Can Green Tea Help you Lose Weight?

Most weight loss plans today use low calorie diets. While decreasing your caloric intake is a key to losing weight, a little caution is advised. With lowered calories going in, there is less energy for your cells. This can cause your body to slow your metabolism down so that your cells can survive on fewer calories. You can counteract this by doing things like exercising, using saunas to increase your body temperature and by taking certain supplements like green tea extract. Green tea has been shown to have thermogenic properties. This means it increases heat in your body which can help you to burn more fat.

A study done in 2009 by DiPierro et al showed that by decreasing caloric intake, people definitely lost weight. However when combining the low calorie diet with a green tea extract, people lost 7% more body fat and men lost 14% more around their waistlines. On top of that, their cholesterol, blood sugar and cortisol levels made dramatic improvements. This study used a form of green tea extract that was complexed with phospholipids. All this means is that it was much more absorbable, so may have had an even better impact than green tea extracts that are not complexed with phospholipids.

The bottom line is that green tea extract can help you to burn fat. You can look for a standardized extract or simply start drinking more green tea.