For the most part, whether easy weight loss tea works depends on the tea and what you do in addition to drinking it. WuYi Green tea is one of the most popular. Wu Long tea is also popular, and there are many teas that give a combination of different kinds of tea or teas that have other ingredients mixed into them.

The easy weight loss tea diet created for people who are very serious about weight loss and who want to lose a lot of weight and re-shape their bodies. It was not designed for the people who want to drop five or ten pounds. It’s a powerful system that’s designed to get results. The way that it does this is through appetite suppressing and energy boosting. That’s a powerful combination, because eating less and moving more are the two best ways to lose those unwanted pounds. If you do both of them together, of course you’re going to lose more weight than you otherwise would. Unfortunately, the tea itself won’t really make you lose weight.

That’s where people get into problems with diets of any kind, especially those where they drink a tea or take a supplement to lose weight. They assume — incorrectly — that the tea or the supplement is all that they need, and they will drop all kinds of pounds and have a perfect body. That isn’t the case, however, and you have to work to lose weight. You have to eat less. You have to move more. And you have to do these things consistently. Without doing them, and sticking with them, you won’t really lose the weight that you want to lose. So whether the tea actually works by itself to lose weight, the answer is generally no. As to whether the tea can help you to lose weight, that’s more likely. By giving you a lot of vitamins and other healthy additives, the tea can make you more alert and focused and it can give you more energy without giving you a lot of caffeine. That’s a great option for people who don’t want to drink energy drinks because they worry that those kinds of things aren’t good for them, but yet they still want the extra energy benefits.

If you start on an exercise routine and a sensible eating plan, and you couple that with ‘easy weight loss tea’ and the proper rest and nutrition, you’ll lose weight. However, everyone loses weight differently, and some lose it faster and more easily than others. You shouldn’t be discouraged when you don’t lose as quickly as you want to or as much as you think you should. Stick to your plans, make small adjustments where you need to, and you’ll reach your weight loss goals. The more impatient you get or the more that you try to starve yourself the more unhappy and upset with yourself you’ll be, which won’t lead to the success that you’re looking for.

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Green Tea Promotes Fat Loss

Green tea not only promotes fat loss, but specifically, the loss of visceral fat-fat that accumulates in the tissues lining the abdominal cavity and surrounding the intestines (viscera) and internal organs. Unlike fat deposits on the hips and thighs (which result in the so-called “pear” body shape), visceral fat (which produces the “apple” body shape) is highly associated with increased risk for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Green tea contains three major components that promote fat loss: catechins, caffeine and theanine. Studies suggest that green tea compounds promote fat loss by inhibiting both gastric and pancreatic lipase, the enzymes that digest triglycerides, and fatty acid synthetase, the enzyme responsible for synthesizing fatty acids into the form in which they can be stored in the body’s adipose (fat) cells.

In a study published in the January 2004 issue of In Vivo in which mice were fed diets containing 2% green tea powder for 16 weeks, visceral fat decreased by 76.8% in those receiving green tea compared to the control group. Green tea also decreased blood levels of triglycerides (the chemical form in which most fats exist in the body).

Green tea extract given to lab rats over a 10-week span increased the amount of time the animals could swim before becoming exhausted by as much as 24%.

Green tea’s catechins appear to stimulate the use of fatty acids by liver and muscle cells. In muscle cells, the ability to burn more fat translates into a reduction in the rate at which glycogen, the form in which carbohydrates are stored for ready access in muscle, is used up, thus allowing for longer exercise times. Green tea’s effect on muscle cells’ ability to take in and burn fatty acids, speeding up fat breakdown, is also thought to be the reason why it helps weight loss.

The idea for the experiment came from the fact that skeletal muscles utilize carbohydrates, lipids (fats) and amino acids (protein) as energy sources, but the ratio in which they are used varies with the intensity and type of the exercise, and the level of the individual’s fitness. During endurance exercise, the use of too much carbohydrate is undesirable because it triggers insulin secretion, which, in turn, both inhibits the burning of fatty acids and stimulates lactic acid production. (Lactic acid buildup is what causes that sore achy feeling in your muscles when you exercise.) Conversely, enhanced availability and utilization of free fatty acids reduces carbohydrate utilization, which in turn spares glycogen (the form in which carbohydrates are stored in muscle for quick use) and suppresses lactic acid production, resulting in an increase in endurance.”

Drinking a single cup of green tea before exercise, however, will not be effective. One single, higher “dose” of green tea did nothing to improve lab rats’ performance. The animals had to receive green tea daily, and endurance increased gradually over the 10 weeks of the study.

