Tea Weight Loss
Does It Work?

With scientists discovering new green tea benefits almost every other week, even the big boys are jumping on the bandwagon.

Coca-cola is launching green tea energy drink Enviga, which is said to have not low, not zero, but negative calories.

Lipton is following suit.

Pepsi-cola is introducing a fortified fruit drink with added chromium, a mineral claimed to boost metabolism and weight loss.

On the other hand, several companies are facing fines for false advertising when selling over-the-counter weight loss products with unsubstantiated health benefits.

Who is right?

It has been found that green tea and oolong tea promote weight loss in several ways:

• Increase metabolism

• Burn fat

• Block dietary fat absorption

• Prevent fat storage

• Reduce blood level triglyceride, the most common form of chemical fat exists in our body.

Many of the findings come from animal studies and may not translate to weight loss in humans.

For example, higher metabolism may be offset by higher food intake. If green tea and oolong tea help burn more energy and fat, we would expect less fat on regular drinkers.

A medium scale Taiwanese study provides the best evidence yet that green tea and oolong tea help lose weight.

1,103 participated in the study for over 10 years. Researchers found that long term regular drinkers of green tea and oolong tea have significantly less fat.

The study found that it is not just the amount you drink; the longer you drink, the more evident the tea weight loss effect.

Three compounds are responsible for weight loss: catechins (mainly epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG), theanine and caffeine.

Could tea weight loss effect be due to its caffeine and not the other tea compounds?

Another Taiwanese study discovered that this is not the case; tea compounds burn fat more effectively than caffeine.

The same study also found that oolong tea burns an extra 67 calories a day. This is often taken as proof that oolong tea helps lose weight. 

A tea weight loss study conducted Dr Dulloo in the University of Geneva found that drinking a green tea extract beverage 3 times a day increases energy expenditure by 4%.

Is 4% too small to make any difference?

If you burn 2,000 calories a day, this translates to 80 calories, roughly the same amount of calories in a small banana. It is no magic bullet.

But increasing metabolism is not the only way green tea helps lose weight.

It also promotes fat burning and reduces absorption and storage of fat. The sum total of these actions has not yet been quantified, but is likely to be significant.

The best way to lose weight drinking green tea is to combine it with an exercise regime such as running or swimming.

Two studies conducted by Kao Corporation in Japan found that green tea diet and exercise complement each other.

Drinking green tea improves endurance performance by up to 24%. Combining green tea and exercise reduces weight gain by 90%!

A Japanese tea weight loss study found that oolong tea burns more energy than green tea.

This study, consisting of only 11 healthy Japanese females aged around 20 years, is too small to be conclusive.

Even if oolong tea does burn more energy than green tea, it may not help lose more weight.

Tea promotes weight loss in a number of ways: higher fat burning, lower absorption and storage of fat, not just higher metabolism.

No population study has found that oolong tea produces greater weight loss than green tea over the long term.

Which type of tea is healthier is still largely a matter of personal taste.

These tea weight loss studies are by no means conclusive, but they are decent evidence that green tea and oolong tea help lose weight, especially when taken regularly over long term.

Just drinking green tea or oolong tea alone probably won't help you lose weight quickly, but in combination with an exercise program, and as a healthy supplement, they are perfect.

Green tea is SO healthy. And a high grade loose-leaf is such a joy to drink. At the end of the day, nothing can be more important than being healthy and enjoying the simple pleasure of life.

Do you speak Spanish? Written by my friend Michelle, Dietas-Ejercicios.com contains lot of great information on weightloss, diets and exercises. Well worth a visit.

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