Japanese Green Tea For Diet: Benefits & Science

 

Japanese Green Tea For Diet: Benefits & Science

Today's consumers may be more health-conscious than ever before. And they're putting the knowledge they've gained to good use by monitoring their sleep, exercising, and paying close attention to their diet. That includes consuming foods and drinks with nutritional benefits—including green tea! That's why, in this post, we'll tell you all about green tea for diet and the benefits and science behind green tea consumption.

Let's talk more about exactly how green tea benefits diet efforts and the science behind these benefits.

Japanese Green Tea Contains Less Than 2 Calories A Cup

Is losing weight your healthy lifestyle goal? Japanese green tea may be able to help.

Premium-quality green tea contains tons of beneficial ingredients to support your weight loss program and contains no artificial colors or preservatives. Calorie counters can rest easy knowing a cup of plain green tea contains less than two calories.

Consumers should be aware, however, that adding just one tablespoon of honey and cream to their green tea can boost that calorie count to 86. So, those drinking green tea to lose weight should beware of adding additives to their cup.

Anti-oxidant Element In Green Tea Helps Break Down Fat

Apart from being low in calories, green tea contains a metabolism-boosting antioxidant. It helps block the enzyme that breaks down the hormone used by the nervous system to signal fat cells to break down fat. Better still, this is just one of the ways in which green tea can support your healthy weight loss program.

Chinese Medicinal Classic States Tea Makes You Thin

It seems even early medical practitioners knew of tea's ability to help slim the waistline.

"Drinking tea for a long time makes one thin," says one Chinese medicinal classic, Bencao Shiyi, an early practical guide for clinical diagnosis and drug application.

How much green tea does one need to drink to begin experiencing weight loss?

A study from the University of Maryland Medical Center found that adding as little as 2 to 3 cups of green tea a day to your diet can be beneficial to those drinking the tea to lose weight. That's as simple as having one cup with breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

How To Ensure Optimal Diet Benefits From Green Tea

Consumers should be aware that the number of beneficial compounds in their tea leaves can vary from plant to plant.

One way to ensure a consistently high level of these compounds is to look for tea that has been raised using the traditional Japanese Chagusaba farming method. The Chagusaba farming method produces a Japanese green tea that is especially high in a group of antioxidant flavonols called catechins and is a time-tested method for producing nutrient-rich tea leaves.

Green Tea Element - Catechines And Diet Effect

A 1992 study by Harold Graham showed that roughly 30% of dried tea weight may consist of these catechins.

While these substances can be found in other dietary sources, according to a 2009 Journal of Nutrition study, this unique blend of antioxidant compounds in green tea is especially effective in supporting exercise-induced abdominal fat loss when coupled with a moderate-intensity workout program of at least 180 minutes per week.

Additional benefits were seen in the shrinkage of the total abdominal fat area, the subcutaneous abdominal fat area, and fasting serum triglycerides. The unique flavanol blend in green tea has been shown to be especially effective in this regard.

(Read more about the science of green tea and catechins in this post.)

The flavanols in green tea are also known to have insulin-lowering properties. This is important both to people who have been diagnosed with diabetes and to those who want to lose weight and keep it off successfully.

Fatty acids are absorbed from the bloodstream into fat cells, muscle cells, and liver cells. When insulin stimulates these cells, fatty acids become fat molecules in the body.

More insulin means that more chemical signals in your body are telling your tissues to store fat. By lowering insulin levels, the catechins in green tea can help your body store less fat. This means reaching your weight loss goals more quickly and keeping off the excess weight in the future.

Green Tea Element - Caffeine And Diet Effect

Although green tea has just 35 mg of caffeine, far less than the caffeine found in a single cup of coffee, these low doses can still help green tea drinkers shed pounds by boosting the metabolism and increasing body temperature.

Ingesting caffeine causes the body to release the hormone norepinephrine, which primes the brain and body for action. The heart quickens and the body temperature rises, burning more calories. The body undergoes additional lipolysis, turning fats into more readily available energy sources.

Caffeine And Cathechins Working Together

It's interesting to note that it's really the interaction between the caffeine and catechins that gives green tea its fat-shedding reputation. This is thanks to catechins' ability to inhibit an enzyme that degrades norepinephrine.

Additionally, caffeine can help combat the mental and physical fatigue of exercising, allowing us to work out longer. As a mild diuretic, caffeine can also help dieters lose excess water weight.

Green Tea Element - EGCG And Diet Effect

In addition to the above-mentioned chemical constituents, green tea contains yet another important flavonol, Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).

This compound is shown to increase fat oxidation by 33% for up to two hours after eating. It is this fat oxidation process that takes large fat molecules and breaks them back down into their smaller parts, triglycerides and fatty acids, making their energy more available to the body.

How To Take Most Advantage Of Diet Elements In Green Tea

Since flavonol content can vary from plant to plant and by brewing method, it’s important to know how to select and prepare your green tea to ensure that it contains the maximum dietary benefit possible.

To maximize the amount of pound-shedding potential in your cup of tea:

• Choose a premium-quality green tea farmed using the Chagusaba method. This seems to be the most consistent method of producing tea plants that contain the highest number and quality of fat-busting flavonols.
• Hot water seems to release more catechins into your green tea. Brew your tea in water that is 100 degrees Celsius for the best results.
• Steeping your green tea for too long may unfavorably impact the taste. Steeping for too short a time can mean that you're missing out on important nutrients. For an optimal brew, steep your tea for 3–4 minutes before consuming.

This article was originally posted in 2016 and updated in 2023.

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Below is premium-quality Japanese Diet Pu-Erh tea with all the diet elements mentioned above. It has 1.7 times more diet elements than other teas. Start drinking this daily in the morning to get maximum benefits.

We also introduced Diet Green Tea, which is all-natural green tea in a teabag. This one is for those who prefer the taste of green tea.