Improve your health with green tea dietary supplement

We’ve hinted at the potential link between taking green tea dietary supplements and weight loss in previous posts, so lets take a few minutes to explore the facts of this relationship in a little more detail. There are three main ways that green tea extract could help you to lose weight, which are:

Caffeine increases your metabolic rate

Unless it has been removed, both green tea and green tea dietary supplements contains caffeine, which is a central nervous stimulant that will increase your metabolic rate. This increases your heart rate, burning more calories even in a sedentary position. It also provides energy, which helps you to exercise with more gusto and for longer periods. Caffeine is even suggested for runners to improve their performance! In moderation, it can give you the energy and drive and make it to the gym and work off some pounds, while also increasing the rate that you burn energy.

Green Tea EGCG increases your metabolic rate

The International Journal of Obesity found that the catechins in green tea or green tea dietary supplements, such as green tea EGCG, “significantly decreased body weight and significantly maintained body weight after a period of WL (weight loss)”. They additionally found that caffeine does not inhibit this effect, for a final conclusion that a mixture of green tea EGCG or green tea catechins plus caffeine have a small positive effect on weight loss or weight maintenance.

Caffeine sheds excess water

Caffeine is also a known diuretic, which means that it will make your body get rid of excess water. While this isn’t “true” weight loss in that it’s simply getting rid of your water reserves, it will make you look slimmer very quickly. When people lose weight in the short term, it is generally due to shedding water weight. Note that this is just a cosmetic effect, and doesn’t actual mean that you’re getting fitter, but it sure can help you look nice.

Obviously, you can receive these same benefits from either green tea, or by taking a green tea capsule. However, I suggest the capsule since it saves time, and removes the temptation of adding honey or sugar to your tea, since many people haven’t grown to like the taste of raw tea.

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The best alternative to Green Tea Dietary Supplements is of course to brew your own green tea. You get all the same benefits, plus the process of brewing and drinking tea can be quite relaxing. However, even though it’s very simple to do, most people don’t know how to properly brew green tea, which can reduce the amount of Green Tea Egcg, and make the tea taste terrible.

Select your tea

You truly get what you pay for when you’re buying green tea. Most of the store or discount brands have a terrible taste due to low quality tea leaves and processing. To make great tea, you need great tea leaves. That means buying from a reputable vendor, and getting the freshest tea leaves possible. In general, green tea packaged in tea bag are sub-par and should be avoided. Instead, get whole tea leaves. You can either put them into a teapot with a strainer, or get a simple metal ball to hold the leaves.

Prepare your water

Since green tea is mainly water, the quality of your water is important. If you have good quality tap water, that’s great, and if not, just run it through a simple water filter (like a Brita or Pur). To brew great tea, your water should be about 180 degrees F. Ideally you can reach this temperature by using a thermometer while you heat a pot of water on the stove top. A crude method is to boil water and then let it sit for 2-3 minutes. Remember that boiling water is 212 degrees F, so you want it just a little bit cooler than that.

Brew your green tea

Once you have your water and green tea leaves prepared, you’re ready to brew. It is important here that you only leave the green tea leaves in the hot water for 3-5 minutes, otherwise they will release tannins that can make your tea bitter. This is where most people mess up, and why many people don’t like the taste of green tea (because it’s horrible if done wrong!). There are numerous brewing methods, such as putting the water and green tea leaves in a tea pot, then pouring out the tea after brewed, or dropping a metal ball full of tea leaves into the water and removing after brewed, or the crude but effective method of dropping the green tea leaves into your water heating pot, and then straining out the leaves after brewing.

Enjoy your green tea

Now that you’re done brewing, pour your green tea into a cup or glass and enjoy! Green tea is delicious and should be enjoyed without milk or sugar. If your green tea doesn’t taste good straight, then you probably need to improve your brewing process or get better green tea leaves. If you pay attention, you can sometimes feel the antioxidants coursing through your body and making you healthy!

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