Traditional Chinese medicine has long fought against the newest diet to hit the minds and hearts of obese Americans – the Raw Food Diet. It doesn’t sound good on paper and to practitioners of Chinese medicine it remains a bad idea in both practice and said out loud. They believe that it can seriously damage the yin and the qi of the body.
The problem with modern food is that it is often fried and greasy, which is bad for the body. These things can easily increase the temperature of the stomach and make the body hunger faster. For the young, it can be easier to get rid of, but for the sedentary, they may find that it leads to fat accumulating inside the body.
The spleen is where traditional Chinese medicine focuses its attention. They believe that a spleen deficiency is often most responsible for weight gain.
Chinese medicine believes that food consumed is divided several times through its adventure through the body. The first division is when food qi is taken by the spleen. The second division occurs when the body separates the remaining material into its liquid and turbid pieces. The turbid goes on to the intestines and the bladder, while the fluids go where the qi went – into the spleen.
Fat comes from a spleen being so overworked that dampness and energy come into excess amounts in the body. This happens whenever you eat far too much yang food, or food that is hot or damp or greasy.
To balance out all the yang, yin or cold food must be eaten as well. It does the opposite of the hot food in that it makes the stomach cooler and thus, slows down your digestion. This keeps you from getting too hungry too quickly and gives your spleen time to work through everything you’ve eaten, which leads to better overall health.
The process itself can take a while. Eating a balance of yin and yang will lead to weight loss.
Don’t forget to normalize your diet once you lose enough weight. If you keep up the raw food diet when you don’t need to, you may create a different kind of imbalance.
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