Burn that Fat: 7.7% off waistline!
Juan Carreño de Miranda, La monstrua desnuda, 1680
Over-weigh problems even in children is not a new issue. A healthy tea habit, that without sugar or milk, is much needed to develop early on, all the more so for adults.
Tea to reduce fat: the making that makes the difference
Secondly, the USDA uses a 1g tealeaves to 100ml water standard ratio. This is different from the international infusion standard (5) for tasting, which is approx 2.8g/150ml. We’d make it 3g for fine green tea, as we recommend in the ‘On Measurement’ chapter. This will give you a better cup of tea (if your tealeaves is of fine quality and if you follow the infusion measurement). This gives you in effect 200% the amount of catechins listed by USDA, and a lot more great substances from tea, such as theanine and amino acids, for the synergic salutary effects and better taste.
This does not mean, however, that you can meet that requirement by drinking only 1 cup of tea made that way. Remember they drank daily 625mg of catechins in total?(6) The ‘mean’ total catechin content listed by USDA is only 189 mg/150ml cup. 3 nicely prepared ones (i.e. 3g/cup) is minimum daily consumption, so we consider (7). If you prefer the lighter style infusion of 1g/100ml, we agree with the suggestion of 6 cups by some health professionals. This also conforms with the UK advice of safety daily caffeine intake for pregnant women.
Green not your cup of tea?
The beautiful infusion colour of a fine Golden Tip Puer as reflected in 3 strengths.
As of late, there have been tales of celebrities such as Joss Stone and Victoria Beckham in weight control success through drinking Puer teas. I am not sure if there is any exaggeration by the media, but controlling obesity with tea is not new and has been a topic of scientific research for decades. However, Puer in general has less catechins (8) — in particular EGCG — that is responsible for the ridding the extra fats in most experiments. Fine green teas are always the most efficient ones in providing the most EGCG. Having said that, Puer is the defacto tea in dim sum restaurants throughout Hong Kong where greasy dishes are served and the tea, however low quality it is in the restaurants. It has always been there to help down the devilish mussels, and men in HK live the longest average life on earth, women second only to those in Japan.
We are still quite ignorant of the exact biochemistry of this unique category of tea. Some studies show that the overall tea polyphenols content in the post-fermented tea is actually higher than in the green leaves. Before more studies are published, however, it is still a great alternative to green tea.
I think it is the more neutral TCM character of Puer that’s making it work. This neutrality allows the drinker to consume the tea anytime in any occasion with any food. This consistency in tea intake allows the weight watcher long term success. As discussed in the TCM chapters, the cooling character of green tea may upset the weaker stomach, women during menstruation, etc. It would be beneficial if the reader is diligent enough to maintain a repertoire of tea selections for consumption to suit different body needs, but not all people can do that. The easier tea to upkeep, although less effective, therefore, becomes an easy choice.
On this note, charcoal style oolongs, such as classic style Phoenix, charcoal style Tieguanyin, traditional Wuyi, are also more neutral tea varieties. Zhenghe White Peony, slightly on the cool side, has the additional benefits of being a white tea and a lot more EGCG. It is an easy tea, and in my opinion a great all time tea, and much more affordable than fine oolongs or Puers.
If you use entirely oolongs, we recommend 6 cups at the 3g/150ml daily intake. For Puer users 6 cups at 1g/100ml is fine (9). However, I have heard certain scholars referring to the experience of Tibetan people where they boil their version of puer tea to great concentration for the soluble fibres that help the passage of extra grease and the bowel ( read below ).
Have we made it a lot more complicated than those other infomercials or news reports you have read? That is because we want it to be realistic. We hope you enjoy your way to a healthy figure. Remember to use teas that you like to drink and the best quality that you can access.
Extra: Ridding fat through defecation
Rats with tea catechins in their diet have 24% less belly fat than those without
Scientists have found three major ways tea catechins helps the body to fight fat, namely more effective metabolism, reducing absorption, and ridding the excess through defecation.
In an interesting experiment in Japan(10), two groups of rats were fed the same kind of diet, but only one group with tea catechins. In 4 weeks, the body weight of the tea group was on average 8% less. Now they ate the same kind of food and had the same unrestricted activities, where did the extra weight go? The scientists examined the feces and found that not only did the tea group pass out 89% more solid, but the LDL level in their blood is much less and almost only half of that in the liver compared to the non-tea group. A lot of those ended up in the extra excrements. What is more important to weight watchers is that the weight of belly fat in this tea group is 24% less than the non-tea group!
Reducing the waistline for health is actually not as significant as reducing fat in the blood and the liver. Findings show marked lowering of these on increased consumption of tea catechins in the form of tea in the human. This is the real good news. We’ll go into details later.
