Chinese Nutritional Therapy

Chinese Nutritional Therapy is a different way of looking at food and diet. The mind and body are linked so this therapy also looks at you as a whole person, rather than just looking at calorie content and what we consider to be healthy foods. It includes “food energetics”, which is the energy a food has according to its flavour and also whether it is warming or cooling in nature. We need a balance of all these to be healthy and as every body is different, we all have our own unique needs and requirements to attain our own optimum balance. 

You won’t have to go out of your way to try and find weird and exotic foods - it’s just normal everyday foods that you can find in the supermarket, but the right combination for you. You may find that some foods known to be healthy may not suit you and may in fact be causing problems for you. 

At your session with me, you will need to complete a questionnaire around your diet and lifestyle.  I will also check your pulse, tongue and feet as these will show me which meridian(s) are out of balance. Meridians are the energy channels around the body. When there is an imbalance, it can cause a whole raft of physical symptoms. From all this information, it will help me create a treatment plan that is unique to you and will include the foods you should be eating and which to avoid to bring you back into balance. 

 As with all my therapies, I have tried this on myself first and have noticed a difference – in a good way. 

This is one of my case studies:

I had a lady who was quite concerned as she was finding her stomach was very bloated which was very uncomfortable for her. She was also getting some headaches and mood swings and her periods were affected. She was feeling really tired and had cold hands and feet. She was also worried that she may have a thyroid problem too. She was going to book in with her GP to ask for a referral for a scan as she was worried it was something really serious. I explained that this therapy wasn’t going to replace any scans she may need and was a complementary therapy so she still may need to see the doctor, but by taking part in the case study, it may shed some light on why she was feeling so poorly.  

The results of her questionnaire were interesting as she was quite active and ate a healthy diet. However, she tended to eat a lot of spicy foods and tofu. In Chinese Medicine, where you live has an impact on how the body copes with foods, so even though what she ate was seen to be healthy, her body was reacting to it. I asked her to stop eating tofu and to cut down on the spicy food and eat foods less hot in nature. After a few days, she was feeling a lot better, the bloating had gone down and she was well on the way to feeling like her old self again. She asked me why the tofu caused such a problem for her as it is considered a healthy food. I explained that she had been eating too much of it and this seemed to be what was causing her symptoms. Tofu is a soy product which contains isoflavones. Isoflavones belong to a group of plant-based chemicals known as phytoestrogens, which basically copy the function of oestrogen in the body. Basically, eating too much tofu caused her to have too much oestrogen which affected the hormone balance in her body. All the symptoms she was experiencing were there, as too much oestrogen causes symptoms of bloating, alteration in periods, headaches, mood swings, cold hands and feet, fatigue, and thyroid issues. Once the tofu was removed from her diet, her symptoms started to go and she felt better.