Green tea for metabolism and weight loss? Forget about it
A lot of supplement makers are cashing in on the idea that the EGCG in green tea will boost your metabolism and cause weight loss. Some claim you don't even have to diet or exercise.
However, they are all basing this claim on a tiny study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that involved only
10 men that took a test mixture of EGCG and CAFFEINE (not egcg alone). The test was only done for 24 hours and it showed a small increase in energy expenditure (4%). There were no tests done to show actual weight loss, and it is not known if the increase would be sustained if followed more than one day. So the most you can hope for is a 4% increase, which would be such a small amount that you would probably never notice, anyway. I'd hold off on putting much faith into this until some major medical establishment shows data proving it works.
In the mean time, like SuchAPrettyFace mentioned, green tea does contain antioxidants which are good for many other things, and it can't hurt to drink it
I've heard that the powdered or finely ground (dusty) teas usually found in supermarkets do not contain as much of the good stuff as the whole leaf teas, so the quality of the product makes a difference in the health benefits. I don't know if that is true or not. I buy tea from
www.adagio.com . I love the flavored and the regular teas.
green tea...
and a half teaspoon of honey is only 7-8 calories if you need a little sweet. One thing you should know about green tea as opposed to Liptons type tea, use almost boiling water and only steep a couple minutes. If you use water that's boiling very hard and let it sit for a long time it can get bitter.
