Drinking Tea Helps You Lose Weight: Fact or Fiction?
Health benefits of tea
Try searching for “green tea” on Google. Seriously. Do it.
Check out the right side of the page, where those sponsored links are. What’s being advertised? Tea, right? But chances are that the people selling the tea are trying to tell you that drinking tea – sorry, drinking their tea – will make you lose weight.
Take it with a grain of salt.
Tea can help you lose weight. A study by American and Japanese researchers back in 2001 found that drinking oolong tea increases your metabolism, thus leading to additional weight loss. But we’re talking moderate weight loss here, around 3% to 4%. Research in 2004 found that for people who had lost weight, drinking green tea didn’t help them keep their weight down.
Other studies seem to suggest the same thing: drinking tea may help you lose weight, but it’s hard to say how much or whether drinking tea will keep the weight off. Don’t believe people who are trying to tell you that drinking their tea will make you lose 50 pounds.
On that. I should mention Wu-Yi tea. I find it funny that marketers have opted to make Wu-Yi tea their miracle cure. Thing is, Wu-Yi is a region of China, known for producing fine oolong teas. But there’s nothing to suggest that oolong tea produced in Wu-Yi is any more powerful than other oolong teas. My suspicion is that the Wu-Yi branding is simply a ploy designed to trick people into thinking they’re getting some uber-exotic tea with amazing powers.
If you need to lose weight, eating healthier and exercising more often should be your first response. Don’t get swept up in the hype that greedy marketers are eager to peddle. By all means, drink tea. But don’t believe for a second that it’s a miracle cure.
If you enjoyed this article, you’ll love the ebook I’m working on. It’s all about the health benefits of tea (the real benefits, not the hype). You can subscribe to Tea Finely Brewed so you’ll find out as soon as I’ve finished it.
Beth Whitman wrote on March 1st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I don’t know about losing weight but I can say I feel A LOT better drinking tea rather than coffee. I’ve been off the black stuff for almost a month and I feel more energetic and “lighter” in an inside kinda way
Eric wrote on March 1st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Beth, absolutely. I think any potential weight loss you might get from drinking tea pales in comparison to the other benefits. One of the biggest ones of course being its status as an alternative to coffee:)
Woolong Tea wrote on August 27th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Yes, there is no ‘miracle cure’ to weight issues, and a healthy diet coupled with exercise cannot be replaced by any product, tea or otherwise. Of course, the benefits of drinking tea have been proven. I think Woolong (Wulong) tea is great and definiteyl will help in aiding weight loss, but of course a diet low in sweets, fats, cola, etc and regular exercise is needed.
anonymous wrote on August 28th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Nice post. I really liked reading it.
Emynn wrote on October 10th, 2009 at 3:56 am
The gross rate of winner of these weight loss courses of study which are constantly competing with every other is more or less the one. And the most ridiculous part is that these programmes all choke at the same vault in spite of doing really tall claims. This bechances because the trunk gets habituated to the stiffness through which it is set and alines itself to the new routine and the metabolic process slows down. You have to be cleverer than nature to be able to deception the body into dropping off weight. Without consecutive this step then you will constantly inquire why you cannot turn a loss burden.
Anonymous wrote on October 11th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Feiyan Tea is another Chinese tea renowned for its weightloss effects. May be worth trying both to see which works better ?
Bryan J. wrote on January 4th, 2010 at 3:14 pm
I think that one of the misleading aspects about the weight loss effects of tea is in what tea is replacing. If you were to take your average person who drinks nothing but pop (or soda, if you prefer) all day that’s loaded up with high fructose corn syrup and replaced their pop habit with tea, they’d probably use a decent amount of weight. However, that loss can be largely struck up to the reduction in sugar intake. Another factor invovled will be that it’s much easier for your body to get at the water in tea than that in pop, so you’re significantly less likely to retain water. Though, once you understand that, you’re left with a small increase in the weight loss when compared to an equivalent person who changes from pop to water.