Drink up to slim down – How green tea can help you shed those extra pounds.
Green tea might be best known as the perfect partner to a tuna and avocado sushi roll, but it just so happens to be a potent fat burner loaded in antioxidants too. The popular and oh-so invigorating brew, has a hell of a long history of human consumption and for damn good reason! Truth is, Asian cultures have known about the health and medicinal benefits of green tea since ancient times, using it to treat everything from headaches and depression, to weight loss and detox. So what’s the deal? How can a little leaf juice keep me looking lean? Polyphenols are your answer! And what on earth are polyphenols we hear you ask? Let us explain… Polyphenols are actually phytochemicals, meaning compounds found abundantly in natural plant food sources, which have antioxidant properties. Nifty, right?
Before we go on, you’re about to partake in a simple science lesson so hold on tight. Polyphenols account for a third of the dry weight in green tea leaves and consist predominantly of catechins - a specific type of polyphenol (or plant antioxidant for those of you feeling a little lost), which promotes weight loss. Now, just in case you weren’t confused enough already, the catchins found in green tea can be categorized even further into epicatechin, epicatchin-3-gallate, epigallocatechin, and finally the king of catechins.. epigallocatechin-3-gallate – better known as EGCG. Are you still with us? Majority of the research in the field is focusses on EGCG as the predominant active ingredient in green tea, and the special little substance which keeps your waistline in check.
When it comes to shedding pounds, green tea works through a completely different mechanism than your common weight loss agents, which stimulate sympathetic hormone release and therefore tend to raise heart rate and blood pressure. Instead, the catechins found in the leaning leaf inhibit the enzyme that breaks down norepinephrine so that its biological effects (e.g. increased fat breakdown and increased metabolic rate) are prolonged. And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, it turns out that the wonder leaf may also inhibit the mainenzymes involved in fat storage. For those of you we’ve lost - green tea basically turns you into a fat burning machine.
Now comes the fun part! Green tea extracts such as X50 for example, contain a complex mixture of different antioxidant constituents which act synergistically to exert their full beneficial effects. When it comes to drinking green tea, there can be a great deal of variability in the content of bioactive compounds (including our new friend EGCG). You see it all depends on how the leaves were processed prior to drying, the geographical location they were grown, the growing conditions, preparation methods – the list goes on. Because of these unknowns, supplementing with a standardized green tea extract, high in ECGC, like that found in X50, is a good idea, and to be frank, you’re going to reap far more of the rewards than you would sipping on a cuppa! Plus, each serve of X50 Green Tea Extract has the polyphenol equivalent of up to 20 cups of regular green tea! Impressive, right?
