Enjoying Meals and Staying Slim

Enjoying food while keeping a slim body isn't just possible, it's really important for being healthy. There are lots of ways people try to lose weight, but many aren't practical for everyday life. For example, fasting can help you lose weight, but it's not safe or easy to do all the time. Following a very strict diet might work for a bit, but most people get tired of it and stop. Going to diet clinics can work, but often people quit and gain back all the weight they lost.

The best way to lose weight, in my opinion, is to enjoy your meals while also staying slim. But can this be done? Absolutely!

Tasty foods make our taste buds happy but can also fill our stomachs too much. But there's a way to mix foods so that they are yummy without making our stomachs too full - this is called the art of cooking. Imagine we have three ingredients: one tastes good, one is neutral, and one tastes bad. These can be cooked together to make something that tastes good without making you too full. I'll give some examples to show how this can be done.

First, let's look at a traditional Chinese Meat Sauce recipe. It has ten ingredients, each with their own tastes and effects on the body:

  1. Dry orange peel - warm; pungent and bitter; affects the spleen and lungs.
  2. Star anise - warm; pungent and sweet; affects the spleen and kidneys.
  3. Cinnamon bark - hot; pungent and sweet; affects the liver and kidneys.
  4. Cloves - warm; pungent; affects the stomach, spleen, and kidneys.
  5. Green onion white heads - warm; pungent; affects the lungs and stomach.
  6. Fennel - warm; pungent; affects the kidneys, bladder, and stomach.
  7. Red chili - hot; pungent; affects the heart and spleen.
  8. Black pepper - hot; pungent; affects the stomach and large intestine.
  9. Nutmeg - warm; pungent; affects the spleen and large intestine.
  10. Licorice - neutral; sweet; affects the lungs, stomach, and spleen.

Wrap these ingredients in a clean cloth, then boil them in water with wine, soy sauce, and some sugar. Once the sauce is made, the meat can soak in it for a few hours, or it can simmer in the sauce for up to two hours. The sauce isn't meant to be drunk like soup, and any leftovers can be used over several days, but you should boil it each day to keep it fresh.

Some of these ingredients might not taste good on their own, like cloves, fennel, or star anise. But when they're mixed with meat, they create a tasty dish. The sauce has different flavors and affects various parts of the body. It doesn't lead to weight gain because it's very 'yang', which means it has warm, hot, and pungent elements. This is why I think it's possible to enjoy meals and stay slim.

Another example is the Chinese tradition of making tasty soups, like mushroom, chicken, beef, egg, pork, fish, clam, and others. These soups are yummy and can also help with weight loss. Both the type and amount of food matter when it comes to weight gain. For example, eating a pound of beef will lead to more weight gain than eating 100g. Consuming soup lets you enjoy tasty meals while eating less solid food.

To make a beef soup, cut 100g of beef into small pieces, add a bit of wine, five small slices of fresh ginger, and enough water. Simmer the soup over low heat for an hour. This makes a yummy beef soup. This soup won't make you gain weight. In fact, it might help you lose weight and stay slim because it fills you up and makes you eat less. Plus, the soup has wine and ginger, which are good for your body. The same idea works for other soups, too.

Different soups are also good for your health in other ways:

  1. Beef soup is good if you're weak or have anemia.
  2. Chicken soup is good if you're tired or feeling weak.
  3. Mung bean soup is good if you have inflammation inside your body.
  4. Mushroom soup is good if your liver is weak.
  5. Clam soup can help with high blood pressure.

There's also a special soup called "longevity soup." It's made using bones from chicken and pork legs. You crush the bones to get the marrow out, which is the best part of the soup. To make the soup, soak the bones in the Chinese meat sauce we talked about earlier. Then simmer it on low heat with other ingredients like peanuts, mushrooms, red beans, or radishes. Season it with red chili powder or black pepper. This soup is believed to help you live a long, healthy life.

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