To match the beneficial effect on test animals’ endurance capacity seen in the experiments, the researchers estimate a 165-pound athlete would need to drink about 4 cups of green tea daily.

Green tea not only promotes fat loss, but specifically, the loss of visceral fat-fat that accumulates in the tissues lining the abdominal cavity and surrounding the intestines (viscera) and internal organs. Unlike fat deposits on the hips and thighs (which result in the so-called “pear” body shape), visceral fat (which produces the “apple” body shape) is highly associated with increased risk for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Green tea contains three major components that promote fat loss: catechins, caffeine and theanine. Studies suggest that green tea compounds promote fat loss by inhibiting both gastric and pancreatic lipase, the enzymes that digest triglycerides, and fatty acid synthetase, the enzyme responsible for synthesizing fatty acids into the form in which they can be stored in the body’s adipose (fat) cells.

In a study published in the January 2004 issue of In Vivo in which mice were fed diets containing 2% green tea powder for 16 weeks, visceral fat decreased by 76.8% in those receiving green tea compared to the control group. Green tea also decreased blood levels of triglycerides (the chemical form in which most fats exist in the body).

A human study, published in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, confirms green tea’s ability to not only reduce body fat, but damage to LDL cholesterol as well. After 12 weeks of drinking just one bottle of green tea each day, 38 normal-to-overweight men in Tokyo had a significantly lower body weight, BMI, waist circumference, body fat mass and amount of subcutaneous fat compared to men given a bottle of oolong tea each day.

After a 2 week diet run-in period, the men were divided into two groups, one of which drank a bottle of green tea containing 690 mg of catechins, while the other group drank a bottle of oolong tea containing 22 mg catechins. Not only did the men drinking green tea lose weight and fat, but the amount of their LDL cholesterol damaged by free radicals also dropped significantly. Since atherosclerotic plaques develop when cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream is damaged or oxidized, green tea’s ability to prevent these oxidation reactions may explain some of its protective effects against cardiovascular diseases.

Swimming endurance improvement comes from equivalent of four cups of tea a day over 10 weeks!
Now that even baseball players may need to seek new, more natural performance aids, will Japanese green tea sets become standard in dugouts and athletic training tables around the world?

A new study tested the effect of regularly taking green tea extract (GTE) and found that over 10 weeks, endurance exercise performance was boosted up to 24% with 0.5% GTE supplementation, and 8% with 0.2% by-weight addition to food.

Reporting in the online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology researchers at the Biological Sciences Laboratories of Kao Corp., Tochigi, Japan, said the 8-24% increase in swimming time-to-exhaustion was “accompanied by lower respiratory quotients and higher rates of fat oxidation.”

The results “indicate that GTE is beneficial for improving endurance capacity and support the hypothesis that the stimulation of fatty acid utilization is a promising strategy for improving endurance capacity,” according to the study entitled, “Green tea extract improves endurance capacity and increases muscle lipid oxidation in mice.” Research was conducted by Takatoshi Murase, Satoshi Haramizu, Akira Shimotoyodome, Azumi Nagasawa and Ichiro Tokimitsu, working at Kao Corp., a Japanese maker of healthcare products, including green tea beverages.

Results came from the equivalent of about 4 cups of tea a day

Although it’s difficult to extrapolate from mice eating GTE as a food supplement to a major leaguer or Olympic swimmer sipping green tea, the study’s lead author, Takatoshi Murase said: “We estimate that an athlete weighing 75 kilograms (165 pounds) would have to drink about four cups (0.8 liter) of green tea daily to match the effect in our experiments.”

“One of our important findings,” Murase pointed out, “was that a single high-dose of GTE or its active ingredients didn’t affect performance. So it’s the long-term ingestion of GTE that is beneficial.” (Murase based his calculations of mouse-to-human tea/GTE consumption equivalents on work his lab is doing on the anti-obesity effects of GTE on mice and humans.)

In an era when professional and amateur athletes are always looking for ways to improve performance, and most people want to improve their health and exercise capabilities, “the efficacy of dietary interventions is still controversial,” the authors acknowledge. They note that green tea and cacao contain a class of polyphenols called catechins, which consist mainly of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epicatechin gallate and gallocatechin gallate. Catechins have been reported to have various physiological and pharmacological properties over the years.

The Kao lab “recently demonstrated that the long-term consumption of tea catechins was beneficial in counteracting the obesity-inducing effects of a high-fat diet, and that their effects may be attributed, at least in part, to the activation of hepatic lipid catabolism” in mice. “Overall,” the authors said, “observations so far suggest that thermogenesis and fat oxidation are stimulated by the intake of catechins.”

