Why are so many people struggling with the numbers on their bathroom scale?  There are so many answers—we live in a land of abundance, we eat the wrong foods, we eat too much food, we exercise too little, and the way our food is produced is a nightmare.

So how then, can you successfully jettison that excess weight and keep it off?  Many health experts would have you believe that just eating less and exercising more will do the trick.  Unfortunately, weight loss is not that simple.  What and how you eat is a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual issues, and each person is unique in the factors they bring to the table. (No pun intended).

I have learned not only from studying and practicing Traditional Chinese Medicine, but also from observing and working with my patients, that many people do lose weight and are able to keep it off.  The key to their success goes far beyond less food and more activity.  The following is a list of things that I have found to be true regarding successful weight loss:

1. Weight loss takes commitment.  This is a baby steps kind of thing.  Even though you may want to be twenty pounds lighter today, it’s not going to happen…today.  But it can happen over the course of a few months.  Losing weight means signing on for the long term and taking one day, one meal, one snack at a time.
2. Weight loss takes planning.  You know that you need to eat lunch each day.  You have a choice—you can head out to Big Butt Burger Shack with your co-workers or you can eat the healthy lunch you packed for yourself.   You know that you’re going to come home tired at the end of the day and not want to cook.  What will you do?  Call for the All Cheese All the Time Pizza Special, or take your pre-prepared entrée out of the freezer?  You get the picture—you know you’ve got to eat and you know yourself; so plan ahead.
3. Control over what goes into your meals is crucial.  When you eat out, you have no control of how much butter or oil went into that pasta dish you just ordered.  The bleu cheese dressing at the salad bar is too thick to pour for a reason—it’s loaded with stuff that is not your friend. Fattening stuff tastes really good, and restaurants use lots of fattening stuff that they would never tell you about.
4. Exercise helps you lose weight and keep it off.  Actually, in Chinese medicine, we’d call it movement.  All that excess weight you’re carrying around is considered an accumulation of damp tissue.  Movement is crucial to resolving the accumulation—it’s kind of like self-medicating in that movement restores the flow in your body.  It also speeds up your metabolism and improves your digestion. You don’t have to take up an Olympic sport.  Just go take a walk, ride your bike, or play outside.
5. The people around you can make or break your resolve.  If you are going to lose weight, you need to be surrounded by supportive people, not someone who is trying to tempt you with chocolate and cheesecake.  If your family isn’t on board with how you eat, find a friend or co-worker who can act as your support team.
6. You need a plan.  It can be as simple as deciding not to have seconds or counting calories or it can be as complete as Weight Watchers.  I have seen patients lose weight and keep it off using all kinds of methods.  The thing they had in common was that they had a plan.
7. You can eat the foods you like and still lose weight.  You just need to eat less of them and less frequently.  You will not lose weight eating all brownies all the time—but a brownie once in a while will help you not feel deprived.
8. Your digestion is a huge player in the weight loss game.  In Chinese medicine, if your digestion is poor, you are more likely to convert your food into damp tissue that accumulates on your belly and thighs.  How do you know if your digestion is funky?  Heartburn, stomachaches, lots of gas and rumbling, feeling tired after a meal, food cravings, loose stools or constipation, nausea and no appetite are all signs that your digestion could use some help.  Acupuncture, Chinese food therapy, and even an herbal formula are good options to set it right.
9. Some foods can be over nutritious.  Say what?  It’s true; foods that are very rich or highly concentrated can be too hard to digest.  Some obvious offenders include meals in a can, diet shakes, concentrated juices, and even some rich meats and sauces.
10. Extreme diets don’t work—at least not in the long term.  Here’s why:  You go on a diet, say the Just Eat Cabbage Diet.  You lose a bunch of weight over the course of say, two weeks.  Great!  But what happens when you go of the diet?  Oops!  Right back to the way you were eating, but now your metabolism has gotten a little slower, because you were eating only cabbage.  So now just eating the way you were before the diet causes you to regain more weight.  Bummer!  The net result of your diet—weight gain. 
11. One slip doesn’t spell catastrophe.  Keep your head in the game. This means not only staying committed, but realizing that your can slip up and still lose weight.  Many people beat themselves up for failing to keep to their plan, and just quit altogether.  The successful ones fall off the wagon, but get right back on, and keep losing weight.
12. You need to eat good food.  This means lots of vegetables, whole grains and a little protein at each meal.  Forget about the over processed, chemical laden, genetically modified, sugar-loaded, hormone treated stuff you find at eye level in the average grocery store.  Look for food that has been grown or meat that has been raised without the help of pesticides, chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, and all manner of stuff on the label that you can’t pronounce.  You really are what you eat.
13. Long-term changes are the key to success.  Losing and maintaining your weight is not a project you undertake just to get ready for swimsuit season or an upcoming class reunion.  It’s a way of eating and moving your body that is health promoting, done in moderation, and sustainable for the rest of your life.

