Green Tea and Dieting

Green tea has been shown to have an alarming number of positive effects on those who drink it regularly. It has been shown to improve the health of the heart by reducing cholesterol and reducing the risk of blood clots. It slows the aging process by reducing the effects of arthritis and rejuvenating the skin. Green tea is a natural toothbrush, reducing the risk of cavities and tooth decay. It even contains a number of anti-oxidants, reducing the risks of a variety of different cancers.

Researchers are now beginning to get serious about researching how green tea effects weight loss. Although nobody believes that green tea is the new miracle weight loss drug, researchers have found that it does increase metabolism to a certain degree. Increasing metabolism simply means that calories are burned more quickly in the body. Because losing weight is dependent on reducing your caloric intake to a level lower than your natural expenditure of calories, increasing metabolism is a safe and effective way to lose weight.

Research has shown that a daily serving of green tea has the potential to increase metabolism by up to 5%. This means that if you ingest between 2,000 and 2,500 calories per day, making green tea part of your everyday diet could burn more than 100 extra calories every day. These are calories that you don’t have to burn off through exercise and don’t have to eliminate from other areas of your diet. To put it into perspective, 100 calories is an extra yogurt cup, a serving of snack crackers, or a small chocolate chip cookie every day. Keeping one of those foods as part of your diet could make your diet a lot easier to stick to.

It should be clear that green tea is most effective in weight loss if it is combined with a healthy diet and regular exercise. It will boost your metabolism to some extent no matter what, but will be most effective if you combine it with a lifestyle that is already conducive to a healthy metabolism. For instance, foods high in saturated fat are more difficult for your body to metabolize and will slow it down. Cardiovascular exercise is the best way to increase your metabolism. Combining green tea with these two components will make it a very positive supplement to your diet and weight loss goals. Everybody who has ever been on a diet knows that everything that can make it a little bit easier is incredibly valuable.