Personal Trainer Tips: Green Tea Boosts Fat Burning

After water, tea is the most commonly consumed beverage in the world. Traditional Chinese medicine has reported the benefits of green tea for hundreds of years. Recently, the Western world has also started taking an interest in green tea and studies are being conducted to elucidate its health benefits, including fat loss.

One such study is a meta-analysis conducted by seven scientists from Maastricht University, Netherlands, which was published in Obesity Reviews. The aim of the analysis was to inquire whether catechin-caffeine mixtures and caffeine-only supplementation increase thermogenesis and fat oxidation. In simple terms, the study aimed to investigate the fat burning effects of green tea.

Green tea contains two important chemicals that have fat-burning properties: caffeine and catechins. Caffeine raises the concentration of pep hormones in our body, which makes our cells react better to hormones. As a result, fat cells release their content into our bloodstream much faster, and the energy expenditure of our  muscles and organs increases. Catechins bolster the effect of caffeine by constraining the enzyme COMT, which normally breaks down pep hormones, and activating the enzyme hormone-sensitive lipase, which cuts up fats in free fatty acids. In short, caffeine and catechins increase the total amount of energy used up by our bodies and stimulate the fat burning process.

The study showed that every milligram of a mixture of caffeine and green-tea catechins boosts the amount of fat burnt daily by 0.02 g, and every milligram of pure caffeine increments fat burning by 0.01 g per day. As green tea contains caffeine and catechins, its consumption significantly raises the amount of fat burnt by our bodies. It is thus a very useful and healthy beverage, especially for those looking to lose excess fat.

Our personal trainers recommend:

• Supplementing 1-3cups of green tea per day to augment fat loss.
• Use as a pick-me-up and appetite reducer.
• Make sure your calories are already in order. You can’t lose fat if you are eating too much!

Link to Original Study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21366839