Which green tea is best for weight loss?

Being obese comes with challenges that prove to be some of the most difficult experiences a person has to go through. Despite the sheer amount of progress, we’ve made as a society, being overweight still remains a sore spot for most of us. While we fully believe that all bodies are worthy and beautiful, improving oneself should never come at a cost…

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Green Tea
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The collective hope of losing weight, becoming fitter, and appearing leaner has given birth to a billion-dollar industry that endorses thousands of weight loss products like slimming capsules, fat burning oil or slimming oil. Some of these which are natural like ayurvedic slimming oil are genuine if clubbed with lifestyle changes but many are useless cash grabs. Their popularity and credibility stem only from the masses’ desire to be “slim & trim”. From expensive gym memberships to restrictive diets, from weight loss drinks to slimming oils and fat burning oils, the level to which one can go just to lose weight is perhaps, endless.

And so, to make the road of improving yourself, achieving fitness, and building confidence a little easier than it poses to be, an extra push is needed. For that very push, we’ve centered today’s blog around a popular weight loss drink i.e. Green Tea for weight loss, cherished all around the world, backed by both modern western medicine as well as the ancient science of Ayurveda. Have we piqued your curiosity? Well, keep reading to find out how drinking some green tea for weight loss can transform your fitness journey completely.

Benefits of Green Tea for Weight Loss

Surely, you’ve heard people go on and on about how amazing green tea is and how its benefits are practically endless. Well, wouldn’t you like to know some of them? Here they are:

• Green Tea improves physical performance - It’s no secret that the human body needs a fair amount of adrenaline to keep functioning. But, a moderate, necessary amount of adrenaline often proves to be a luxury owing to the sedentary lifestyle and poor sleep most people tend to follow. As a result, the body naturally runs low on the energy it so dearly craves. Green tea uses, being a natural and safe source of caffeine, when consumed when feeling low and gloomy, can supply the body with the right amount of energy to get through daily tasks. The intake of caffeine also ensures better workouts and improved capacity for carrying out physically taxing tasks.
• Green Tea boosts heart and brain health - Green tea leaves are jampacked with antioxidants. They prevent internal inflammation and help in calming the brain. This improved state of the body paves the way for efficient functioning and steadily improves movement.
• Green Tea boosts fat burning - Though a lot of people resort to remedies like pills and fat burning oils or slimming oils, simply drinking green tea for weight loss can increase the pace at which one burns fat.
• Green Tea strengthens the metabolism - Owing to the above-mentioned factors, the presence of caffeine from the green tea leaves ensures swift movement with an energized state. Over continued usage, your body becomes used to the caffeine intake and achieves a sort of homeostasis. This constant presence of green tea rapidly improves one’s basal metabolic rate, meaning one can lose weight faster and more efficiently.

How to Prepare Green Tea at Home?

Many different recipes of brewed green tea for weight loss circulate the vast internet, some popular for their surprisingly delicious taste and others for their noticeable health benefits. So, among the myriad of options, recipe-wise, which green tea is best? It’s difficult to crown one version as the holy grail, however, we’re certainly partial to the one below. It’s tasty. It’s nostalgic. It’s an ayurvedic powerhouse sitting in a cup. Try for yourself:

Ingredients: 1 teaspoon dried green tea leaves, ½ teaspoon grated ginger, 1 small crushed cardamom pod, 220 ml water, 1 teaspoon pure honey, and a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 1

Process: In a small saucepan, pour the required quantity of water. To this, add the dried green tea leaves (You can also choose the cardamom-infused blue nectar green tea for weight loss), grated ginger, and crushed cardamom (you may add other spices and herbs like black pepper, cloves, fennel, cinnamon, tulsi, etc.) Place the utensil on the stove and turn on the heat. Let the brewing concoction boil for 7-8 minutes on high heat. Using a metal sieve, strain the liquid into a tea cup and use the solid tea leaves for compost. Into your brewed tea, add your honey for a sweeter, more palatable experience. We also recommend a small squeeze of lemon to bring out the depth of the tea with its tart freshness. Serve and sip while hot.

Other Green Tea Uses

While the most popular way to use green tea has, does, and will continue to remain its consumption in the beverage form, there certainly are other ways (unrelated to weight loss) to use this potent ayurvedic ingredients. Here are a few more green tea uses:

• Green tea uses for the skin care  - Because of its natural antioxidant properties, green tea is an amazing ingredient for improving one’s skin. The tannins present in the green tea leaves help in unclogging those pesky pores and purify your skin gently, thus making the ingredient the perfect base for a natural skin toner or face tonic. The green tea leaves can also be used as an exfoliating agent when mixed with scrub bases and can be natural face scrub too.
• Green tea uses for hair care - The antioxidants present in green tea are the perfect fix for dry, dull and lifeless hair. When used in a rinsing solution, green tea provides one’s hair with unmatched luster, vibrant bounciness, increased volume, and softness on the strands. It is a natural hair treatment for all your hair problems. It doesn’t get much better than this.
• Green tea uses include medicinal applications - As if all that wasn’t enough already, green tea also has medicinal properties. Its soothing effect makes it the perfect over-the-skin remedy for inflamed skin, acne, and sunburn scars.

Are Green Tea bags worth it?

Earlier in this blog, we already gave you a superb green tea recipe that is evergreen and favored by the masses for obvious reasons. However, not everyone has the luxury of time. Not all of us can get up an extra 10 minutes early in the morning just to brew tea. So, for our overworked fellows that make do with less time, bags of green tea for weight loss are surely worth it. They tend to cost more than regular leaves owing to their convenience. But they’re also effective and allow you to enjoy your green tea in less than a minute. All you need is a cup of hot water to dip the green tea bag into. The best part? The weight loss results are pretty much the same!

