Q. What is the process for the first month when starting a diet program at a Korean medicine clinic?
After a personalized constitution diagnosis, you will take customized herbal medicine to gradually promote metabolism and implement dietary control.
📝 Detailed Answer
We do not prescribe medication blindly upon your first visit. Instead, we first examine your current physical condition and determine why your body has become prone to weight gain.
In Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM), we focus on conditions such as Spleen Deficiency (Bi-heo), where impaired digestive function leads to the accumulation of waste, or Blood Stasis (Eo-hyeol), where poor circulation causes edema. Addressing these constitutional issues is crucial to ensure progress without hitting a plateau.
- Week 1: Constitution diagnosis and adaptation phase. This stage focuses on reducing edema and adjusting the stomach capacity to adapt to a reduced food intake.
- Week 2: Metabolic activation phase. We discharge internal waste products, known as phlegm accumulation (Dam-jeok), and increase the basal metabolic rate.
- Week 3: Acceleration and plateau management. We use herbal medicine to push through the plateau period as the body adapts to the new weight.
- Week 4: Maintenance and habit formation. We conduct a final review of your diet and lifestyle habits to ensure the weight loss is sustained.
💡 Treatment Goal
The core objective is not merely to reduce weight, but to restore compromised metabolic functions to create a body state that is less susceptible to the yo-yo effect.
Expert Verified
Dr. Yeonseung Choe
Chief Director