Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Green Tea Dieting, A winning combination!

Dieting can be a tricky business for any one who is looking to loose weight for the good of their body. Some prefer to curtail the intake of normal food items while others take help from additional supplements to fulfill the body’s dietary requirements.
As many of us may be aware, green tea can prove to be a useful means of dieting.

Health Benefits

Green Tea helps to decrease unnecessary cholesterol levels and can also actually help increase useful Cholesterol (HDL) in the body. Green Tea also decreases fatty triglycerides.

Where on the one hand Green Tea increases antioxidant and anti-cancer agents’ levels in the body, on the other hand regular use has proven to boost immune strength as well as bringing about weight loss. According to reports Green Tea contains 50 times more strength than Vitamin E and C! Certain studies have also proved that drinking a cup of green tea, every day for one year can cause a visible weight loss of up to 5 pounds.

How Much

To a good degree of surety, it can be safely said that you can drink as much green tea as you want. People are known to drink as much as 20 cups if Green Tea a day without any side effects! Once you select a decaffeinated version you do not decrease the benefits to dieting.

Preparing green Tea at home

The method of preparation has profound effects on the effectiveness of Green Tea. Smaller Tealeaves have better infusion and is cooked faster. Many dieters often use Tea bags, even though loose leaves are recommended. To get the maximum out of tea bags in the longer run, they should be immersed on a continuous basis to extract maximum amounts of Polyphenols, which contain a high concentration of antioxidants and other health benefits.


When tealeaves are used, they should be completely immersed in hot water and not left floating on top. Short time durations leads to higher caffeine levels and low Polyphenols.
Hence higher steeping times should be used to increase Polyphenols producing the best results.

Lastly, once any kind of sweetener is added to Green Tea, It totally kills off the whole dieting benefit of Green Tea. Be it Honey or normal sugar; do not drink sweetened green tea! However, if your taste buds cannot accept the bitterness in any way, as a last resort go for the Herbal replacement Stevia!

No comments: