Tea and Exercise Benefits - Tea's Health Benefits

Imagine that you are looking for foods that could help prevent cancer,heart disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, and stroke, that could lower blood pressure, reduce weight, decrease inflammation, protect against wrinkles and sun damage, and that could increase creativity and peak performance. Now imagine that you found all of those properties in one inexpensive, non caloric, readily available, good tasting natural plant derived substance. This would make you ecstatic, excited, over the moon and anxious to spread to the waiting world of your fantastic new discovery: Tea.

You would soon realize that this new discovery was more that 4,700 years old- but it was not until the last century that scientists began to truly understand just how many rich and varied benefits there are in each and every cup of tea. What makes the Tea so healthy? It begins with free radicals. A free radical is an oxygen molecule with an odd number of electrons in the outer ring of one of its atoms. Free radicals are produced naturally as oxygen interacts with organic matter (when a cut apple is left out on the counter, it turns brown due to oxidation). Our bodies are constantly oxidizing.

Sadly, we help the process along when we eat foods that have been refined and processed or fried in fats and oils at superhigh heat. Our bodies are not designed to cope with so much free radical buildup. Once we go past the threshold, our cells begin to age prematurely, and we contribute to our own journey towards disease and disability. We would have no hope at all if it was not for antioxidants; they come to the rescue by destroying free radicals and slowing down the oxidation process. It so turns out that tea is rich in antioxidants called Flavonoids, EGCG being one of the most potent ones.

White tea has the largest amount of these flavonoids, then green, then oolong and black. It really does not matter what kind of tea you are drinking because the differences in the amounts of flavonoids are small. Scientists have calculated that the tea plant ranks as one of the highest in total flavonoid content. Research has shown that these flavonoids are effective in scavenging free radicals and keeping you in good health. In fact, some scientists believe that tea is even healthier than water.

Tea is beneficial because it is not dehydrating. Even very strong cup of tea, has nowhere near the amount of caffeine necessary to dehydrate the body. Moreover, green tea is not healthier than black tea. Both have the similar amounts of antioxidants and health benefits, although they are of different types. Drinking three or more cups of tea a day (three cups equals 24 ounces) can reduce the risk of a wide range of health problems, ranging from cancer to heart disease.

Tea and exercise is quite a powerhouse combination. The American Journal of Physiology in January 2006 showed that green tea extract increased exercise endurance 24 percent in mice over a ten week period. Researchers found that the tea extracts stimulated the use of fatty acids by muscle, which may help to explain the tea's weight-loss effect. About four cups of tea daily would emulate the effects of the experiment in a human athlete. The effects were not shown after a single use. This led the researchers to believe that regular exercise, combined with tea consumption, over an extended time frame, enhances the body's ability to preferentially utilize fats rather than carbohydrates.

Another good reason for drinking tea is that it boosts your immune system. Havard scientists found that tea acts as a sort of natural vaccine. The T cells play a crucial role in resisting infection. It was seen by the scientists that tea drinkers had an increased production of an important disease-fighting protein on their T cells. Tea also helps to cleanse the blood of triglycerides and cholesterol. Tea is also a rich source of fluoride. Fluoride is a natural element found in the earht's crust as well as in water and air. It works with saliva to protect tooth enamel from plaque and sugars. The tea plant extracts fluoride from the soil, which then accumulates in its leaves. So tea, while it may cause some discoloration, is actually good for your teeth.

Smart exercise is the key to losing weight. Many people think that if they move fast and sweat a bucketful, they would lose more weight. This is just a myth. Do not confuse motion with progress; a rocking horse keeps moving but makes no progress. Such is the truth when it comes to exercise, which must be executed properly. Exercising correctly begins with understanding the two types of exercise : Cardiovascular and Strength training.

Cardio exercise works the heart muscle and is the only type of exercise responsible for extreme fat burning. This is because, there are two types of fibers in our bodies, slow twitch and fast twitch. The proportion of these fibers is determined genetically before birth. That is why some people are better at endurance sports while some are better sprinters. Also, you will burn mostly fat when using the "slow twitch" muscle fibers. This is because these fibers contain mitochondria where the Kerbs Cycle takes place which is responsible for kick-starting the fat burning process. Cardio training can include biking, jogging, swimming, treadmill, climbing stairs, walking, stationary bikes or any form of exercise that involves the muscles of hips, thights and the buttocks

Strength training on the other hand refers to increasing muscle strength by pitting the muscles against a weight or force. It is as important as cardio training. When we age, we naturally lose muscle mass. Building muscle helps burn more calories. When you burn more calories, fewer calories remain to be stored as body fat. As you lose muscle mass, the body's ability to regulate sugar levels decreses, resulting in gaining weight. It is particularly important for women because they usually have more body fat and less muscle mass than men of the same age and weight. Strength training can include Yoga, pilates, lifting free weights, body sculpting. Do what you enjoy most and make it a habit two to three times a week.

Researchers found that men and women who drank tea on a daily basis for at least a year were much less likely to develop hypertension than those who did not. The evidence that tea helps prevent cancer is overwhelming. Since the 1990s, hundreds of studies have been performed showing that tea can inhibit the formation of tumors, and slow the growth of those already formed. The researchers from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan state that daily consumption of tea in sufficient amounts helps to prolong life by avoiding premature death, particularly death caused by cancer.

Amidst an artistic endeavor, a complicated problem or before an athletic event, you might want to take a short break and have a nice cup of tea. The L-theanine in tea stimulates the alpha brain waves, generating a state of relaxed alertness- and it also enhances your ability to concentrate while promoting mental clarity. So if you want to be your best and do your best, a cup of tea might be your best bet.

Now that you know about the good things that tea can do for you, it would be great to grab a cup of tea and make important changes in your life. TIme to begin getting healthy with a tea diet that could be the best for you for all the years to come