Green Tea and Your Metabolism

This morning as I sat enjoying my grits with garlic and vegan sausage (hey, I AM from the south, y'all!) and sipping my China Green Tips tea, I came across a brief article about revving up the metabolism and a few ways to achieve this. The article listed about six easy ways to do this, mostly tweaking your diet and, of course, exercise. However it was the part about caffeine that caught my attention.

Mostly about coffee, the article, in a wee mention in that section, casually mentioned that if one was not fond of coffee, a good substitute was green tea. The salient point was this: while green tea has about one-third the caffeine as coffee, other metabolically active substances, called catechins, compound the actions of the caffeine. "Caffeine activates metabolic pathways that release stored body fat from your fat cells into your bloodstream," says Paul Arciero, PhD.

To get the most benefit and the strongest fat burning effects from the caffeine in your green tea, drink when your body doesn't have much caffeine in its system, and without milk or sugar added (they negate the effects). Drink one cup in the morning and one in the afternoon, to get separate spikes. Don't overdo it; your body can build a tolerance after too many cups, and thwarts the calorie burning benefits.

So a nice hot cuppa in the morning, and then another later in the day (afternoon tea, anyone?) will not only soothe your soul, but will additionally help you rev up your metabolism! Win-win!