You’ve probably heard that green tea burns fat.

If you’ve ever wondered if the fat burning benefits of green tea are real, you’re in the right place!

As green tea has grown in popularity in Western culture, more and more health benefits of this amazing drink have been confirmed to be true. These include brain boosting properties and lowered disease risks. But one of the most popular health benefits being touted for green tea is its fat burning ability. In this article, we will separate fact from fiction regarding this popular beverage.

Facts:

While green tea does not have superpowers abilities of melting fat off your body, there are scientific reasons behind why this drink does, in fact, support weight loss and fat burning.

Green Tea Increases Thermogenesis

Thermogenesis is the production of heat inside your body. This process increases the energy (calories) expended by your body. The increase of energy results in more fat oxidation, which means your body is burning up fat for the purpose of energy. This effect is not only beneficial for weight loss, but it’s also useful for regulating already healthy weight levels.

Green Tea Contains Caffeine

Caffeine is one of the most studied stimulants in existence. It increases your Epinephrine blood levels – this sends signals to your brain to break down fat cells, making them available as energy for your body. It also increases your metabolism, meaning that your bodily processes require a bit more energy. The result is more fat being burned and used by your body.

Green Tea Has Very Low Calories

Think before you reach for that honey or sugar the next time you drink your green tea. Without additives, green tea only has about 2 calories per cup. This makes it a great alternative to plain water because you’re getting the antioxidant and flavanol benefits of green tea that water does not have. Also, it adds a nice taste. When you pass on the sweetener, the fat burning properties of green tea can really shine.

EGCG (Epigallocatechin Gallate)

EGCG is one of the many touted antioxidants, or catechins, found in green tea. EGCG is known to boost metabolism through increased fat oxidation, which is literally the ‘burning’ of fat.

Appetite Suppressant

The easiest way to lose weight? Consume less food. But that’s easier said than done for most of us. Catechins (like EGCG mentioned above) have metabolism increasing benefits. On top of that, they’ve also been shown in studies to have some appetite suppressant benefits. These appetite suppressant benefits are likely related to the increased fat burning that occurs after consuming green tea.

Increases Visceral Fat Burning

We humans have two types of fat in our bodies – subcutaneous and visceral. Subcutaneous is the kind that builds up under our skin – think of the fat in our legs, arms, etc. The other kind – which is also the more dangerous kind – is known as visceral fat. Visceral fat is the fat stored in our belly, and around our organs. Visceral fat is linked to all sorts of health problems, like inflammation and insulin resistance, as well as increased cholesterol. Studies have shown that a significant portion of the fat burned after drinking green tea is visceral fat. This is great news, especially for those trying to lose weight while fighting off diseases and inflammation.

Fiction:

Although there are many scientifically proven benefits, green tea is not a miracle cure. Here are a few of the common misconceptions regarding green tea.

If You Drink Green Tea, You Will Lose Weight

If only it were so simple. While green tea has many aspects that are beneficial to weight loss, it will not fix a bad diet or other poor lifestyle choices. You can’t expect to lose weight if you drink the occasional green tea but still sit around all the time, while eating pizzas and burgers. Green tea alone will not make you lose weight. But, combined with a healthy diet and consistent exercise/activity, green tea can definitely assist your efforts.

Green Tea Burns Fat

The problem with the phrase ‘burns fat’ is that many people take it too literally. When we hear ‘Green tea burns fat,’ some people think that simply drinking it will cause your body to start burning away fat. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Green tea naturally enhances the ‘fat burning’ process, if other conditions are met.

Choosing To Drink Green Tea Over Taking Tea Supplements

Thanks to a Western diet full of processed, chemically altered foods, and other generally nasty stuff found in our food, many people turn to supplements as a way to consume whatever vitamin or mineral they are lacking in. With the rise of popularity in drinking green tea, it’s no surprise green tea supplements have become popular too. Specifically, ‘green tea extracts’.

But is taking green tea supplements just as effective as drinking green tea? Scientists aren’t so sure. The main reason that real, fresh-brewed green tea is preferred over supplement form is synergy. Of course, these green tea supplements do have a few beneficial ingredients. But hardly any contain all of the antioxidants, catechins, and other helpful ingredients that real tea does.

More and more studies show that these ingredients work best when taken together – they work synergistically to increase each other’s effectiveness. Not only does this help with the weight loss, it also helps increase the cancer and disease fighting benefits of green tea.

Bottom Line

Green tea is a proven health booster and should be an integral part of any well-balanced diet. But it’s important to remember that green tea alone is not a miracle fat-burning or weight loss drug. On the other hand, if combined with smart lifestyle choices like a good diet and exercise plan, it can go a long way towards helping you reach your goals.

16 Nov 2016

Jack Fleming

Guest Blog Posts, Vegan Fitness

Tags: active lifestyle, fitness, healthy lifestyle, healthy living, treadmill desk, vegan fitness

3 Comments

5 Advantages of Using a Desk Treadmill at Workplace

Many people who were used to working while sitting all day long have now adopted the use of a treadmill desk, and the adoption rate is increasing day after day.

A treadmill or a standing desk can make you healthy by limiting your sedentary way of life. With the number of Americans today who are spending around 9 hours sitting, the prevalence of certain cancers, diabetes, and other kinds of health disorders continues to escalate each year.