Working hypothesis and study methods

“To confirm our hypothesis that catechins affect endurance exercise capacity (i.e. time to exhaustion) by increasing lipid utilization, in this study we examined the effect of catechin-rich GTE intake on the endurance capacity of Balb/c mice swimming in an adjustable-current water pool. We also analyzed changes in energy metabolism, especially lipid metabolism. We demonstrated that GTE intake improved endurance capacity and this was accompanied by an increase in lipid catabolism. Our results support the hypothesis that stimulation of lipid metabolism is a promising strategy for improving the capacity for endurance training.”

The ideas for the experiment come from the fact that “skeletal muscles utilize carbohydrates, lipids and amino acids as energy sources, but the ratio in which they are used varies with the intensity of exercise and the level of fitness” as well as the type of exercise involved. For instance “during endurance exercise, excess glucose is undesirable because it induces insulin secretion, which in turn simultaneously inhibits lipid metabolism and stimulates lactate production. Conversely, enhanced availability and utilization of free fatty acids are considered to reduce carbohydrate utilization, which in turn spare glycogen and suppresses lactate production and results in an increase in endurance.”

To test what effects GTE and its components would have on endurance exercise, the researchers ran two experiments. In the first, swimming endurance capacity was measured at eight weeks of age and the mice were divided into four groups of 10 each. All subjects had unlimited access to water for exercise. For 10 weeks, controls ate a standardized diet only, while experimental animals had this diet supplemented with 0.2% and 0.5% GTE by weight. During this period experimental mice were exercised in a pool twice a week, but non-exercise mice weren’t.

The second experiment was similar to the first but the experimental groups received a diet containing 0.1% to 0.5% EGCG for 10 weeks.

At the beginning of the experiment, the mice swam about 26 minutes until they were exhausted. After 10 weeks on the training regimen, the time-to-exhaustion for the exercise-control mice (no GTE or EGCG supplement) rose to about 33 minutes, showing the effects of unaided practice on endurance capacity. From the first week of the experiment, the mice on GTE showed greater improvement compared with the exercise-controls. By week eight, the improved performance of mice on 0.5% GTE was significantly better (39 minutes) than the exercise-controls (33 minutes) at a 0.05 level, while improvement in weeks 9 and 10 (40 minutes vs. 33 minutes) were significant at the 0.01 level.

GTE effects not matched by EGCG alone suggesting other additional influences

In the global search for enhanced athletic performance (and health and fitness), the Kao team said they “have shown that GTE improved endurance capacity and that the improvement was dose-dependent. A similar effect was observed in mice fed EGCG, a major constituent of GTE, suggesting that the effects of GTE were mediated at least in part by EGCG.

“However, because the effects of EGCG appear weak compared with those of GTE, we cannot rule out a possible contribution from other components of GTE. Although long-term intake of GTE enhanced endurance capacity, no marked effects were observed after a single dose of GTE, suggesting that some biochemical changes induced by habitual GTE intake, such as up-regulation of muscular beta-oxidation, contributed to the improvement in endurance capacity.”

The study found that plasma NEFA (non-esterified fatty acid) measured immediately after exercise slightly, but significantly, increased in mice fed tea catechins. Though they concede that the effect of plasma fatty acid level on endurance capacity is controversial, they say that increased supply of circulating fatty acids would “induce the uptake of fatty acids, and thereby stimulate lipid metabolism in muscle.”

Indeed, lab results showed that muscular beta-oxidation was higher in GTE-fed mice (compared with non-exercise and exercise-control mice), “suggesting that GTE enhanced the capacity of muscle to catabolize lipids and utilize fatty acids as an energy source.” Conversely, GTE lowered plasma lactate concentrations, which would be raised by glycogen breakdown and glycolytic flux, they note.

Taken together the experimental results “suggest that habitual exercise and the intake of GTE enhance fatty acid availability, catabolism and utilization in muscle, and this is accompanied by a reduction in carbohydrate use, which together result in prolonged swimming times to exhaustion.”

Controlling for caffeine

Kao researchers controlled for possible influences of caffeine and possible weight-fat changes that might affect buoyancy.

Aware that previous studies were criticized by the possible role of caffeine on fatty acids and exercise, the Kao researchers reduced the amount of caffeine in supplements. “In addition, we observed no changes in plasma NEFA level under resting conditions, suggesting that caffeine-stimulated lipolysis did not occur under these conditions. Thus our results overall suggest that the effects observed in this study are not attributable to caffeine. In particular, our findings that purified EGCG improved endurance capacity supports this conclusion.”

Clinical trials conducted by the University of Geneva and the University of Birmingham indicate that green tea raises metabolic rates, speeds up fat oxidation and improves insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, thus aiding weight loss. In addition to caffeine, green tea contains catechin polyphenols that raise thermogenesis (the rate at which calories are burned), and hence increases energy expenditure.

