Green Tea Diet and Weight Loss
A brew that helps you lose weight, at the same time, endows numerous health promoting and medicinal effects? Such a brew is sure to become an integral component of the diet for someone looking for ways to slim down. As dieticians, researchers and those enrolled in weight-loss regimens are rapidly discovering, green tea possess all of these wonderful properties to a good measure.
Researchers actively involved in pursuing new agents that can bring about safe and effective weight loss in humans, have put forward a variety of mechanisms behind green tea’s miraculous fat reducing properties. Several scientific studies have clearly concluded that consumption of green tea increases our body’s metabolic rate. To be more specific, green tea promotes “thermogenesis”.
Thermogenesis refers to the process by which our body increases the metabolic rate above normal to produce heat. By accelerating thermogenesis, green tea acts to burn more calories, which is a good way to lose weight. An important fact, however, needs to be highlighted at this juncture – the majority of weight loss agents that work in the same way, can also cause undesirable and potentially dangerous side-effects including increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
Green tea, in contrast to its herbal and non-herbal counterparts, has not been reported to cause rise in blood pressure and heart rate, a fact that makes the brew a safe weight loss agent!
Green tea has also been reported, in a number of experiments, to step up the rate of fat oxidation, which results in fat breakdown in the body. The brew is also known to act on fat cells (or adipose cells) to induce the release of a large organic molecule called glycerol that also contributes to reduction of fat deposits in the body.
In this regard, it is worthy of note that green tea is able to regulate blood glucose levels indirectly. It does this by inhibiting the enzyme called amylase in our digestive tract that digests the starch we eat, into glucose. Thus, drinking green tea results in the slow and stable release of glucose into the blood stream and therefore serves to suppress food cravings.
Loss Weight with Green Tea
Initially, it was believed that green tea’s abilities to reduce body weight, was attributed to its caffeine content and caffeine is a well-known weight loss agent. But, soon, when deeper insights were gained into the biologically active ingredients of green tea, it became evident that most of the “weight loss” properties of the brew reside in the molecule called EGCG or Epigallocatechin Gallate.
The comparatively low levels of caffeine in green tea were shown to be unlikely to be the major factor behind the brew’s fat- reducing effects. This is supported by the fact that similar levels of pure caffeine failed to exhibit such safe, weight loss properties in numerous studies. Conclusive evidence now exists to show that EGCG, the highly bioactive molecule responsible for the majority of green tea’s beneficial effects on the body, also underlies its weight loss properties.
So, do not forget to include the natural “weight loss” agent, green tea, as part of your daily diet and enjoy the next cup of the brew in peace!