Much of Chinese medicine is based on the idea that we humans are part of the natural world, and as such, we’re greatly affected by our environment. Seasonal changes and extreme weather can by physically stressful and wreak havoc with our health. Therefore, when it’s dry outside we get dry conditions, such as a scratchy sore throat, dehydration, and dry skin.  When it’s cold and damp, achy joints and phlegm conditions flare.  Windy weather can bring on colds, facial pain, and earaches.

In Chinese medicine there is actually a condition associated with hot summer weather, called Summerheat.  One word and capitalized—Summerheat.  It is caused from exposure to extreme heat and can make you feel seriously funky.

There are two kinds of Summerheat—the first looks a lot like heat stroke in conventional medicine.  It’s characterized by a high fever, heavy sweating, exhaustion, and dehydration. 

The second kind of Summerheat has a damp element to it. It usually occurs when it’s really humid out—the kind of weather when you feel like you’re covered with a layer of slime.  When it gets hot outside, you generally get thirsty from sweating and drink to keep hydrated.  However, drinking—or overdrinking—combined with the water in the air can cause Summerheat plus a waterlogged feeling, cleverly called Summerheat Damp.

I’ve seen patients with Summerheat Damp during the humidity of the past few weeks, and it isn’t pretty.  Symptoms include a generally blah feeling, nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, and fatigue.  It occurs primarily in people who spend a lot of time outdoors on those very hot, very sticky days of mid and late summer.

So, what to do for Summerheat?  Well, some of the things you would instinctively do are the best.  Slow down and cool off.  There are also some foods that are energetically cool and full of fluids that really help if you’re suffering from Summerheat.  Some suggestions:

• Boil Mung beans.  Cook the beans in water according to the directions on the package.  Use the liquid to make a broth—a little salt is not a bad thing in this case.  You could add a little rice or a few vegetables, but keep it light.
• Try watermelon.  It’s a great choice if you’re feeling hot and blah.  It really works!
• Eat summer produce that is cooling and moist, such as tomatoes, cucumber, Mung bean sprouts (the big ones that come in your Pad Thai), summer squash, broccoli, and apples.
• If your stomach is upset, eat lightly and give your digestion a break.  I like to make a congee (rice soup) when I’m under the weather.  It consists of one part rice to eight parts water, simmered slowly until the rice is tender.  Add seasoning and a small amount of protein, like chicken, egg, or tofu.
• Drink tea.  Green, chrysanthemum, peppermint, or chamomile are all cooling.  Use the hot weather to brew sun tea but putting some tea bags in a glass jar outside in the sun.  In a couple of hours your tea is brewed, and you can refrigerate it or drink it over ice.
• Acupuncture is always a great option, too.  Your practitioner will focus on clearing the heat, and if you have the damp type, they will also resolve the dampness and calm your digestion down.  There are also some really effective Chinese herbal formulas specifically designed for Summerheat.  So be cool and don’t let the hot weather get you down.

Simple, right?  Well, maybe not so simple if you are trying to lose weight, maintain your weight, cut out carbs, ditch the fats, or restrict your diet in ways that are unhealthy.  If this is the case, then for you food may feel a little bit like the enemy.

My initial topic for this post was truths about weight loss.  However, as I began writing, I realized that the greatest truth is this:  How you approach food and eating is a mirror to how you approach life.

In the clinic, I see busy professional women who only have time for a quick bite on the run, often from the nearest fast food place and eaten in the car or standing up.  I see people who are depressed and unhappy eating out of control as a way to fill the void in their lives.  I also see joyless clients who restrict their diets to within an inch of their lives—no carbs, no fats, no sugar, no this, no that.

