2 Methods That Can Help You Lose Weight

Health & Medical Articles

There are many diets and weight-loss programs available today, but the best type of weight loss program includes eating healthy, well-balanced meals along with regular exercise. You can supplement your healthy eating and exercise with acupuncture and tea drinking to help your weight loss results. Here is information about these two methods to help your weight loss.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is the practice of inserting thin needles into specific energy pathways in your body to help correct and balance different areas of your body. As acupuncture needles are inserted into your ear, they help your body release endorphins, which make you feel good and help stimulate the energy pathways relating to weight loss. 

Traditional Chinese Medicine includes a belief that excessive weight gains are from an imbalance in your body when your spleen and liver organ systems are malfunctioning, and acupuncture can help. A trained acupuncture practitioner targets five different points on your ear for your stomach, spleen, hunger, endocrine system, and the Shen-men. The endocrine system includes your body's kidneys, which helps to regulate water retention and hormonal balance and to stimulate nerves. Along with the spleen, the thyroid gland is also targeted to help affect sugar and your hormone balance. Then, the adrenal and ovary glands are targeted to help treat weight gain from menopause or PMS.

Researchers from Korea completed an acupuncture study to test the results of using five point acupuncture on the ear for help with weight loss. They recruited 91 participants of men and women who had a body mass index of 23 or greater. None of these participants had been on any weight loss programs for the previous six months. The group was divided into three groups: one group received a five point acupuncture treatment on their ear, the second received a one point acupuncture treatment, and the third group received a fake treatment. 

The participants were asked to follow a restricted diet but to not exercise. The idea for the experiment was to see if the acupuncture could help to control the participant's hunger to lose weight during the trial. Halfway through the study, the five point treatment group had a 6.1 percent reduction in their BMI, and the one point group had a 5.7 percent reduction. The fake-treatment group had no reduction. 

Drinking Tea

Tea is a popular drink choice throughout the world. And recent research has found that drinking several different types of teas can help you lose weight. Green tea is becoming an increasingly popular drink to help weight loss. The compounds in green tea that help promote weight loss are catechins, which trigger the release of fat from fat cells in your body. These catechins especially target belly fat, which is a common place most people want to lose weight.

In a recent 12-week weighty loss study with green tea, participants exercised 25 minutes per day. Then, some of the participants drank four to five cups of green tea per day, and others did not drink any tea. The participants who drank tea lost an average of two more pounds than those who did not drink tea. 

Oolong is another type of tea full of catechins that can help you lose weight and also reduce cholesterol. This type of tea boosts your metabolism to help your body burn more calories throughout the day. The Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine published a study that reported participants who regularly drank oolong tea during a six week study lost six pounds over this period. 

Then, drinking white tea can further help your weight loss, as it prevents your body from forming new fat cells. One reason for this is white tea is usually dried naturally with sunlight, so it contains up to three times as many polyphenols as green tea does. Bilberry tea is another type of tea that can help with weight loss. It balances your body's glucose levels to prevent episodes of hypoglycemia while reducing your cravings for sweets at the same time.

Help supplement your healthy eating and exercise program with these two methods for weight loss.

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28 October 2015

Tips for Living a Great Life with Chronic Illness

I was always very healthy throughout my childhood, but when I became a teenager, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness. Thankfully, I had the support of my loving family to help keep me upbeat during a time that could have led to me experiencing the depression that some do after they first learn they will have an illness for life. I am very grateful for the advice I have gotten throughout my life, so I decided to create a blog where I can share all of the advice that has helped me live a happy, healthy life, despite having a chronic illness. Since I am on a medication that suppresses my immune system, I have also studied up on many other illnesses and tips for avoiding them and treating them. I plan to post health tips for people of a variety of ages and suffering with various illnesses!