Drinking Green Tea and Weight Loss

Green tea is one of the top drinks in Japan but it's becoming more popular in the US because of all the benefits it has. Green tea comes from the same plant as its counterparts, oolong or black tea. The only difference is that green tea receives less processing than the other two types. The processing causes the tea to lose many of its medicinal and weight loss properties. Tea manufacturers fully fermented black tea before drying and oolong partially fermented. That process may be the reason that these teas lose many of the antioxidant polyphenols that give the health benefits to green tea.

Green tea contains many different extracts found less in oolong tea and not found in black tea. These are catchetins. Catchetins are actually phytochemical polyphenols. While that sounds like a huge mouthful, phytochemical means that they come from plants and polyphenols are chemicals that offer a health benefit. They are flavonols.

One way that green tea helps in weight loss is though the regulation of blood sugar. It lowers the blood sugar. When blood sugar spikes, it causes the body to store the extra fat. The green tea helps prevent the spikes. Regulating the sugar levels also helps prevent cravings when the levels drop dramatically. One animal study at the University of Chicago's Tang Center for Herbal Medical Research found that in animal studies, green tea had not only the ability to reduce glucose but also cholesterol and fats. The same animal study from the University of Chicago's Tang Center for Herbal Medical Research also indicated that the catchetins in green tea reduce the fat deposits under the skin.

A 1999 study by Dulloo, et al. showed that the compounds from green tea increased fat metabolism and increased thermogenesis. Thermogenesis the heat you produce when you're doing nothing. It's not related to any physical activity or resting metabolism. The production of this heat, of course, requires extra calories and speeds up the metabolism.

If you drink green tea with caffeine, you'll get better results than you would if you selected a decaffeinated product. A study by Westerterp-Plantenga, Lejeune and Kovacs done in 2005 showed there were more beneficial results in increasing the fat burning if the green tea contained caffeine.

The 2007 issue of "Psychopharmacology" relays that people that consumed green tea had lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Stress is one cause of failure on a diet. In other words, put away those comfort foods and sip a cup of green tea instead.

As simple as it may sound, the addition of cups of green tea to your diet also helps fill you without adding extra calories. You fill up, without filling out. Since the calorie count is almost zero you can drink as many cups as you want without worrying about extra pounds.

Green tea also acts as a diuretic. At one time, my mother had problems with water retention. Her legs were filled with water and expanded almost triple their size. The doctor had given her very strong diuretics. He noted that he couldn't give them for very long as they could cause damage to her system. They didn't help. Her next step was hospitalization the following Monday if she couldn't eliminate the fluid.

In a last ditch effort, I brewed her a few cups of green tea. We didn't go anywhere that afternoon after she drank the first two cups. We couldn't. She was busy flushing out her system. The green tea worked where the harsh medication couldn't. Even better, it provided her with health giving phytochemicals that actually helped her body rather than hurt it.

Will green tea make you lose weight? It probably won't if you add several spoonfuls of honey or sugar and accompany each cup with a few Twinkies and a Big Mac. If you substitute it for a sugary soda, you'll notice a very slow reduction of weight without any additional effort. If you have to have sugar in your tea, reduce it a little at a time until you add none. Replace the sugar with a little ginger or cinnamon instead and you'll be doing your body even a greater service each time you take a break for something to drink.