Green tea and your weight

By Bob Otieno

Green tea has been hailed as a weight loss miracle because it is low in caffeine, but contains antioxidants that are healthy for your body. There are also some natural chemicals and compounds found in green tea that may help the body to regulate metabolism in a healthy way. This effect of green tea may help one to lose weight naturally, but a lot of the drink may not help.

Common traps

One problem with the idea that green tea can help with weight loss is that many green tea drinks are full of sugar. Unless you brew your own green tea, it probably has additives, sugar or sugar substitutes, and other flavourings that aren’t healthy for the body. Green tea drinks bought in bottles or cans may not help one lose weight - and if they’re full of sugar, they’ll probably help one gain weight!

Combining green tea with a healthy lifestyle

There are few things that can have the same effect as green tea. Most of them are very unhealthy, or prescription medications that are meant for the morbidly obese.

In some ways, green tea is great for people because it offers a tasty alternative to other drinks that are unhealthy and fattening. Most sodas, even low calorie or diet sodas, can cause weight gain. When you get empty calories into your intestines, your body feels like you’re not getting anything at all and the reaction is usually to store what calories you do get as fat.

Green tea has some compounds that can help you regulate your metabolism, burn food rather than store it as fat, and give you a bit of extra energy to make you exercise. But one has to feed on healthy food and get regular physical activity, even if it’s just a 20 minute walk each morning, to lose weight with green tea.