The Science behind Green Tea: Does it help in Weight Loss?

What's good, everybody? Now, I've always mentioned in my fitness blogs that when it comes to something nutrition related, Don't listen to a single dietician or a trainer. Don't listen to a single individual. Instead, listen to science. And when it comes to Green Tea and weight loss, there's only one way to find out the truth. Let's science the shit out of it. OK, the first thing you need to know is that there's very little difference between green tea and black tea.

Black tea is got by fermenting tea leaves and by letting them oxidise. Green tea on the other hand, is a more natural form of tea. Now, if you compare the two kinds of tea, their properties and effects on the human body are almost the same with a few differences. But unfortunately, Black tea isn’t sold to you as a weight loss drink. Green tea is. Thanks to the media and marketing agencies, people believe that Green tea is some sort of magical weight loss drink, but unfortunately, that's not entirely true.

If you want to understand this better, let's get into the science of it first. Firstly, Green tea is full of antioxidants and antioxidants are great for your health. But the one antioxidant that helps a lot with weight loss is something called EGCG or Epigallocatechin gallate. Yeah, you heard that right. Now ingesting EGCG is linked to an increase in the function of catecholamines in the body. Catecholamines are a type of hormone that's linked to stress related situations or situations that involve muscle contraction. But most importantly, catecholamines are linked to fat loss. And that's where this whole “Green tea makes you lose weight” thing comes into play.

Okay, now there's a good news and a bad news. The good news is that there were studies conducted on EGCG and fat loss and there was definitely a link that was found between the two. Again, ask for the bad news. Unfortunately, there are two points to be noted. The first is that in these studies, Green tea was not used. Instead, they were using EGCG extracts. That's pure EGCG. And secondly, to actually get any kind of weight loss related benefit from EGCG, you need to consume anywhere between 300 to 400 milligrams a day. One cup of green tea has about 30 - 60 milligrams per day, depending on its strength. So effectively, you need to be consuming 10 cups of green tea to see any form of weight loss. Also, green tea contains a substantial amount of caffeine, which will help in your fat loss to some extent. But it's not going to make up for all those desserts that you eat. If you're going to eat unhealthy food and then just drink a glass of green tea, that's not going to make up for it. You've got to remember, caffeine is an addictive substance. It works just like cigarettes. If you want that kick from caffeine continuously, you constantly need to up your dosage. And that's why I'm kind of against caffeine consumption though. Even I have my own cup of either black coffee or green tea almost every single day.

It's not a good habit to have caffeine. It will give you some amount of fat loss in the short term and you'll get alert after that cup of tea or coffee. But real fitness and real health comes from the long term game. And the three pillars of the long term game are a good diet and active lifestyle with exercise and most importantly, in my opinion, for long term, happiness is good sleep. Now, here's the thing about caffeine.

Most people who are addicted to it, which in my book is more than three cups of coffee or green tea per day, don't even realise that they're addicted to it. So anyone who consumes caffeine in this amount, they don't even realise it’s actually affecting the quality of their sleep. That's what caffeine is stopping you from. It's preventing you from getting good quality sleep, which in the long term will give you much more fat loss than just two or three cups of green tea that you have every single day.

So when you actually want to lose weight and you want to be healthy, remember, give preference to sleep, not something you ingest just to burn off fat. OK. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing green tea entirely. In fact, it does have a lot of benefits. Those antioxidants present in green tea do a lot of things for your body, but I'm not going to go deep into that. This article is more about green tea and weight loss.

So, the final conclusion is summarised into two points precisely

Firstly, anything in excess is bad, especially when an addictive substance like caffeine is involved. So if you're going to consume 10 cups of green tea just to lose weight, you're playing the game wrong. It's going to affect your sleep badly, which in the long term won't only affect your weight loss badly, but it will also affect your peace of mind. So if you want to be healthy and happy in the long term, don't turn to things like Green tea and weight loss supplements entirely without following the basic rules of healthy lifestyle. Just do the basics right. 

And the second point, just because marketing agencies don't sell black tea the way they sell green tea to you doesn't mean black tea is bad for you. It's also called antioxidants. And it's also got a lot of other health benefits. So don't discount that entirely. Green tea isn't some magical drink that's come out of China. It's just because it sounds exotic, you know, people go on that green tea bandwagon. You should also include some form of black tea in your diet.

Ideally, what I'd suggest is, you vary it up. Change between black tea and green tea once in a while. But most importantly, you've got to remember, tea is addictive and you want to limit yourself to one or two cups a day. If you can keep it to one cup, keep it at that. I hate saying this, but unfortunately the people who turn to things like green tea to lose weight actually take up the lazy path and this isn’t long term fitness, even if you lose weight, you've not worked hard enough for it. You've not actually exerted using your body to lose all that weight. You've just ingested something that's making you lose weight. That's not correct. And that's not going to make you stick to a healthy lifestyle. Real fitness comes in the long term. It needs to be a lifestyle change. It needs to be as normal for you as brushing your teeth or having a bath in the morning. And just because you're gonna have that green tea doesn't give you the license to go and have anything else you want. First, fix your diet. Then if you can, put in some form of exercise, get great sleep. And if you want to supplement these three pillars, then turn to that one or two cups of green tea every single day. That's how real fitness works.

So that was the article for today, if you like, then make sure to leave a comment below. Now remember, real fitness and real weight loss comes when you have the correct knowledge about the weight loss. That's why I've written fitness related articles on my blog @fitness_Blog to help you educate yourself and get to your fitness goals. So make sure you check it out. Either way, guys, if you want to follow my personal fitness journey, follow me on Instagram at @amitsahoo. Make sure you give me a follow. 

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