A Greener Me: Jump start your Metabolism. The Power of Green Tea

Google green tea and all you’ll find is diet aids promising you to lose weight with green tea extract. But there may be some truth to green tea helping you lose weight. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a study in 1999. The study notes…“In conclusion, oral administration of the green tea extract stimulated thermogenesis (rate of the body to burn calories) and fat oxidation and thus has the potential to influence body weight and body composition.”(Resource 2) Said a different way “ since thermogenesis (the body's own rate of burning calories) contributes 8-10% of daily energy expenditure in a typical subject, that this 4% overall increase in energy expenditure due to the green tea actually translated to a 35-43% increase in daytime thermogenesis. (Resource 4)

What does this mean? Well it looks like the catechins, especially epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), in the tea or tea extract is able to scavenge for free radicals in the body that can damage DNA and are linked to blood clots and cancer. Also it helps to reduce the damage to the norepinephrine levels which is a vital part of our ‘fight or flight’ response. I am not a doctor or researcher but I translate this into green tea helps support your body’s natural defense, self-repair, and helps stimulate your minds ability to metabolize fat and use energy. Here are four small studies that are a helpful green tea endorsements.

1. “One of them, a study conducted in Japan that involved nearly 500 Japanese women with Stage I and Stage II breast cancer, found that increased green tea consumption before and after surgery was associated with lower recurrence of the cancers.

2. Studies in China have shown that the more green tea that participants drank, the less the risk of developing stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and colorectal cancer. A recent analysis of 22 studies that probed the correlation between high tea consumption and reduced risk for lung cancer concluded that by increasing your daily intake of green (not black) tea by two cups may reduce the risk of developing lung cancer by 18%.

3. In a study that involved 500 Japanese men and women, researchers found that drinking at least four cups of green tea every day may be related to the reduced severity of coronary heart disease among the male participants.

4. A Dutch study of more than 3,000 men and women found that the more tea consumed, the less severe the clogging of the heart's blood vessels, especially in women” (resource 3).

So each day I start it off with a glass of green tea. I just microwave a glass of filtered water with a bag of green tea. I am not a big fan of warm drinks so I add ice and sometimes honey but never sugar… anymore. I use to have a pop or a glass of iced coffee once a day but wanted to quite this habit. So I made a slow switch to tea. I slowly transitioned myself to green tea by using less and less sugar and less and less black tea till now I feel off if I go more than 2 days without green tea. Another bonus it is more organic material for my compost.