Which Green Tea is best?

Okay, by now, you probably understand just how awesome this beverage is, not just for weight loss but for various green tea uses too! So now only the golden question remains, if this beverage is as wonderful as we claim, which green tea is best? Many commercial brands out there offer spectacular quality green tea for weight loss. So, it’s hard for us to endorse just one brand. However, we can teach you how to ensure you’re getting the best green tea for you. Here’s what you should keep in mind:

• Organic - It’s important to indulge in an organic brand rather than a leading industry competitor. This is because organically grown herbs, plants or pretty much anything else are specially cared for in a manner that makes their nutritional value soar for consumption.
• Price point - Unfortunately, harvesting tea is an expensive process. So you don’t need to blow out an entire month’s salary on your green tea but anything too cheap should ring alarm bells because the product will likely be impure.
• Trusted brand - If you have an ayurvedic brand you trust and the products which seem to work well for you, it’s a good idea to go for that brand. We recommend choosing holistic, ayurvedic, Indian brands that source their tea from dedicated tea plantations over foreign brands that probably sell you unfairly expensive over processed toxins in the name of the tea.
• Devoid of artificial agents - Green tea is best when it’s pure. The addition of flavors and colors serves no purpose other than appealing to the audience which shouldn’t be a point of concern for a brand if their tea is actually good.

If you still find yourself unable to choose, we recommend you give Blue Nectar’s Amritanadi Green Tea range a shot and pick a variant that suits your needs best.

Can green tea be consumed cold?

Quite a few people are die-hard fans of iced tea (yours truly included). And rightfully so! Though cold tea doesn’t come close to the garma garam masala chai we know and love in India, it still appeals to a great number of people. However, cold tea is brewed primarily with black tea leaves. So the question remains, can one reap the benefits of green tea for weight loss while enjoying the beverage as a summertime treat to beat the heat? The answer is Yes! To make it more temperature appropriate, you can pretty much follow the same procedure of brewing as the previous recipe and switch out some ingredients. We recommend skipping the ginger and cardamom and adding a fruit extract like peach or strawberry instead. Once brewed, you just need to let your tea cool, refrigerate it for a few hours and enjoy it just like regular iced tea.

Are matcha and green tea the Same?

The popularity of matcha has jumped to serious heights in the past decade. The flavor of the traditional Japanese drink has taken over the world’s most famous beverage chains. It makes one wonder, are matcha and green tea the same? Yes and no. Well, the answer is a bit more complicated. Technically, both matcha and green tea leaves come from the same plant but the way they're prepared and their flavour profiles are very different. Green tea is sold loose or in ready-to-drink bags. Matcha is the powdered version of green tea leaves. Traditional Indian green tea is brewed over a flame in just water. Match, on the other hand, is prepared by hand using a matcha whisk and can be paired with milk. Though both drinks stem from different cultures, their health benefits are pretty much the same and both these beverages can aid weight loss. So, which green tea is best? We have an affinity towards the desi version of green tea. However, if the fancy version of matcha green tea is what gets you closer to your fitness goals, we say go for it!

Additional ways to lose weight?

It’s extremely important to understand that drinking green tea is only meant to be a supporting factor in a person’s weight loss journey. Contrary to what those cash-grab adverts show you, green tea alone cannot be solely responsible for drastic weight loss. So in addition to drinking green tea for weight loss, we also encourage you to add the following practices into your routine:

• Fat burning oil - In the fitness community, slimming oils are met with a lot of skepticism and understandably so. However, with the right ingredients and appropriate techniques, these too can be very effective in helping a person lose inches off the waist. Ayurvedic slimming oil or fat burning oils work against subcutaneous fat stored in the body and help tone up the doughy bits on one’s body. Power herbs of Ayurveda like Amla, Harad, Baheda, etc, fight off stubborn fat and help one lose that extra weight when applied during relaxing oil massages a few times a week.
• Yoga - As we said before, one single measure is not enough to lose weight sustainably. So, a fat burning oil won’t be as effective if you don’t pair it with other efforts. Hence, incorporating some light yoga into your daily routine is a great way to keep your body moving, stay active and exercise your joints.
• Balanced Diet - Not to seem like every other “advice-giver” out there but a well-balanced diet truly does go a long way in shaping your fitness journey. If you drink plenty of water throughout the day, incorporate a decent amount of protein in your food, eat foods high in fiber, containing vitamins, probiotics, etc. and simply cut back on carbs and fats, half your work is done right there!

• Proper Sleep - Wise people have said so time and again. A body cannot function up to its true potential without getting enough sleep. Energy levels run dangerously low if one attempts to live on inadequate hours of sleep without a regular schedule. As a result, most people are unable to spare energy for doing basic daily tasks, let alone working out and hence, find themselves unable to lose weight.

Parting Note

The desire to lose weight should stem from a place of seeking health rather than conforming to society’s twisted beauty standards. No matter what size you may be, you’re beautiful just the way you are. You shouldn’t have to resort to any remedies or diets just to rid yourself of some insecurities. However, wanting to improve yourself is not a bad thing and if a slimmer body would make you more confident, we say go for it. We’ll be with you every step of the way. We hope this blog proved helpful, and if so, please recommend it to a friend. Watch this space for more content on beauty and wellness… Until next time!

Recommended Products by Blue Nectar:

Amritanadi Assam Loose Green Tea with Decongestant Lemongrass

Amritanadi Assam Green Tea with Digestive Aniseed

Triphaladi Ayurvedic Slimming and Anti Cellulite Massage Oil