so bluntly, but it was true, I was building a business, working long hours and feeling a bit drained, so I listened and took them home to use that night. One was a peach green tea that tasted like the Snapple I had been drinking earlier that day, one was an “interesting tasting” dark green liquid which I took with an OJ chaser and the third was a powder that I mixed up with OJ, water and soy milk to make a citrus smoothie. Not bad I thought, for Chinese herbs… And then something amazing happened. I felt full! Little did I know at that time I had been given the key to my natural weight loss that I still maintain 15 years later.
I loved it! I had never felt full before in my life. I had been struggling with being thin since childhood. I had learned when to stop eating in order to not gain weight; I knew all kinds of tricks like drinking water before a meal and getting up and walking away from the table. I looked at each new “diet trend” and I had eliminated all those “bad carbohydrates” from my diet and lived at the gym – and I ended up thin and tired all the time. I even tried dexatrim (I may be dating myself – does any body else out there remember that?) and ended up a yo-yo dieter. It was like I was in a constant battle with my body and my weight.
In this process of trying everything I had never before felt this feeling of being satisfied. I loved it! So I used the herbs for a few weeks and then I proceeded to talk myself out of taking the herbs – too expensive, etc… and promptly got tired and sick, went back on them – stopped and got sick and tired again, repeated it a third time and then I got the message that these herbs were doing something really good for my body.
Then to my surprise, six months later I dropped 20 pounds without changing anything else in my life. I even began to eat more without gaining weight like I used to. I had a lifetime of experience struggling with my weight and I was amazed at how these “little packages of herbs” were changing my life. I would never have expected that these nutritional herbs would help me lose weight. I was so intrigued that I ended up going to Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine School to learn more. That was my door into the world of Chinese Medicine and acupuncture weight loss and I’ve never looked back.
Weight Loss is quite a difficult complex problem for some of us, and not even an issue for others. Just recently “Language has been removed from the Medicare Coverage Issues Manual stating that obesity is not an illness…. The medical science will now determine whether we provide coverage for the treatments that reduce complications and improve quality of life for the millions of Medicare beneficiaries with obesity.” Being overweight is now officially a disease. “And as a first step, we expect to convene our Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee in the fall to evaluate the evidence on the various surgical procedures used in treating obesity.” There has to be other alternatives besides surgery.
Acupuncture for Weight Loss hit the press in 2003 when Reuters, CNN and others reported of successful acupuncture weight loss clinics in China. Chinese Medicine theory, traditionally hold that overweight people have imbalanced digestive systems. By stimulating the digestive system through acupuncture and herbs, it becomes more balanced and efficient, thus nutrition is more bio-available and the person feels fuller. This is what happened to me when my metabolism came into a better balance. Other theories are that acupuncture mainly helps reduce appetite and improve metabolism.
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Weight Loss with An Acient Chinese Twist Page 2
About The Author
Debra Clydesdale LAc DNBAO is President of the Oriental Med SPA. She has been helping people improve their inner and outer beauty and lead healthier lives for over 15 years offering specialized anti-aging, acupuncture facial renewal, and orthopoedic treatments, products and services with roots in Oriental Medicine and Chinese Nutrition. She can be reached www.OrientalMedSPA.com.
info@orientalmedspa.com
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