That is merely the start. There are lots of advantages of working while on a treadmill desk. Here are at least five of them:

You Are Far Away From Sitting Diseases and Pains

Sitting disease, in other words, is a winding down of the metabolism that happens when a person sits for a long period of time. The lowering of the basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the most direct consequence of this. Assume that it is your heart rate when you sitting still. You burn lesser calories just to keep your vital organs working, exercising your brain cells, etc.

By standing, you can significantly increase your body’s BMR since the heart needs to work harder to keep your body erect. Slowly walking at a pace of one to two mph will raise the BMR even further, and with that, your background calorie burns. You can estimate such burn rate at around 100 to 130/hour.

It Reduces Stress and Increases Productivity

Exercising regularly can help improve your mood and lessen anxiety through the release of the brain of endorphins to the body. The endorphins can lessen your sensitivity to pain and stimulate a positive feeling to your body. When using the treadmill desk, you are already able to exercise on a regular basis.

Apart from that, a study also concluded that the performance of employees while using a treadmill desk did not decline after an initial, short adjustment on its use. As a matter of fact, it was found out that the overall health and productivity of employees have improved. Stating that mental performance, time management, and work quality all improved when the employees use the treadmill desk.

Calories Are Burnt and Results in Healthy Body Weight

Like any other kinds of exercise, walking burns calories. Although not as many calories as biking or running burns, but walking still needs energy and thus offers a calorie burn. For losing weight, increasing the level of intensity, increasing walking or incline level for longer periods will burn lots of calories. However, when utilizing desk treadmill workstation for the first time, you should start gradually and slowly increase your speed as well as walking duration after several weeks. desk-treadmill-2

Improves Fitness, Health, and Creativity

Studies show that engaging in exercise enhances health and fitness, and is directly connected to connectivity. The study even found evidence that using a treadmill desk at a workplace can enhance memory and increase creative thinking. It may also help the brain to work better by boosting the functional connectivity among the areas in the brain.

Maintains Blood Pressure and Reduces Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

We all know that walking can help improve blood flow which in turn lessens blood pressure. According to also to studies, people with hypertension have lower bp readings for around 22 hours after a session of working on a treadmill desk. This effect is also beneficial to those who are suffering from type 2 diabetes. Through the use of the desk treadmill, there are able to exercise and that helps reduce the levels of blood glucose and which will help them avoid long-term complications later on.

In addition to these 5 advantages, using desk treadmill at workplace also promotes a healthy lifestyle. Many users are reported to obtain moderate weight loss as an outcome of this new routine. Crash exercise programs and crash diets can give negative effects hence a very slow weight loss rate is really an ideal thing to aspire. The main objective of using a desk treadmill should not, however, be losing weight but instead the prevention and reversal of sitting diseases.

– Jack

21 Sep 2015

Ella Magers, MSW

Vegan-Related Books & Documentaries

Tags: documentary, healthy living, vegan film, vegan health

PlantPure Nation Documentary Review

I was thrilled when I learned I had an opportunity to go to a screening of the new documentary about plant-based eating, PlantPure Nation.

When I learned that PlantPure Nation was being brought to us by the same producers as Forks Over Knives (2011) I was especially excited to check it out. (If you haven’t seen Forks Over Knives, read my review HERE!)

The documentary is narrated by Nelson Campbell, son of renowned nutrition researcher and co-author of the best-seller The China Study, Dr. T Colin Campbell. The film basically picks up where Forks Over Knives left off, focusing less on convincing the viewer that a whole foods vegan diet plan is the way to go, and more on how we, the people, need to take the initiative and come together to demand our rights when it comes to accessibility of information and availability of fresh, whole plant foods. PlantPure Nation follows the journey of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Nelson Campbell, and Kentucky State Senator Tom Riner as they work tirelessly to start a grassroots movement as well as pass legislation that will bring awareness of the benefits of a plant-based diet to the public eye.

During the course of the film, you go on the road with Nelson as he leads pilot 10-day “jumpstarts” starting in the unlikely small town of Mebane, NC, where Southern charm and barbeque make up the culture. Here he manages to gather 16 participants who receive education, medical exams, and prepared fresh vegan meals for a 10-day period. As you witnessed in Forks Over Knives, the participants were overwhelmed with the results after the ten days when their total and bad (LDL) cholesterol dropped by an average of 20%.

PlantPure Nation also emphasises the role of the medical community, featuring several doctors who testify to the fact that nutrition is hardly a part of their education or professional development at all. They are trained to write prescriptions for drugs. One doctor even threw out the idea that it would be legitimate if one day, it would be considered malpractice for doctors to NOT educate their patients about how a whole foods, plant-based diet can prevent, treat, and often reverse chronic conditions and disease.

This documentary is both powerful and informative. For people like me with a short attention span, Nelson speaks a bit on the slow side, but I believe this is necessary to clearly get his points across, especially to those hearing the information for the first time. You spend a large part of the movie inside the offices of politicians and inside governmental walls, so be prepared to learn a great deal about the legislative process which can be a bit tedious, though vital in order to further grassroots efforts to make change.

The take-home message is that we have the power to create a movement and revolutionize our health care system and save both our own lives and the lives of people in the U.S. and all over the world. PlantPure Nation is not just a movie, it’s a movement… a movement with structure. They have started something called “PlantPure Pods” which are being formed on the local level all over the country. The Pods are groups of people coming together to bring awareness and start positive change within their communities.

You can join your local Pod HERE. I did… join me!

Tag Archives: healthy living

Green Tea’s Fat Burning Abilities: Analyzing Facts vs. Fiction