There is also a suggestion that it can increase endurance in exercise by improving fat metabolism.

According to research reported at the Sixth International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, a standardized green tea polyphenol preparation (Polyphenon E) limits the growth of colorectal tumors in rats treated with a substance that causes the cancer. “Our findings show that rats fed a diet containing Polyphenon E are less than half as likely to develop colon cancer,” Dr. Hang Xiao, from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, noted in a statement.

A 2006 study published in the September 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded “Green tea consumption is associated with reduced mortality due to all causes and due to cardiovascular disease but not with reduced mortality due to cancer.” The study, conducted by the Tohoku University School of Public Policy in Japan, followed 40,530 Japanese adults, ages 40-79, with no history of stroke, coronary heart disease, or cancer at baseline beginning in 1994. The study followed all participants for up to 11 years for death from all causes and for up to 7 years for death from a specific cause. Participants who consumed 5 or more cups of tea per day had a 16 percent lower risk of all-cause mortality and a 26 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease than participants who consumed less than one cup of tea per day. The study also states, “If green tea does protect humans against CVD or cancer, it is expected that consumption of this beverage would substantially contribute to the prolonging of life expectancy, given that CVD and cancer are the two leading causes of death worldwide.”

A study in the February 2006 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded “A higher consumption of green tea is associated with a lower prevalence of cognitive impairment in humans.”

In May 2006, researchers at Yale University School of Medicine weighed in on the issue with a review article that looked at more than 100 studies on the health benefits of green tea. They pointed to what they called an “Asian paradox,” which refers to lower rates of heart disease and cancer in Asia despite high rates of cigarette smoking. They theorized that the 1.2 liters of green tea that is consumed by many Asians each day provides high levels of polyphenols and other antioxidants. These compounds may work in several ways to improve cardiovascular health, including preventing blood platelets from sticking together (This anticoagulant effect is the reason doctors warn surgical patients to avoid green tea prior to procedures that rely on a patient’s clotting ability) and improving cholesterol levels, said the researchers, whose study appeared in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Specifically, green tea may prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol (the “bad” type), which, in turn, can reduce the buildup of plaque in arteries, the researchers wrote.

A study published in the August 22, 2006 edition of Biological Psychology looked at the modification of the stress response via L-Theanine, a chemical found in green tea. It “suggested that the oral intake of L-Theanine could cause anti-stress effects via the inhibition of cortical neuron excitation.”

In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial done by Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, 240 adults were given either theaflavin-enriched green tea extract in form of 375mg capsule daily or a placebo. After 12 weeks, patients in the tea extract group had significantly less low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and total cholesterol (16.4% and 11.3% lower than baseline, p<0.01) than the placebo group. The author concluded that theaflavin-enriched green tea extract can be used together with other dietary approaches to reduce LDL-C.

A study published in the January, 2005 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded “Daily consumption of tea containing 690 mg catechins for 12 wk reduced body fat, which suggests that the ingestion of catechins might be useful in the prevention and improvement of lifestyle-related diseases, mainly obesity.”

According to a Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine study published in the April 13 2005 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, antioxidants in green tea may prevent and reduce the severity of rheumatoid arthritis. The study examined the effects of green tea polyphenols on collagen-induced arthritis in mice, which is similar to rheumatoid arthritis in humans. In each of three different study groups, the mice given the green tea polyphenols were significantly less likely to develop arthritis. Of the 18 mice that received the green tea, only eight (44 percent) developed arthritis. Among the 18 mice that did not receive the green tea, all but one (94 percent) developed arthritis. In addition, researchers noted that the eight arthritic mice that received the green tea polyphenols developed less severe forms of arthritis.

A German study found that an extract of green tea and hot water (filtered), applied externally to the skin for 10 minutes, three times a day could help people with skin damaged from radiation therapy (after 16-22 days).

A study published in the December 1999 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that “Green tea has thermogenic properties and promotes fat oxidation beyond that explained by its caffeine content per se. The green tea extract may play a role in the control of body composition via sympathetic activation of thermogenesis, fat oxidation, or both.”

In lab tests, EGCG, found in green tea, was found to prevent HIV from attacking T-Cells. However, it is not yet known if this has any effect on humans.

A study in the August, 2003 issue of a new potential application of Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences found that “a new potential application of (–)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate [a component of green tea] in prevention or treatment of inflammatory processes is suggested”.