Food is medicine that you get to eat three times a day.  It also feeds your soul.  In Chinese medicine, your heart is the home to your Shen, which is the mind, memory, consciousness, and spirit.  While these activities are attributed to your brain in Western medicine, we intuitively know that your heart is also an organ of feeling and spirituality.  In fact much of our language about the heart refers to it as an organ of feeling.  Terms such as someone “tugging on your heartstrings,” “knowing things in your heart”, or having a “broken heart” are speaking to an emotional and spiritual organ.

So what about eating to feed your heart and soul?

• As the home to your soul, your Chinese heart is all about connection—to the divine (however you perceive it), to yourself, and to loved ones.  Sitting down and sharing a meal with people that you love is heart-nourishing.
• Preparing a meal with love honors your heart.  It’s not about the ingredients, but the preparation.  However, choosing tasty recipes and fresh ingredients are also part of the process.
• Eat out hunger, celebration, love, or sharing, not boredom or stress.
• Be thankful for the food you’re eating and the company you’re eating with.  Remember food is nourishing and life-sustaining—not your enemy.
• While ingredients are secondary to feeding your heart, there are foods that are not life-sustaining.  These are “dead” foods that have been overly processed and contain chemicals that you body doesn’t recognize as nutrients.  Avoid them like the plague.
• In Chinese medicine, the color red is associated with your heart.  Red wine and cooked tomatoes have been shown to benefit the physical heart.  Also good are berries, red peppers, and apples.
• Celebrating the seasons through food is also heart nourishing.  The freshest foods of summer eaten outdoors or a sitting down to a hearty winter stew by a crackling fire are ways of connecting with food, loved ones, and creation.
• Finally, the emotion related to your Chinese heart is joy.  If you eat with joy, you will live your life with joy.

Okay, I admit that I have a hand in this, and while it seems unlikely to have happened to me (!) the answer to this mystery is that obviously I’ve eaten a few too many acorns over the winter.  And, rather than buy a whole new wardrobe, I need to drop a few pounds. 

While losing a few pounds may sound simple on paper, we all know it’s not easy. Most of us have tried to lose weight at one time or another—some of us actually are successful; some struggle with weight on a daily basis; and some have just given up.  Through personal experience and by working with many patients who have figured out how to lose or maintain their weight successfully, I offer up my best weight loss tips: 

-Plan ahead.  You know you’re going to come home from work hungry.  It’s a given that you’ll eat lunch tomorrow.  It’s not that difficult to plan for those meals and have something healthy on hand.  Stock your refrigerator and pantry with healthy foods that you like.  You can also make meals ahead of time and freeze them in meal-sized portions.

-Watch what you’re drinking.  For some reason, many people think that if they drink it, the calories don’t count.  Think again.  Fruit juice, alcohol, pop, lattés, and chocolate milk all have the potential to derail your weight loss efforts.

-Make small changes you can sustain.  While you may not be able to stick to a strict plan, you can cut out that pop you have every day with lunch.  And while you may be too busy to get to the gym, you can take the stairs to your office on the sixth floor. 

-Think lifestyle, not diet.  A diet is something you undertake for a limited period of time.  When you reach your goal, you go off your diet.  (And weight inexplicably reappears).  However, if you think about making lifestyle changes, you will need to choose those that you can maintain for the rest of your life.  This tip goes hand in hand with the one above—make only those changes that feel doable long-term.

-Quit snacking.  Or if you must snack, plan ahead and have healthy snacks on hand.

-Get your emotions under control.  Strong emotions, especially stress, cause an imbalance in a number of hormones in your body, including cortisol and insulin.  These changes mess with how you metabolize food, cause you to gain weight around the middle, and cause cravings for those fat-laden sugar bombs that you always regret eating.

-Get moving.  Exercise is key to losing weight.  It burns calories, relieves stress, helps you sleep better at night, and dampens your appetite.  Bonus tip:  Build muscle by lifting weights.  Muscles burn more calories than fat.

