Q. I've heard that it's okay to eat hamburgers while on a diet. Is that actually true? And why does it affect my weight?

Many people treat a hamburger meal as a 'cheat day' reward, but this often leads to feeling sluggish and heavy the next day due to a 'blood sugar spike.' From a Western medical perspective, the combination of refined carbohydrates in white bread and fructose in soda triggers excessive insulin secretion, quickly storing excess energy as fat and pushing the body into a 'fat-storage mode.' In Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM), this phenomenon is interpreted as the formation of Dam-eum (痰飮), referring to the stagnation of metabolic waste and fluids in the body. When someone with Bi-heo (脾虛)—a deficiency in Spleen function—consumes high-fat, high-sugar foods, 'dampness' accumulates, further slowing down the metabolism. To mitigate this, I recommend removing one side of the bun and opting for zero-calorie beverages. This allows you to obtain necessary proteins while suppressing the blood sugar spike. However, since digestive capacity and metabolic states vary by individual, it is important to first determine if your body is currently capable of processing and clearing Dam-eum efficiently.