However, pharmacological and toxicological evidence does indicate that green tea polyphenols can in fact cause oxidative stress and liver toxicity in vivo at certain concentrations.  This would imply that consumers should exercise caution when consuming herbal products produced from concentrated green tea extract. Other evidence presented in the review cautions against the drinking of green tea by pregnant women.

In the normal human life span, there occur lifestyle-related diseases that may be preventable with nontoxic agents. This paper deals with the preventive activity of green tea in some lifestyle-related diseases. Green tea is one of the most practical cancer preventives, as we have shown in various in vitro and in vivo experiments, along with epidemiological studies. Among various biological effects of green tea, we have focused on its inhibitory effect on TNF- gene expression mediated through inhibition of NF-B and AP-1 activation.

Based on our recent results with TNF–deficient mice, TNF- is an endogenous tumor promoter. TNF- is also known to be a central mediator in chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. We therefore hypothesized that green tea might be a preventive agent for chronic inflammatory diseases. To test this hypothesis, TNF- transgenic mice, which overexpress TNF- only in the lungs, were examined. The TNF- transgenic mouse is an animal model of human idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis which also frequently develops lung cancer. Expressions of TNF- and IL-6 were inhibited in the lungs of these mice after treatment with green tea in drinking water for 4 months. In addition, judging from the results of a prospective cohort study in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, green tea helps to prevent cardiovascular disease. In this study, a decreased relative risk of death from cardiovascular disease was found for people consuming over 10 cups of green tea a day, and green tea also had life-prolonging effects on cumulative survival. These data suggest that green tea has preventive effects on both chronic inflammatory diseases and lifestyle-related diseases (including cardiovascular disease and cancer), resulting in prolongation of life span.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2003) — Green tea’s ability to fight cancer is even more potent and varied than scientists suspected, say researchers who have discovered that chemicals in green tea shut down one of the key molecules that tobacco relies upon to cause cancer. It’s a find that could help explain why people who drink green tea are less likely to develop cancer. The finding by scientists at the University of Rochester’s Environmental Health Science Center appears in the July 21 issue of Chemical Research in Toxicology, published by the American Chemical Society.

The team isolated the chemicals that make up green tea and found two that inhibit AH activity. The two substances, epigallocatechingallate (EGCG) and epigallocatechin (EGC), are close molecular cousins to other flavonoids found in broccoli, cabbage, grapes and red wine that are known to help prevent cancer.

While green tea has been much-ballyhooed for its anti-cancer effects as well as other purported abilities such as preventing rheumatoid arthritis and lowering cholesterol, just how the substance works has been a mystery. Scientists do know that green tea contains chemicals that are anti-oxidants and quench harmful molecules. But its effects on the AH receptor have not been thoroughly evaluated until now.

“It’s likely that the compounds in green tea act through many different pathways,” says Gasiewicz, professor and chair of Environmental Medicine and director of Rochester’s Environmental Health Science Center. “Green tea may work differently than we thought to exert its anti-cancer activity.”

Gasiewicz and Palermo showed that the chemicals shut down the AH receptor in cancerous mouse cells, and early results indicate the same is true in human cells as well.

In the laboratory the AH-inhibiting effects of green tea become evident when EGCG and EGC reach levels typical of those found in a cup of green tea. But the scientists say that how green tea is metabolized by the body is crucial to its effectiveness, and that results in the laboratory don’t necessarily translate directly to the dinner table.

“Right now we don’t know if drinking the amount of green tea that a person normally drinks would make a difference, but the work is giving us insight into how the proteins work,” says Palermo, who enjoys cold green tea herself. “There are a lot of differences between various kinds of green tea, so a lot more research is needed.”

Generally, 2.25 grams of tea per 6 ounces of water, or about one teaspoon of green tea per cup, should be used. With very high quality teas like gyokuro, more than this amount of leaf is used, and the leaf is steeped multiple times for short durations.

Green tea brewing time and temperature varies with individual teas. The hottest brewing temperatures are 180°F to 190°F (82°C to 88°C) water and the longest steeping times 2 to 3 minutes. The coolest brewing temperatures are 140°F to 150°F (60°C to 66°C) and the shortest times about 30 seconds. In general, lower quality green teas are steeped hotter and longer, while higher quality teas are steeped cooler and shorter. Tea Masters living in China nowadays say that boiling water must be used all the time even with green teas due to the fact that high quality leaves can handle higher temperatures very well. Steeping green tea too hot or too long will result in a bitter, astringent brew for low quality leaves. High quality green teas can be and usually are steeped multiple times; 2 or 3 steepings is typical. The brewing technique also plays a very important role to avoid the tea develop an overcooked taste. If a tea claims to be high grade but the vendor instructions says that boiling water mustn`t be used then there is a chance that the tea is not so high grade.