It’s not just WHAT you eat, it’s your relationship with the food that counts.
Acupuncture uses the wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine to understand the patterns of health and disease. Diet, lifestyle, heredity and environment all play their part. The easiest of these to adapt and change is diet — yet we so easily get caught up in fads and punishing regimes, missing the point: enjoyment!
Food for wellbeing
Our diet can affect everything from our physical to our mental-emotional wellbeing. Acupuncture dietary therapy uses general rules and adapts them to the person’s needs.
Eating well is about more than just food. It’s not only what we eat, but our relationship with food — the routines, cravings, associations and history we each have with it.
A good acupuncturist looks at the bigger picture: at the patterns of any illness or disorder, and how much diet plays a role in its cause. Making changes can then help the healing process, prevent relapse, and even help prevent disease.
“Eat with a smile on your face.” You can be eating all the right things, at the right time, in the right way — and still not be healthy if it’s making you miserable.
The basic rules
- Stop before you are full.
- Don’t skip meals.
- Don’t flood the stomach — yes, have your two litres a day, just not at mealtimes.
- Concentrate on the food. Don’t stress or distract yourself from the joy of eating, and don’t rush it.
- Avoid too many raw and cold foods. Raw foods have their merits, but for those who feel the cold, bloat easily or have sluggish metabolisms, porridge, soups and stews are better than salads and muesli.
Food for thought
Listen to your body, not that little tyke in your head. Follow these basic guidelines, but adapt them to your needs so that eating never becomes a chore or a source of stress and anxiety. When you visit the clinic, I’ll assess your individual needs and help you weave these principles into your own lifestyle — and treat the underlying patterns that may be stopping you getting the most from your diet.
Most of all, remember: eat with a smile on your face.