Target: White-collar workers under 30 who gain weight due to frequent social engagements, greasy diets, and high work stress. This leads to excess body heat, causing symptoms like bitter taste in the mouth, bad breath, frequent hunger, irritability, dark yellow urine, and constipation. From a TCM perspective, besides using lipid-lowering and diuretic herbs, the key is selecting heat-clearing herbs. Herbs used: 1.Cassia Seed: Sweet and bitter in taste, slightly cold in nature. Clears heat, improves vision, moistens the intestines, and promotes bowel movements. Lowers blood pressure and cholesterol, protects the liver, and reduces lipids. However, it is unsuitable for those with a cold constitution or prone to diarrhea.When brewed as a tea substitute, it promotes bowel movements.
3. Green Tea: Cool in nature, it reduces lipids and aids digestion. It not only supports weight loss but also possesses anti-cancer properties. However, as an unfermented tea, traditional Chinese medicine considers it potentially harsh on the stomach. Those with weak digestion should exercise caution.
Warming Herbal Remedies
Indications:Some individuals gain weight due to spleen deficiency, leading to stagnant fluid metabolism, abnormal bodily functions, heaviness, limb swelling, and abdominal distension. Traditional Chinese medicine holds that "obese individuals often suffer from deficiency and phlegm-dampness." Those with qi deficiency should use herbs that strengthen the spleen and boost qi to replenish vital energy, ensuring normal metabolic function. Additionally, herbs that drain dampness and resolve phlegm should be used to expel accumulated water and dampness through urination, achieving weight loss and fat reduction.
Herbal ingredients:
1. Astragalus (Huangqi): Sweet taste, mildly warm nature. Tonifies the middle energizer and boosts qi, promotes diuresis and reduces swelling. While not directly lipid-lowering, TCM theory holds that qi deficiency requires qi tonification to enhance metabolic rate and strengthen immune function.
2. Poria (Fu Ling): Sweet taste, neutral nature. Tonifies the spleen and promotes diuresis, helping to lower blood sugar, calm the mind, boost qi, and enhance immunity. Red Poria (Chi Fu Ling) has stronger diuretic effects and is typically preferred in weight loss formulas.
3. Atractylodes (Hui Ren): Sweet taste, cool nature. Strengthens the spleen and drains dampness. Its mild properties make it suitable for combination with other herbs or foods.
4. Winter Melon Seeds: Sweet and cool in nature. Clears heat, transforms phlegm, drains dampness, and reduces swelling. Not only lowers blood lipids but also brightens skin and fades dark spots.
5. Alisma: Sweet and cold in nature. Promotes urination and clears damp-heat. Lowers blood sugar and lipids, combats atherosclerosis, and benefits skin and hair health.
Dampness-Type Herbs
Indications: Chronic work stress or irritability impedes smooth qi and blood circulation. "Liver stagnation overburdens the spleen," where emotions disrupt digestion and metabolism, leading to weight gain—predominantly in young women. Common symptoms include chest tightness, abdominal bloating, weight gain despite minimal eating, emotional fluctuations, and severe cases may cause menstrual irregularities.
Herbal ingredients:
1. Dried Tangerine Peel (Chen Pi): Bitter and pungent in taste, warm in nature. Excels at regulating qi, drying dampness, and transforming phlegm. Used for chest and epigastric distension with food stagnation. Weak weight-loss effect when used alone.
2. Rose petals: Sweet and slightly bitter, warm in nature. They soothe the liver, regulate qi, invigorate blood, and resolve stasis. Used for chest and rib fullness, epigastric distension, and abdominal pain caused by liver qi stagnation. Also has beautifying and spot-removing effects. Must be combined with other herbs for weight loss.
Yin-nourishing herbs
Target: Elderly prone to obesity. TCM focus is on nourishing yin.Common symptoms like dizziness, poor sleep quality, lower back soreness, and dry mouth are attributed to yin and blood deficiency in TCM. Such patients require both blood nourishment and blood circulation promotion.
Herbal ingredients:
1. Polygonum multiflorum (He Shou Wu): Bitter and sweet in taste, slightly warm in nature. Nourishes liver and kidneys, enriches essence and blood, darkens hair, and strengthens tendons and bones. Lowers blood lipids, detoxifies, resolves abscesses, and moistens the intestines for bowel movements. Effective for elderly obesity.
2. Salvia miltiorrhiza (Danshen): Bitter and slightly cold in nature, it promotes blood circulation, removes blood stasis, regulates menstruation, and alleviates pain. It also nourishes blood, calms the spirit, clears the heart, and relieves restlessness. It has liver-protecting and lipid-lowering effects. It can prevent and treat heart disease and angina caused by coronary artery insufficiency, lower blood pressure, and improve microcirculation.
3. Goji Berries: Sweet and neutral in nature, they nourish the liver and kidneys, enhance essence and improve vision, nourish blood, and calm the mind. Effective for blurred vision, insomnia, and forgetfulness caused by deficiency of essence and blood in the elderly. Modern medical research indicates they lower blood lipids, delay aging, and prevent hair loss.