Spring Cleaning: Weight Loss & Detoxification

If you are at all like me, you are shaking off the winter cobwebs and blinking at that bright ball in the sky while you peel a layer off a layer of moss. All joking aside, this was a long, dark, wet winter around these parts.

And now the energy of the seasons points us toward spring cleaning- both externally and internally. Spring is the season associated with Liver energy in traditional Chinese medicine. This is the best time of year for a detox and to begin a weight-loss plan.

Many patients ask me if acupuncture can help with weight loss. I tell them that it can help invigorate the functioning of the internal organs by increasing the circulation through associated meridians. Acupuncture can speed up the detoxification and weight loss process and while it can compliment a larger plan, it is no substitute for being discerning in our personal choices.

There is simply no getting around the reality that "you are what you eat". Look at what you are putting in your mouth and be honest about your daily activity level. Most folks make it a lot more complicated than it really is. I always look for ways to keep it simple.

One way to help the body detox and lose weight at the same time is to make straight forward adjustments to what we are eating. You can remove quite a burden from the internal organs by eating lighter, fresh foods rather than heavy, rich meals.

A simple rule is to shop around the edges of the supermarket- where the live foods are. The center aisles are where the lifeless, processed foods sit in airtight boxes designed to last through a nuclear winter.

A popular diet to reference that is actually very simple and endorsed by the Mayo clinic is the Mediterranean Diet. A simple Google search will give you the run down. It's based on the traditional diet from Crete, where folks would eat up to 9 servings of veggies and fruits daily, eating lean meats and whole-grain breads in moderate quantities, and cook with liberal amounts of olive oil.

Eating your bigger meals earlier in the day helps too, as that is when the digestive organs are functioning at their peak. Eating a big meal at night makes for a sluggish journey through the organs.

As for losing weight, one cannot ignore the age-old law of thermodynamics: balancing calories in vs. calories out. 3500 calories equals one pound of body fat, so the trick is to create a differential that uses more calories going out than are coming into the body. One average bag of potato chips (even the "healthy" kind) contains over 1000 calories! If you can keep it around 2000 total calories in daily food intake and use up 2500 calories a day with a little extra exercise, then you will be losing a pound per week.

Increasing daily activity levels and exercise in moderate amounts, combined with a healthy and balanced diet will yield weight loss over time. The key is patience and persistence. Keeping the changes doable is what makes this kind of lifestyle shift sustainable.

Increased physical activity helps the organs detox in the process. Exercise helps create an internal massage-like action on the organs, circulates lymph and other fluids, and flushes out toxins via perspiration and breathing. Combine this with 2 quarts of water intake daily and healthy, balanced meals and you will be well on your way.