I get this question often in my practice and I tell my patients that the answer is complicated, but the short answer is “YES.”

First I need to know why you believe you are overweight. Do you eat too much? Do you eat too little? Do you have a voracious appetite? Do you have particular food cravings? Are your hormones out of balance? Are you able to exercise regularly? Are you tired? Stressed? Depressed? There are a slew of reasons that can lead to excess body weight. We need to get a complete picture of your overall health in order to develop a treatment to aid in weight loss.

There are no magic acupuncture points that will make a person lose weight. Given the correct diagnosis, an acupuncturist can restore balance to your body, give you energy to exercise, improve digestion and reduce appetite or cravings. We can reduce your stress which may subdue the desire to stress eat. There are some acupuncture points that are common in weight loss treatments, especially ear acupuncture, but each treatment in unique to your issues.

Chinese medicine is all about balance. When your body is in balance, you will feel better and be able to better take care of your body. You will desire to eat healthier foods. You will have the energy required to exercise. If you have pain that keeps you from exercising, we can take care of that as well. We can counsel you as to what foods would be helpful for you to eat or avoid. Chinese nutrition is not the same as our western ideas, so you may be surprised by our suggestions.

Just as with any weight loss regimen, achieving balance takes time. You will need repeated treatments to reprogram your body. It is common with acupuncture to have some immediate results that last short periods of time. With repetition, the results last for longer periods of time becoming more permanent.

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