Grapefruit and green tea are two foods associated with good nutrition. Grapefruit is noted for its health benefits, including its high antioxidant content, heart health support, blood sugar management aid, weight loss promotion, and better brain function promotion.
Meanwhile, green tea’s benefits include a high level of healthy bioactive compound content and fat-burning properties, as well as associations with improvement of brain function, cancer risk reduction, protection from aging, bad breath reduction, weight loss promotion, prevention of type 2 diabetes, and prevention of cardiovascular disease. You can learn more about the goodness of green tea here.
There is no doubt that grapefruit and green tea are very wholesome to consume. Including these two in a daily diet could only produce good results, health-wise. However, many are particularly intrigued by their weight-loss promotion abilities. Can grapefruit and green tea make it easier or faster for a person to lose weight?
How does grapefruit promote weight loss?
When it comes to its weight loss association, grapefruit supposedly has fat-burning enzymes that allow those who follow a grapefruit diet to lose as much as 10 lbs in 12 days. Naringenin, the flavonoid in question, has been found to balance out blood sugar levels, helping prevent metabolic syndrome, a pre-diabetic condition linked to weight accumulation in the waist area.
Research conducted by scientists at the University of Western Ontario found that naringenin programs the liver to burn instead of store excess fat. Additionally, a study done at the University of California showed that obese people who drank grapefruit juice before every meal in the span of three months lost 3.5 to 10 lbs in this duration.
How does green tea promote weight loss?
Green tea is said to have fat-absorption-blocking, fat-burning, and metabolism-boosting properties. According to research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it can speed up the body’s cellular energy-burning rate by up to 40 percent. Another study found that combining flavonoids and caffeine in green tea increases the body’s fat-burning rate.
What is the grapefruit green tea diet?
There is the grapefruit diet, which has several versions. Some guidelines indicate no more than 800 calories a day; others have no such specification. Nonetheless, the common denominators are that it’s low in carbs and calories but high in protein, and that there should be grapefruit or grapefruit juice with every meal.
On the other hand, the green tea diet involves incorporating the green tea habit into an existing diet plan to make it even more effective. Basically, the original green tea diet consists of drinking green tea several times a day for about 17 days.
The diets have a prescribed period for sustaining them, but if people want to continue drinking green tea and grapefruit juice or eating grapefruit after them, that wouldn’t be a problem. Both are healthy food items that could only benefit a person’s wellbeing.
With the reported effectiveness of both grapefruit and green tea as weight loss agents, some people had the idea of combining these two elements in one diet for even better potency. Some consume grapefruit and green tea separately throughout the day, while others choose to concoct a blended, nutrition-packed drink: grapefruit green tea. Making it consists of correctly brewing the green tea (you can check out instructions here) and then adding grapefruit juice or an actual fruit, plus sugar to taste.
Grapefruit and green tea have no reported adverse interactions between them, so the safety of combining the two ingredients is not in question at this time. Nevertheless, there have been studies on the effect of naringin, the flavonoid abundant in grapefruit skin, taken in conjunction with caffeine, which green tea does have, even if at much lower levels than other caffeinated drinks. The concern was that the combination would have metabolic and cardiovascular effects, but the eventual conclusion was that naringin doesn’t significantly change caffeine metabolism.
Do grapefruit and green tea have contraindications?
It is said that too much of anything can be detrimental; this applies to good things as well. For example, if you have too much grapefruit, you could end up with gastrointestinal issues due to the high vitamin C content. Exceeding the recommended daily intake could lead to tissue damage.
The fruit, its juice, and essential oils also happen to have contraindications. For instance, it shouldn’t be consumed while taking certain medications like blood thinners, antihistamines, anxiety medications, cholesterol-lowering statins, heart rhythm drugs, high blood pressure medications, organ transplant drugs, and some corticosteroids. These have the CYP3A4 enzyme, which grapefruit blocks, rendering any medication carrying it ineffective.
Meanwhile, the general recommendation for green tea is no more than eight cups a day. This is because large amounts of the drink could mean an exceptionally high caffeine intake, resulting in a headache and an irregular heartbeat. Besides this, green tea also has a chemical that, in high doses, has been associated with liver injury.
Final Thoughts
Grapefruit and green tea, individually and together, are beneficial to health and helpful to weight loss efforts. However, it’s paramount to keep in mind that going overboard and consuming too much could have some negative effects. As with most things, moderation is obviously key.
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About the author
Kei Nishida
Author, CEO Dream of Japan
Certification: PMP, BS in Computer Science
Education: Western Washington University
Kei Nishida is a Japanese green tea enthusiast, a writer, and the founder and CEO of Japanese Green Tea Co., a Dream of Japan Company. His passion for introducing America to the tea of his homeland was the catalyst for creating the only company that brings high-quality tea from Arahataen Green Tea Farms to the rest of the world. Learn more about Kei
