Green Tea for Weight Loss

Green tea can aid your weight loss goals if you have any. What is good about green tea is that it has no side effects and brings you many health benefits not to mention disease prevention because of its antioxidant properties. 

Among the different kinds of tea, green tea is favored for weight loss because of its polyphenol antioxidants and caffeine concentrations. Yes, in terms of weight loss, caffeine together with the antioxidant ingredients in green tea can be beneficial.

Before we begin our discussion on the way green tea can benefit in weight loss, we'll have to get a little understanding about noradrenaline, better known as norepinephrine. It is a hormone released by the adrenal glands. The release is triggered by events such as being under a stressful situation. Caffeine can also fool the body as to being in a stressful event thereby triggering the adrenal glands to release noradrenaline together with other hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.

Cyclic adenosine monophosphate(cCAMP), whose function is to speed up the rate of converting glycogen into glucose for energy production, is stimulated in a stressful event thereby making available an abundant supply of raw materials for energy production which then speeds up metabolism.

The presence of noradrenaline in the blood together with EGCG(epigallocatechin gallate) of green tea, triggers thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue(BAT), fatty tissues which can be found in the waistline and buttocks of adults. It converts free fatty acids into heat instead of being created as energy(ATP) in the mitochondria of the cell.

 After noradrenaline has prepared the body for the 'fight or flight' situation, catechol O-methyltransferase(COMT) which degrades noradrenaline, come into play.

Phosphodiesterase(PDE) also degrades cCAMP. With the degradation of noradrenaline and cCAMP, thermogenesis halts and energy production goes back to normal. So for a limited time, our body speeds up metabolism and converts fatty acids in the BAT into heat(thermogenesis) to cope with a stressful event.

This is where green tea and caffeine work together to burn more fat. Green tea prevents noradrenaline from degrading and caffeine prevents cCAMP from degrading for an extended period of time. This means burning more fat for a longer period of time.

Caffeine alone can produce little thermogenesis on BAT but when combined with green tea, the effect goes to a larger extent.

For a healthier weight loss, it would be a good suggestion to try green tea. Experts advise to take 6 to 10 cups of green tea per day to fully benefit from its antioxidant properties. Well, why not try that amount? Lose weight and reap the antioxidant benefits that green tea brings.

A study has also been made that adding citrus fruits to green tea can make our body absorb more of its antioxidants by several fold.

6 to 10 cups of green tea may be too much for those who doesn't like the taste or for those who does not have the schedule to ingest that amount. An alternative would be to take green tea extract which are available in capsule form or in liquid form combined with other herbal extracts.