Acupuncture Center of Richmond

Acupuncture and Weight Loss:

One of my specialties at the Acupuncture Center of Richmond is using acupuncture and Chinese medicine to help people lose weight. We usually see very good results with our weight loss patients and I want to give an overview of our philosophy and approach.

Chinese medicine believes that the stomach and spleen and other organs are responsible for the digestion of food and the elimination of waste products from the body (this is similar western medicine). So, first of all we use acupuncture to promote weight loss by using the acupuncture points to stimulate these organs to do a better job of digestion and elimination. This digestive weakness in some individuals can explain why we often see two people eating roughly the same diets and one will gain weight and the other will maintain or lose weight. This is quite common and most people do not realize that this really does happen (especially people who do not have a problem with weight loss). It is usually assumed that the overweight person just ingests more calories than someone who is slim while at the same time burning the same or less calories, resulting in weight gain. This is not always, or even usually the case.

So how do we help our patients at the Acupuncture Center of Richmond lose weight? First of all we don't believe in starving the body. It's just not healthy and it's another myth about weight loss that just isn't true (there are many). What happens when you under-nourish the body or ingest too few calories, is that your metabolism will slow down and you will actually start to burn fewer calories. Your body goes, very quickly, into famine mode and a lot of unhealthy things happen in this mode, one of which is fat retention. The evidence suggests that some people go into this famine mode much easier that the average person, so this type of person might be eating very little and still putting on fat, and losing very little weight or even gaining. So what do we do? As mentioned before we use acupuncture to strengthen the organs that are responsible for digestion and elimination. This seems to work very well just on its own. What people see when they go through these series of treatments is that they will start losing fat in the abdominal area and that their shape will change to their more natural shape. I have had patients who, at the very beginning of treatment have only lost a couple of pounds yet their friends notice that they look as though they have lost weight. Its because their shape has change to a more natural shape for them and they just look better and healthier. We also usually prescribe some Chinese herbal formula for weight loss which also strengthens the digestion, promoting weight loss.

It's important to realize that weight loss is a very individualized thing. No two people have exactly the same needs when it comes to losing weight and one very important strength of Chinese medicine is that we always treat everyone as an individual, and modify our treatment and approach to that patient's unique set of needs. This uniqueness comes into play for the third branch of our weight loss program and that is the diet. The diet of course must be looked at and usually changed, but we do not believe that everyone should be eating the same exact things. We are all somewhat different when it comes to how are bodies react to food and we work at finding the correct type of foods that you should be eating. My approach to a proper individualized diet incorporates ancient Chinese medical principles as well as the latest western research. For example, some people do best on a high protein diet, while other do best with more carbohydrates in the diet. Most people do best on a diet the is somewhere in between and finding this balance is crucial to successful weight loss. Think of food as it is, our fuel. We do not all run best on the same fuel, so we find it essential to determine the best fuel mix for each patient and we have found this an important and effective part of our weight loss program. Usually this is not a very painful process because your body instinctively knows what it should be eating, so these are foods that once you start eating them you will usually like and will feel better eating. The problem is that our society wants to tell us what we should eat to be healthy and its just not a 'one size fits all' solution. So we have questionnaires that help us determine what your mix of carbs and proteins and fats should be and we have found this essential.

There are many more things that we look at that effect weight loss and a couple that I want to mention briefly. We find it very important to manage stress levels and to optimize sleep. It is common for people to put on weight when they are stressed. This is also recognized as important in a Western approach. Acupuncture is extremely good at helping our bodies reduce stress and often along with the proper Chinese herbal formula, is also very good at helping with sleep.

This is a simplified introduction to how we can help you lose weight. We have found what we do to be very effective, healthy and sustainable for our patients, an approach that also leads to optimal health.