-Eat for good digestion.  You may be eating the healthiest diet in the world, but if your digestion is funky, you might as well be ordering your meals at the McDonald’s drive through. If you have heartburn, gas, rumbling, bloating, constipation, loose stools, stomachaches, or nausea, your digestion could definitely be better.  The first step is to slow down and chew your food.  The second is to prepare your foods in a way that they will be better digested.  Generally cooked foods, in the form of soups, stews, stir fries, and fruit compotes take less energy  and are easier to digest than cold or raw foods.

-Eat foods that are locally grown and in season.  First of all, they taste better than something that’s been on a truck for the past week.  Second, according to Chinese medicine, foods should be eaten during the season in which they are grown.  For example, during the spring, your diet should be full of rich green shoots and baby lettuce.  In contrast, during late summer and early fall, you should be eating the yellow and orange veggies, like carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, and corn.  Trust me on this—it’s better for you.

-East mostly vegetables and fruits with whole grains, a little protein, and small amounts of everything else.  This is the ideal diet according to Chinese medicine.

-There are really no bad foods unless you eat them all the time.  We tend to label foods as heroes and villains, and sometimes try cut out entire food groups we perceive as unhealthy.  However, we need fat in our diet; we need carbohydrates; and we need protein.  So, while you may want to beat yourself up over that doughnut you had at yesterday’s staff meeting, in reality, once in a while won’t kill you, so get past it.

-Exception to the above tip:  Grease-laden fast foods.

-Eat breakfast.  Get up in time to have a breakfast that includes whole grains and a little protein; it’s the best way to get through the morning without hunger pangs, sugar cravings, and low blood sugar.

-Set attainable goals. If you have a lot of weight to lose, it can feel overwhelming to set a goal to lose it all at once.  However, if you set a goal to lose ten pounds, and once that’s done, then lose ten more, you’re less likely to give up, and more likely to feel successful with each goal you reach.

-Don’t go to a party hungry. Ditto for the grocery store and out with friends.  In every situation, your hunger will derail all your good intentions, especially when combined with cocktails.

-Eat foods that haven’t been processed to death.  There are a couple of tipping points here.  If you look at the label on the package and it lists more than ten ingredients, put it back on the shelf.  Also, if the food is unrecognizable as to what it once was, put it back. 

-Pack your lunch.  If you buy your lunch each day, you are eating one meal out of three in which you have no control over the ingredients, caloric content, preparation, portion size, or freshness. Think about it.

-Try something new.  Check out some new recipes, try a food you’ve never eaten, rethink your meal menus, and try a new grocery store or farmer’s market. It will bring you new motivation to eat more healthfully.

-There is no magic bullet or miracle food.  There are lots of good, healthy foods, but there is no one single food that you can eat every day that will peel off the pounds, give you boundless energy, immortality, and keep you disease-free.  For those things (except the immortality), you need an assortment of foods, with their variety of nutrients.

-Eat as many differently colored foods each day as possible.  This is especially true for darkly colored foods. The colors in natural foods represent their inherent nutrients. Think red peppers, tomatoes, cherries, grapes, blueberries, dark leafy greens, yellow squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, black beans, sea vegetables, eggplant, white mushrooms, turnips, and brown rice.  You can’t go wrong.

In Chinese medicine, your internal body can become too dry—not just your skin.  Your acupuncturist may call it damage to the body’s fluids or a dryness pathogen, and it simply means that your body is lacking moisture.

The moisture in your body is considered a Yin substance in that it’s cooling, nourishing, and…well, moisturizing.  Your body needs this moisture for every aspect of good health, from moistening your lungs to lubricating your joints and smoothing the passage of food through your digestive system.

As a pathogen (something that can make you sick), dryness can manifest with a variety of symptoms, including constipation; a dry sore throat; dry mouth, nose or eyes; cough; joint problems; indigestion; and fever.

While being well-hydrated helps, the solution to damaged fluids goes beyond drinking more water.  For example, if someone has constipation from dryness, drinking more water will help a little.  However that person will need to eat more moisturizing foods too, to moisten their intestines and relieve the constipation.  This is similar to the difference between putting water on your dry skin (it briefly moistens) and applying a lotion or oil, which nourishes and moisturizes your skin in the long term.

