Green tea is one of the better known ‘healthy things’ being talk of health and fitness bloggers, the famous and health magazines for sometime now.
Now I’ll say outright, its probably IS good for you (or a least neutral as far as your health goes). It’s calorie free for all intents and purposes, it’s refreshing, hydrating and lower caffiene than coffee, all of which makes it ideal for mid-afternoon work breaks.
But one of the more widely reported reasons which people drink green tea is that it is supposed to help with fat loss….. let’s look at that.
The reason which green tead may help with fat loss is due to the caffeine and the chemicals known as catechins contained within it, but the dose required to get any kind of effect at all of the catechins is really, really high.
So high, in fact, that the only way to realistically get any kind of therapeutic effect is to supplement with a pure, isolated green tea extract. Drinking the drink itself in amounts which are realistic for anyone but the most ardent of tea aficionados is all but useless for fat loss..
So there’s that.
This is where it gets all a little more interesting(if you’re in to this kind of thing). A lot of research into green tea extract has reported a statistically amount more fat lost in the GTE group than a control or a placebo, which is cool, but here’s where you need to know a thing or two about research.
What this means is that the loss seen in the GTE group was larger than the control group, and that the amount of loss was incredibly unlikely to have been a fluke. If two people do the exact same thing for fat loss: same deficit in calories, same training, same foods, one of them will STILL see a greater amount of fat loss than the other – that’s just the way it goes!!!
But using some really clever maths, scientists can factor in this little inconvenience and see if the results are ‘significant’ or not.
Statistical significance is not clinical significance, however.
The amount of difference is typically less than a kilo of fat loss over an extended period. That’s the equivalent of a miniscule amount of extra fat lost per week,or a large bowel movement. There’s significant amount more weight lost as far as science goes, but when it comes to the endpoint we actually care about, ……
“Will this help me to get lean faster?”
Well…..
One review of all relevant literature concluded that “Green tea or green tea extracts intake or its extracts exerts no statistically significant effect on the weight of overweight or obese adults. There is a small effect on the decrease in the percentage of fat mass, but it is not clinically relevant.”
Bottom line ladies….Save your money. Eat 50 fewer calories per day and get the same effect.
I’ll stick to Tetley’s
-Louise
Fitness & Nutrition Coach
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Let me know if you ever have any questions.
Have a GREAT week
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