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What to eat to lose weight – Chinese doctors cannot answer this question. But how to eat right in order to maintain the health and harmony of the body is the correct formulation of the question. How to do this and why at different ages the style of eating should be different, says Chinese medicine specialist Anna Vladimirova.
All the diets that you have ever heard of (fast days, separate meals, mono-diets) are in the arsenal of Chinese traditional medicine. So they are useful for something. It remains to find out which style of eating is right for you. Indeed, according to Chinese medicine, the same food can be both medicine and poison – depending on who consumes it and under what conditions.
In Chinese tradition, the so-called cycles of 7 and 8 years are distinguished: the health of a woman is calculated in seven-year cycles, and men in eight-year ones. Accordingly, women should change their eating style every 7 years, according to the new phase. Each client, observed by a Chinese specialist, is prescribed products individually – like medicines: an individual style of nutrition is formed. We will consider the basic principles of how an average healthy person should eat properly depending on age.
Nutrition by age
7 – 14 years
We will not talk about nutrition from the first days of life, this is the topic of a separate large article, let’s start with conscious children: what can and do they need? The answer is simple: everything, and more! Proteins, fats, carbohydrates in any order, heavy meat dishes are recommended at night. Thus, children train the digestive tract, and in addition, protein food at night promotes sound sleep.
14–21 years old
Adolescence and the period of formation, when a huge load falls on the body: hormonal changes, emotional surges. A person from a child becomes an adult, all the rules of behavior are breaking down and with them the usual rules of nutrition: the diet becomes separate (proteins in one meal, carbohydrates in another).
Why? To make life easier for the body, relieve excess stress and release the forces that used to be digested – they are needed to maintain health and help the new adult body develop properly. It is very simple to understand that a teenager does not follow these recommendations: rashes on the face are the result of eating everything at once, as in a bygone childhood.
21 – 42 of the year
Three childbearing cycles, when it is especially important for women to take care of blood health. In Chinese medicine, blood is a separate organ that carries energy. If it weakens – in particular, this occurs against the background of regular heavy menstrual bleeding – and is not fed with the necessary products, anemia may develop and difficulties with reproductive function are not excluded.
According to Chinese tradition, women should change their eating style every 7 years.
What foods support blood? Red meat and beef liver, nuts, seaweed and seafood of animal origin, eggs, seasonal red berries, all kinds of seeds (millet, quinoa, buckwheat, flax, sesame) and, of course, vegetables. In general, the menu of a girl who wants to give birth to healthy babies, according to Chinese medicine, should be varied and not vegetarian at all.
42 – and to the very old age
According to Chinese tradition, by the age of 42, a woman has decided all issues related to childbearing, so the diet can change. In the modern world, a woman can become pregnant even later, then the change in diet should be postponed. So, if you are not planning children, you can think about preparing for menopause – a period of reduced production of sex hormones.
To maintain health and beauty, Chinese medicine recommends fasting at this age: fasting days, or half-day fasting, or fasting during the day. Breaks in food should be unstable so that the body cannot get used to them: such mild stresses keep the “digestive fire” high and help keep the body lean.
The older a person gets, the smaller portions and more hungry days should be – this helps to prolong life.
Normally, menopause occurs at 49 years old – seven years after a woman began to prepare for it. The older a person gets, the more the diet becomes easier: smaller portions, more hungry days – according to Chinese doctors, this helps to prolong life. However, let me remind you once again: this option, like all those described above, is suitable only for healthy people. If there are any deviations, nutrition should be adjusted based on them.
Prohibited
Foods that doctors of Chinese medicine do not recommend at any age:
– sugar – in this respect, Western doctors are in solidarity with them. This is a dangerous doping for the nervous system, plus pure harm to digestion: sugar starts fermentation processes in the intestines, slows down metabolism and, as they say in Chinese treatises, “extinguishes” the fire of digestion.
– fruit – not recommended for the same reason as sugar – due to fermentation processes that are not good for the digestive tract. Of course, it is difficult to imagine life completely without fruits: an orange or an apricot can be a delicacy, but not the basis of the diet. Ideally, consume thermally processed fruits (baked apples and pears, apricots in compote) – then they will be easier to digest.
– milk products – in the West it is believed that they contain calcium, so we need them. Oriental doctors object: calcium, of course, is important, but dairy products slow down digestion and contribute to weight gain. Calcium can be obtained from plant foods (broccoli, greens, sesame and sunflower seeds, nuts), and it is desirable to reduce the consumption of dairy products to a minimum. Milk and cottage cheese are allowed only for those whose “digestive fire” is so strong that nothing threatens him: people with a good appetite, who eat literally everything all their lives and do not gain weight.
– raw vegetables – also allowed for people with good digestion, for those whose metabolism is not so intense, it is recommended to eat vegetables after heat treatment. This is an unusual idea that can cause a lot of objections: for example, “what about vitamins”? Even 10 minutes in the steamer will make the vegetables much more digestible while retaining all the nutrients.
These are the general rules on which Chinese dietology is based. However, for each person, the style of eating is selected individually. The ideal solution is to set up the body so that it can choose the foods that are needed today to maintain health.