To gently moisten overall dryness, try some of the following tips:

-Your body needs a certain amount of fat to be healthy.  Some good fats include flax seed oil, olive oil and canola oil.  Aim for eating more plant based fats, such as avocadoes, olives, and nuts.

-Seeds and nuts are especially moisturizing.  Walnuts are commonly used in Chinese medicine to relieve constipation due to dryness.  Choose a variety, and try to avoid those nuts and seeds that have been processed with other oils.

-Most fruits moisten dryness.  For dry lungs, choose apples and pears.  In general, the darkly colored fruits and vegetables nourish Yin and build up fluids in your body.

-Make sure you’re getting enough water.  While water can’t really undo damage caused by dryness, becoming dehydrated will only make the problem worse.

-Make sure your house is hydrated, too.  If you live in a dry climate or have the heat on in the winter, your surroundings are dry.  Get some plants, set up an indoor fountain, boil water, or get a humidifier to put some moisture in the air.

-Ginger.  Yum!  This warm herb is incredibly effective for nausea and vomiting. It’s frequently used by people undergoing chemotherapy to control nausea. Ginger can also stop a cough, and can fight off a cold in its early stages.  The papery skin of the ginger root is used in Chinese medicine to drain edema (water swelling) and induce urination.

-Cinnamon is also a warm herb that can also help you fight off a cold.  Its warming effects are helpful for joint pain that gets worse in the cold weather.  Cinnamon has mild antibiotic and diuretic (drains water) effects.

-Scallions, when mixed with ginger in a warm broth, are perfect for the first stages of a cold.  Scallions are hot enough to drain nasal congestion and to induce sweating, which often heads off a cold before it starts.

-Mint is a cool herb that works well for colds and flu that are accompanied by a fever, headache, cough and sore throat.  Mint is also used to bring an early rash to the surface of the skin, so it can heal faster.

-Chrysanthemum flowers, which are usually found in tea is good for red, painful, dry eyes.  It can help with blurry vision, tearing, and mild dizziness.  There is some research that indicated this herb may be useful in lowering high blood pressure.

-Mung beans clear something called Summerheat, which is similar to heat exhaustion.  Boil the beans and drink the water to get rid of that blah nauseous feeling you get on the hottest, most humid days of the summer.

-Watermelon is also great for Summerheat.  In addition, it generates fluids and alleviates thirst.

-Aduki beans look like small pinto beans.  They can be used to clear heat and drain dampness through urination.  Dampness is a condition in which your body doesn’t metabolize fluids very well, and can cause problems like edema and urinary problems.

-While not usually found at the grocery store, hemp seeds are slightly oily and moistening, and are used in Chinese medicine for constipation.  So don’t throw those seeds away!

-Dried tangerine peel sounds gross, but it is used as a digestive aid for bloating, belching, nausea, and vomiting.  It is also effective for drying phlegm.  Put small pieces (1/2 inch or so) into tea.

-Tumeric, which is found in the spice aisle of the grocery store, can be effective for lowering cholesterol.

-Chinese wolfberries, also know as Goji berries are getting a lot of attention in health food circles as a miracle food.  In Chinese medicine, they’re used to nourish Kidney and Liver Yin, moisten the Lungs, especially when you have a chronic dry cough.  Goji berries are also used for eye and vision problems.

-Chinese dates are very nourishing in nature.  They’re used in Chinese medicine for overall weakness, shortness of breath, poor appetite, and for calming.

-You may think of walnuts as being the perfect chocolate chip cookie ingredient.  However, walnuts also strengthen your Kidney and moisten your intestines.  I recommend walnuts (not necessarily in cookies) to my patients who have constipation.

-Like walnuts, black sesame seeds also moisten your intestines are can be used for constipation.  They also nourish your Kidney and Liver, and can help with blurred vision, tinnitus, and dizziness.

-Look in the fungi section of the store for wood ear mushrooms.  They moisten your Lungs and are good for a chronic, dry cough.  Eat them in stir fried dishes.

-Got parasites?  Try pumpkin seeds.  They’re used in Chinese medicine for tape worms and round worms.

-Garlic is also used for parasites, especially hook and pinworms.  Its antimicrobial effects also make garlic a good choice for food poisoning from shellfish.

-Also found in the spice aisle, alum can be used as an external wash. For scabies, ringworm, damp and red rashes, and minor skin infections.

