The food you eat, the air you breathe, your thoughts and your emotional environment, add to your health and care of your body. These are the tools that help your body to heal, help the nervous system relax fuel our energy and improve our immunity.

With Chinese Medicine and Chinese Medical diagnosis, you are guided about the foods and nutritional habits which benefit you and enhance your longevity and the nutrition which is weakening your health.

Sun Si Miao, a famous Chinese practitioner, stated that if a person created a healthy lifestyle, including diet, 80% of their health problems would be remedied.

The best nourishment comes from a relaxed, calm mind.

In Chinese medicine, there is recognized, the dual aspects of yin and yang. Yin is the substance, the nourishing, grounding quality. Yang is movement, change, transformation, transportation.

Think of it in the analogy of a car. A car has an engine and there is oil in the engine to help the car move so there is not so much friction with the movement. In this example, the engine is yang and the oil in the engine is yin.

Many people in today’s modern world run the engine without much oil in it. This is especially true, as we age.

Eating is a process where we bring external energies into our body’s center. We do this, relying on our ability to transform these raw materials into usable nutrition, supplementing our blood, bones, organs and bodily functions. When we eat, we open ourselves to take in yin nourishing substances and yang functional qualities. Subtle qualities like our state of mind during meal times can greatly affect our ability to digest. A healthy mind and emotional state leads to a proper mental attitude to eating which leads to energy infusing the Stomach and Spleen, allowing proper digestion and absorption.

Allergies and food

Sugar

Dairy

Wheat

These 3 foods are most prone to trigger allergies, mucus draining, digestive disturbance, fatigue. People have difficulty digesting cow milk, wheat is usually a processed grain, and processed food takes more energy or yang to digest, and sugar creates irritation in the liver.

Foods to Avoid

Coffee

Alcohol

Chocolate

Ice cold foods, including salads

Spicy hot foods including garlic and chili

Coffee, alcohol and chocolate all create toxins and irritate the liver.

The stomach lining is more like a delicate plant than an iron combustion chamber. Think of it like a flower. Too much cold or hot water will kill a flower. The stomach creates the delicate process of absorbing and breaking down nutrients. Excess of spicy or cold foods can de-sensitize it making it harder to function in a balanced way.

Water

The body is made of 93% or 98% water. Water is transportation in and out of the cells with electrolytes. Electrolytes are chemicals with in the body, which have an electrical charge. This charge creates movement. Movement increases transportation of nutrients and waste into and out of cells thru the membrane of the cell. Electrolytes enhance this activity and so provide more effective flushing of waste particles and better absorption of nutrients. Drinking water that is enhanced with electrolytes enhance this activity.

Electrolytes

Electrolytes are an important aspect of our body’s chemistry and energy system.

Here are a few examples:

Calcium

Calcium is the most abundant and important mineral in the body. It is an integral element for cellular function throughout the body. Most calcium is stored in the bones and teeth and it is also found in the blood, muscle and interstitial fluid, which is the fluid between cells. Calcium is necessary for blood vessel dilation and contraction, muscle contraction, secretion of hormones and enzymes and relaying messages through the nervous system.

The balance between bone re-absorption and deposition changes as people age. When we experience a shortage of calcium, as women do with menopause, the body will leach calcium from the bones and teeth. This creates osteoporosis.

It is vital to our health to maintain calcium in our body.

Sources of Calcium include:

Leafy green vegetables – kale, cabbage, spinach, etc.

Broccoli

Salmon

Tofu (best when cooked with ginger)

You can supplement your calcium intake by taking a powdered or liquid calcium supplement. Calcium supplements in the form of a pill, aren’t as easily absorbed.

To discern whether your calcium supplement is working for you, put a tablet in a cup of water and observer whether it dissolves or not. If it doesn’t dissolve in the water, chances are it won’t dissolve in your digestive track either.

Weight bearing exercise is the best way to increase bone strength. Enjoyable weight bearing exercises are:

Weight training

Walking

Running

Dancing

Calcium is excreted from the body in sweat, urine and feces. This excretion can be affected by many factors and by the intake of other electrolytes such as sodium and potassium.

Sodium

Sodium is found, plentifully, in the American diet, particularly with people who eat out often.

Potassium

Potassium is found in avocado’s and honey.
 Increasing dietary potassium intake (such as from 7-8 servings of fruits and vegetables per day) may help to balance high sodium intake and decrease calcium excretion particularly in postmenopausal women.

Ph

The body maintains a slightly alkaline environment, around 7.4 constantly

Acids are all around us, in the water, air and food(alcohol, meat, dairy, eggs, medications, etc.)

The adrenals are stimulated by acids in the blood, to send out aldosterone to retain more sodium from the kidney to keep the blood alkaline. If the adrenals are fatigued, then hypoglycemia results for cortisol is low in the blood and glucose level falls below normal. Adrenal stress also causes digestive impairment when fight/flight sympathetic system is stimulated, digestion shuts down or is at least, slowed.

Acids in the blood also stress the liver, for the liver can only clear so many acids, then they back up in cells, resulting in lipofuschin, which is a yellow sldge that is a breakdown product of food. This substance can be trapped in cells and impair cell function.

By eating alkaline foods(whole grains, fruits and vegetables) the permeability of cell is increased, thus passive transport is increased, and thus the cell can rid itself of waste. Exercise (aerobic) also helps this process.

Alkaline diet:

25% vegetable

50% grain

15-20% complete protein

5-10% fruit

5% seeds, sprouts

Acid:
45% vegetables

25% grain

10-15% complete protein

10% fruit

5-10% seeds, sprouts

Balanced:

30% grain

30% vegetable

20% complete protein

20% fruits, seeds, sprouts

Adding a few tablespoons of chloraphyll to water, a few times a day, is a good way of maintaining an alkaline environment.

Ready to call and make an appointment? 720-201-4101 or email: mbachia@yahoo.com

.