The Hormone / Weight-loss Connection - Part 2

In the last article, I talked about how my health improved using Oriental Medicine. What I didn’t reveal was the fact that I actually gained weight at first. During my initial course of treatment, the weight gain stopped, but soon it started to go back up again. This is because my behavior wasn’t in alignment with what my body required. In other words, I still ate bad food at times, and boy, do I love food! All kinds; sweets, starches, breads, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Polish, you name it, I’ll eat it.

This ended up getting me into a lot of trouble. I started to get fat! I felt great, but my clothes were getting tighter and tighter. I would even pray over my meal hoping God would make the bacon cheeseburger with fries and a shake as healthy as vegetables. I figured if Jesus can turn water into wine, why not just make my meal miraculously healthy?

Well, it was obvious that wasn’t working for me since my clothes didn’t fit anymore. During this time, I hired Dr. Kim Williams Baptista, LAc, who was a weight loss specialist. She had the same advanced certifications I did, but with a specialty in handling the food issue; this was where I needed help. So, I listened to her teach about the foods and followed the program. Since I was already being treated on a regular basis, changing my food intake resulted in very quick results.

Making the appropriate lifestyle change was the biggest hurdle in achieving my goals. I had lost and gained so much over the decades, I was used to failure in the area. In the past I would stick to a “diet” but at the same time wish I could just have one bite or a taste. Ironically, I would council my diabetes patients’ about the dangers of eating that one bite, and how they were risking losing their eyesight or their limbs due to complications directly related to their diabetes and diet. At that time, I was grateful I didn’t have a disease to manage so I could eat what I wanted. Boy was I about to get a change in direction. One of the biggest revelations that hit me between the eyes was understanding the definition of the word “food.” Now you are probably saying, “ I know what food means, I learned that in grammar school.” Yes, we did, but the advertising industry has done a great job at tantalizing our taste buds and muting the definition. We’ve forgotten the purpose of food.

According to the dictionary, the word “food” means to nourish and augment function in the body. When you look at most things that are commonly referred to as “food” it doesn’t measure up to the definition. Augment function means to improve function. Any “food” with any type of chemical, artificial anything, or any type of processed item in the ingredients that harms the body or decreases function does not, by definition, qualify as food. So, what do we call it? Well, I found it easier to call it poison. Plain and simple. There is nothing that is neutral, what you put in your mouth is either going nourish your body, or put a toxic strain on your body. When you start looking at labels, it can be difficult to find things that actually nourish your body without some type of adverse effect. The next time you are in the grocery store, look at some of the meal replacement and diet drinks that are popular. They are typically loaded with sugar and chemicals, which would put a strain on your pancreas, the gland that’s involved with sugar metabolism, and the liver, which acts like a filter to help keep your body clean.

What helped me apply this whole concept of “eating to create health” was visualizing what happens inside our body when we eat. Our body uses what we eat to build and nourish new cells. The cells that make up our various organs and structures are constantly dying and our body builds new ones. The more we eat to help build strong healthy cells, the easier it is for our body to heal, and subsequently, lose weight. If we put things in our body that don’t qualify as “food” by definition, our body will build the new cells from the junk we are feeding it. When I started eating foods that created health in my body and triggered fat-burning hormones, the weight melted off.

The first step was to eliminate all the known toxins and eat as much organic as possible. This included all artificial sweeteners, any type of food that had anything I couldn’t pronounce or included the words artificial, MSG, starch, or processed. My preference, but not always practical, is to stick to foods that don’t require nutrition labels.

Now that I modified my behavior and understood what the word “food” meant, the next step was to enhance fat-burning by choosing the correct foods. This took a lot of attention, but resulted in a menu that included very delicious meals. One key element was to cut out the refined sugars. Another element was to keep fat in my diet. Amazing. I lost fat by eating the right types of fat – and it’s delicious!

An integral part of handling my sweet tooth was drinking a cleansing drink made up of 2 oz of pure, unsweetened cranberry juice, 1 tsp of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar, and 1 tsp of lemon all mixed with 6 oz of water. This elixir will help keep your liver, kidneys and urinary bladder healthy.

The long lasting results achieved from this program are directly due to the unique treatment using our advanced acupressure, along with behavior modification regarding food. We truly are what we eat, and we shouldn’t wait to create health until we are ill, we need to be pro-active and eat to create health now!

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