-Mulberry fruit looks a little like large black raspberries.  While not found in all grocery stores, most will carry mulberries when they’re in season.  They can be used to nourish Blood and Yin, as a way to treat dizziness, tinnitus, insomnia, premature graying of your hair, and constipation in the elderly.  Mulberries make a great addition to a fruit compote, which when combined with other fruits, is moistening in nature.

For information on the Chinese terms used above, check out Simple Steps: The Chinese Way to Better Health
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One of the most common patterns of imbalance that I see in the clinic is something called a Liver and Spleen disharmony. This just means that strong emotions are interfering with the digestive process. The example I use is when my high school boyfriend dumped me, I couldn’t eat for the better part of a month. A Liver and Spleen disharmony is the same thing—just in slow motion.

Your Chinese Liver is an organ system that oversees the smooth flow of everything in your body, including digestion, bowels, circulation, menses, and emotions. Stress, anger, or an emotional upset can cause the Liver system to stagnate. When this happens, one of the first things it affects is your Chinese Spleen, which is your organ of digestion.

In the clinic this pattern is a player in many, if not most, conditions affecting my patients. It can manifest in conditions such as Irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, depression, insomnia, PMS, fatigue, and even obesity, to name just a few.

So what exactly is happening when you are stressed out, upset or worried? Your stomach is a muscle, and when you’re in the emotional wringer that stomach muscle contracts, making it difficult for you to digest much of anything.

Why you have this reaction goes back to the fight or flight response you experience when you are stressed or feel threatened. Your body responds by shutting down those functions that aren’t necessary to run or fight, including digestion. The idea is that in ancient times, feeling threatened was a short-lived affair—only as long as it took to chase off or kill the wild animal lingering in front of your cave.

Today, however, many of us are in a constant state of fight or flight due to the unrelenting stress of our daily lives—whether it’s a cranky boss, a sick kid, a late mortgage payment, or having too much to do. Constant emotional upheaval doesn’t give your body time to recover its equilibrium, and your digestion stays on the back burner, unable to do its job effectively.

What can you do to get your digestion back on track and working efficiently? The most important thing to know is that it’s a two-step process: getting your stress and emotions under control, while you pamper your digestive tract. Acupuncture can be extremely effective for this kind of imbalance. In fact, many of my patients who have recovered from this kind of pattern never dreamt that they could ever feel good again. Some things you can do for yourself:

-Calm down and chill out. This may seem to be the most obvious, but is often the hardest thing to do. Find time during your day to relax; whether you take a yoga class, meditate, go fishing, or take a stroll in the woods. Without decompressing, your emotions and digestion will not have an opportunity to recover.

-Pamper your digestion. This means sitting down and actually eating a meal—not something on the run in between meetings or kids’ sporting events. This also means eating good food, fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains and a little protein. Cooking most of your food makes it easier to digest—raw foods take more digestive effort to break down. The same goes for very cold foods; when you drink or eat something frozen, it uses up a lot of your digestive energy. Chewing your food and enjoying the dining process will help you digest your meal more effectively.

L-Tryptophan is an amino acid found in foods. It’s found in turkey in high concentrations, and is partially responsible for that drowsy feeling you get after Thanksgiving dinner. Tryptophan can be taken in supplement form for such conditions as anxiety, depression, PMS, and insomnia. In 1989, an outbreak of a strange illness was traced to the supplement tryptophan. The symptoms of the illness included paralysis, neurological issues, muscle aches, headaches, fatigue, memory loss, and lots of other awful symptoms.

It turns out that the illness was traced to just one manufacturer of the supplement—Showa Denko of Japan. To make a very long story short, the news on this outbreak led consumers to believe that it was due to “impurities” in the manufacturing process. The real story is that Showa Denko was the only manufacturer of tryptophan to make and market a genetically engineered product. They were not required to label their product as genetically engineered, nor did they inform the consuming public of this fact.

Mary, a lovely and gentle woman, had the misfortune to be on the buying end of the Showa Denko supplement. She struggled with chronic pain and fatigue that damaged her health and cost her her job and her active lifestyle as a vibrant and energetic woman.

