How Green Tea Promotes Weight Loss

Green tea is one of the most effective natural foods that can be used to regulate weight or aid in weight loss with long term results. It contains three major components that promote fat loss:

1. caffeine
2. catechins
3. theanine

Green tea is a natural source of caffeine. Caffeine helps raise the heart rate, thereby, boosting metabolism. A higher metabolism increases the number of calories that a body will burn. The body's ability to burn fat is also increased by the boost in metabolism. Green tea not only promotes fat loss, but specifically the loss of visceral fat - fat that accumulates in the tissues lining the abdominal cavity and surrounding the intestines (viscera) and internal organs. Visceral fat, which produces the apple shaped body, is highly associated with increased risk for metabolic syndrome ( characterized by obesity, elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol and insulin resistance or glucose intolerance) and type 2 diabetes.

How does green tea promote fat loss?

* Its' catechins appear to stimulate the use of fatty acids by the liver and muscle cells.
* The muscles' ability to burn more fat means that glycogen (the form carbohydrates are stored for ready access in the muscle) is used up at a reduced rate.
* The reduced use of glycogen suppresses lactic acid production. Lactic acid buildup is what causes sore achy muscles when you exercise.
* Suppression of lactic acid buildup results in increased endurance.
* Increased endurance results in the muscles ability to speed up the breakdown of fat.
* Speeding up the breakdown of fat results in weight loss.

It is important to note that green tea compounds also suppress

* the enzymes that digest tryglycerides (resulting in lower cholesterol)
* the enzyme responsible for transforming fatty acids into the form in which they can be stored in the body's fat cells.

Theanine working in harmony with caffeine has been shown to reduce mental and physical stress, reduce anxiety and improve the thought process and mood . The reduction of stress is important as one of the body's responses to stress is to store fat.

Studies performed with lab rats over a ten week span showed increases in exercise endurance in rats given green tea extract. The animals increased the amount of time they could swim before becoming exhausted by as much as 24%. Researchers estimate that a 165 lb. (74.84 kg.) athlete would need to drink about four cups of this tea ( preferably of a loose leaf variety) daily to match the beneficial effect of the test animals' endurance capacity. Japanese researchers suggest that if an average person were to drink five cups of green tea a day they would burn an extra 70 to 80 calories through an effect known as thermogenesis - the process of heat production in organisms caused by an increase in metabolism. Thermogenesis is derived from caffeine and to a degree from the catechin EGCG. If a person were to change nothing outside of adding five cups of green tea to their diet per day, then over the course of forty three days one could expect to lose one lb.(454 grams) or eight lbs. (3.63 kg.) over one year. Naturally, adding the same consumption of green tea to a sound nutrient and exercise regimen, along with plenty of rest, would increase the benefit even more and improve the result for long term weight control.