Q. What's the difference between eating those trendy diet ice creams to lose weight and following a standard diet?

I understand that mindset—during my training days, I also thought 'if I just eat this, it'll work' and focused only on efficiency, only to waste a lot of effort. So when I hear that in my clinic, it feels all too familiar. Let me summarize the differences briefly: | Category | Diet Ice Cream (Meal Replacement) | Standard Diet (Constitutional Improvement) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Core Principle | Carbohydrate restriction & calorie substitution | Metabolic activation & appetite regulation | | Advantage | Psychological satisfaction, immediate replacement | Fundamental taste change, constitutional improvement | | Limitation | Artificial sweeteners affect gut environment | Requires patience during initial adaptation | | Sustainability | Possible increased dependence on substitutes | Enhanced self-sustaining weight maintenance | | Focus | 'What to eat less of' | 'How to burn it efficiently' | From the perspective of Traditional Korean Medicine, the picture is different. Before cutting calories, we need to address something else: clearing phlegm-fluid (痰飮) and blood stasis (瘀血). Phlegm-fluid is accumulated metabolic waste in the body, and blood stasis is stagnant blood flow. When these settle in, metabolism slows down, leading to weight gain even with small meals. In particular, spleen deficiency (脾虛)—weakened spleen function—prevents proper absorption and transportation of nutrients. This triggers false hunger and sugar cravings. If you just block that with ice cream, the spleen becomes even more sluggish. So I tell my patients: use substitutes when convenient, but ultimately the goal is to build up your body's vital energy (氣) so that it regulates itself naturally. Let's work on it together, step by step.