It is the rare person who does not take a vitamin or supplement of some kind. It is also the rare person who is knowledgeable about the ingredients in the supplements that they take. Here are a few things you should know and check out when you’re buying supplements:

-Quality control. Look for GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) or USP (U.S. Pharmacopoeia) on the label of vitamins and supplements. Either designation indicates that the supplement meets or exceeds U.S. regulations for manufacturing.

-Who made it? The label should say “manufactured by” not “manufactured for”. This is a subtle difference, but “manufactured for” means that the job was farmed out to another manufacturer. This increases the possibility of cross contamination, and that the supplement may not be up to the exact specifications on the label.

-Service please! There should be an 800 number that works on the label, so you can call the company and ask questions. The manufacturer should also have a good, user-friendly website that is updated regularly.

-No gifts with purchase. You should know what “other’ ingredients, are in your supplements. That means if you’re buying Vitamin C, whatever else is in the supplement is extra. Some ingredients you probably don’t want in your supplements include:

-Food colorings

-Fragrances

-Binders in tablets

-Preservatives, especially BHT and sodium benzoate. Ascorbic acid is ok.

-Fillers in capsules and tablets—lactose, dextrose, sucrose, starch, gluten, soy, and yeast

-Also, coatings on tablets are used to make them easier to swallow. Some manufacturers use shellac and call it pharmaceutical glaze, confectioner’s glaze, or natural glaze—yuk!

-A couple of lubricants used in making supplements to avoid include magnesium stereate and ascorbyl palmitate, both of which can’t be digested by your body.

-What’s the date? Oily supplements, like Vitamins D or E and fish oils should have a date on the bottle—either the date manufactured, or an expiration date. If in doubt, use your nose. Open softgels and take a whiff. You’ll be able to smell if they’re rancid.

-Finally, the gold standard for supplements is an independent assay of the ingredients. You can usually only determine if this is happening if you call the company and ask. An assay is a test to determine that what is in the capsule is actually what is supposed to be there with nothing else. Independent means that it was done by a lab—not the manufacturer. Also, biological testing determines what should not be in a supplement, such as contaminants and bacteria.

Believe it or not, there are a number of really good supplement companies out there that really care about what is in their products. You just have to do a little homework to find them!

I spent a great deal of time talking with Emily about weight loss from the perspective of Chinese medicine.  I described what would be involved for her success, including the role of digestion, stress management, adequate sleep, and physical activity—beyond just dieting. 

I treated Emily at her first appointment with acupuncture and gave her some simple dietary guidelines according to Chinese food therapy.  I set up an appointment for her to come back a week later.  The following week, Emily came into my office and told me that she didn’t think the acupuncture was working, as she hadn’t lost any weight.  It was at that point that I realized that Emily was only interested in me performing acupuncture, while her fat melted away.  Wow!

Needless to say, Emily did not come back, and I chalk this one up as most frustrating for a couple of reasons.  First, Emily wasn’t committed to doing anything other than showing up for her appointments and watching her weight drop.  Secondly, she expected it to happen after only one treatment!

That’s where Dr. Oz comes in.  For anyone living on another planet, Dr. Mehmet Oz is a cardiologist and wellness guru that first appeared on Oprah several years ago.  He has since written a number of books, including   YOU: The Owner’s Manual: An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger.   I’ve read a bunch of them—they are fabulous, funny, and get to the point of what you need to know to be a healthy, beautiful person who knows how to age well.

Dr. Oz has his own TV show now, and earlier this week, he did a segment on acupuncture for weight loss—and he got it right.  Acupuncture is a great choice to help you lose weight because it can help curb your appetite, decrease your cravings (especially for sugar), speed up your metabolism, and decrease stress—a common saboteur in your effort to lose weight.   Dr. Oz also emphasizes the importance of good digestion, which is considered crucial to good health in Chinese medicine.  According to the Chinese, you can eat the healthiest food in the world, but if you don’t digest it well, you might as well be hitting the drive-up window at McDonald’s every day.

 According to Dr. Oz, there are a number of hormones that impact how you gain or lose weight.   In You: On A Diet: The Owner’s Manual for Waist Management, he describes the role of ghrelin, which is a hormone that impacts hunger as well as the secretion of leptin, which regulates your metabolism and how you store fat. Dr. Oz describes how acupuncture can influence and regulate these obesity hormones to support weight loss.

