Green Tea for Weight Loss and Fat Burning?

Green tea is good for weight loss? Yup, believe it or not, more and more often you'll find green tea (or green tea extract) included in the compilations of many of the more popular weight loss supplements today (interestingly, it may not be quite as good as oolong tea, reviewed here!)

And why are supplement makers so hasty to include green tea in their weight loss products? Well, the benefits of green tea are numerous...

Specifically, and most importantly, green tea extract often replaces the caffeine component of the standard ephedrine - caffeine - salicin (aspirin) fat burning stack. That makes it a decent quality fat burner in and of itself. However...

If that's all green tea did, this would be a pretty short article. Luckily, it provides additional benefits -- far and beyond what plain caffeine could do. First, it's a powerful anti-oxidant. Yes... just like vitamin C and beta-carotene! But researchers have suggested that the active ingredient (called epigallocatechin gallate -- I kid you not!), may be up to 200 times more powerful than vitamin E as an oxidant.

But wait... that's still not the best part!

Green tea may be useful as a glucose regulator -- meaning it slows the rise in blood sugar following a meal.

It does this by slowing the action of a particular digestive enzyme called amylase. This enzyme is pivotal in the breakdown of starches (carbs), that can cause blood sugar levels to soar following a meal. This is pretty exciting stuff -- along with a chromium, and possibly a vanadyl supplement, green tea might be the missing link in proper glucose management.

Green tea has also helped aid weight loss by increasing the metabolic rate, causing those who use it to experience greater calorie burn.

A recent study further validates green tea's effectiveness. A new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 81, No. 1, 122-129, January 2005), indicated the ingestion of a tea rich in catechins (catechins are a major component of green tea extract) leads to both a lowering of bodyfat AND of cholesterol levels.

Does Green Tea Work for Weight Loss?

Lately I've been supplementing with the Canadian formulation of MuscleTech's Hydroxycut (the older US version did not contain any green tea, although the new reformulated version does), which contains over 900mg of green tea extract per serving. It's too early to tell how effective this is as a fat-burner, but in general, I find that blood sugar levels seem to be stable, cravings are minimal, as are the jitters and shakes normally associated with ephedrine based product.

I'd say it's definitely helpful, but not earth-shatteringly effective. It's no "magic pill" I guess you could say. Proper diet and an effective exercise program will be key to wringing the most out of green tea.

If you'd like to try green tea, you have a couple of choices...

1) Buy it in isolation. This is probably the best route to go if you'd like to be able to connclusively tie results to one particular ingredient.

2) Buy a popular fat burner which contains a good dose of green tea in its formulation. Xenadrine EFX contains a hearty dose of green tea, but there are many other products that do as well.

3) Drink green tea instead of regular tea or coffee. You really don't need to take a pill or spend a ton of money to get this stuff into your system.

In closing... it certainly appears that green tea is a darned good health-promoting supplement, and a good weight loss supplement as well. It's one of the few natural supplements that has some decent clinical proof validating its claims. Well worth trying, if you've got a good diet and exercise program under way.