Finally, in his guidelines, Dr. Oz directs viewers to “complete a full course of treatment”, which for weight loss is usually ten treatments over the course of several weeks.  Acupuncture is a therapy, not a magic bullet. Hear that, Emily?

For the full segment, go here.

A second reason I’ve had allergies on my mind is because I just bought a new vacuum cleaner.  It’s hot stuff; it has wind tunnel technology, a HEPA filter, and sucking power that boggles the mind.  It’s also bagless, so it has a visible canister that can be easily popped out and emptied whenever it gets full.  The only thing better would be all these features on a model that I can ride.

On the first pass in my house with this new vacuum, I had to empty the canister about a dozen times!  I’ve been vacuuming regularly for years, but this was something else.  I have a large cat, and with what I emptied out of the vacuum, I could have easily stuffed him three or four times over. This underscored the quantity of allergens floating around my own, fairly clean, home.

Whether pollen or pet dander, practitioners of Chinese medicine consider allergens external pathogens—invaders from the outside that can make you sick, especially if you’re susceptibl to them.  However, you have a defense system called Wei Qi that guards the exterior of your body like a protective bubble or shield.   When Wei Qi is weak, all kinds of pathogens, usually carried by the wind, can get into your body and cause colds, flu, and allergies.

Usually, the first organ affected when outside pathogens attack are your lungs.  You may have a cough, sore throat, or a runny or stuffy nose—all considered part of the lung organ system in Chinese medicine.  Your lungs are the most exterior organ, because they are constantly in contact with the outside world through the air you breathe.  As the most exterior organ, your lungs also guard the exterior of your body, but weak lungs are not the primary cause of weak Wei Qi.

Qi, or energy in general, is made through the air you breathe, but more importantly by eating good food and digesting it well.  Your spleen organ system is responsible for turning food into energy, nutrients, and blood.  If you’re not eating well, have digestive problems, are stressed out, or just plain run down, chances are your energy (Qi) is weak, including your Wei Qi.  Do you suffer from allergies or seem to catch every cold that’s going around?  That’s weak Wei Qi, which means your defense from all those external pathogens is sub-par.

The solution to dealing with allergies is two-fold.  On the superficial level, you need to deal with the pathogens (allergens) that are causing your symptoms.  In the case of seasonal allergies, pollen is like a toxic dust that settles on your clothes, hair, carpet, and even your pets.  Some simple steps to reduce your exposure include:

-Shower in the evening to get the day’s pollen off your skin and out of your hair.

-Close your windows when the weather is especially dry and windy.

-Wash your hands after handling a pet that’s been outside.

-Get a really good vacuum, as pollen is extremely fine and will settle on your floors. Dusting is good, too.

-Get a Neti Pot and use it.  (It’s a small pot to help you cleanse your nasal passages, and can be found at most drug stores.)

-Change your clothes after you’ve been working or exercising outdoors.

On a deeper level, strengthening your Wei Qi can help you avoid allergy meltdowns in the future.  You can do so by choosing and preparing foods that are healthy and easy to digest.  Some ways to best do that include:

-Eat your vegetables and even your fruits cooked.  They’re easier to digest.  Don’t think you can cook fruits?  Think fruit compote, apple/berry sauce, or sauté them in a little cinnamon and a tablespoon of water.

-Aim to eat whole foods in their original form.  If a food’s ingredient list is long and you can’t pronounce the ingredients, put it back on the shelf.

-Avoid nutrient-dense foods like concentrated juices, protein drinks, and energy/protein bars that claim to be an entire meal.

-Steer clear of sugar and sweeteners—it bogs down your digestion.

-Ditto for saturated fats.

-Ditto for lots of ice cold foods.

-Avoid dairy if you’re having really bad allergy symptoms. Dairy is very phlegm producing.

Finally, turning to acupuncture and Chinese medicine can be an effective way to deal with allergies.  A good practitioner will combine acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and food therapy to help strengthen your spleen system, boost Wei Qi, and alleviate current symptoms.  The best way to do this is to work with your acupuncturist before your allergies act up, if possible.  By doing so, you can face the assault of allergy season with a stronger defense system.