Weight Loss Tea - Very Important For Losing Weight

If you are overweight and looking to lose those excess pounds, try weight loss tea. The most popular tea used for weight loss is green tea but there are others that may be even more effective especially if you combine them or drink different teas at different times of the day.

Recent studies have shown that drinking tea can be a very important aspect of any weight loss plan. So if you are serious about losing weight, get serious about drinking tea. I have heard that all teas come from the same plant and get their different names by when the leaves are picked, where they are grown and the method of processing.

There are four main categories of tea: white, green, black, and oolong.

White tea is the earliest picked from the Camellia sinensis plant and is the least processed of all the teas. It has the most antioxidant properties which help detox the body and help prevent cancer, lowers cholesterol, and is the best tea for healthy skin. White tea has very little caffeine and is very light in color and flavor.

Green tea is the most popular weight loss tea. The lighter flavor of green tea is easily mixed with scent from flowers or fruit to create different flavored teas. Green tea has a high level of cancer fighting antioxidants, lowers blood pressure, fights gum disease and cavities, and helps regulate blood sugar levels. With only 5-10% of the caffeine in a cup of coffee, you can enjoy this tea throughout your day and not have to worry about not being able to sleep at night.

Black tea has been around forever and was the first tea ever introduced to me by my Scottish grandmother. Fully fermented, black tea has a bold flavor and has 20% of the caffeine in a cup of coffee, so still will not keep you awake. Black tea reduces the risk of heart disease by helping prevent the absorption of cholesterol into the blood stream, helps prevent gum disease and cavities and regulates blood sugar and blood pressure. Grandma always had tea and a snack in the afternoon not to mention for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Grandma never drank coffee it was always tea. She would have us drink tea with honey and lemon when we were sick. I still do that today and tea just makes me feel better.

Oolong tea is flavorful and has a sweet aroma. Not as fermented as black tea, oolong tea only has about 15% of the caffeine a cup of coffee does and is the tea mainly served in Chinese restaurants. Oolong tea increases your metabolism and aids in digestion, burns body fat and actually blocks carbohydrates.

All teas aid in digestion, just some more than others. The weight loss properties also vary with Oolong being the most effective tea I have researched. I do believe I have to go get me some of that tea. There are so many types of tea available you could get overwhelmed with all the choices and trying to keep all the health benefits of each one straight. That's why I have only listed the four most popular types of weight loss tea here.

Difficulty Losing Weight - Why Lie To Yourself

Many people have had difficulty losing weight, nothing is more frustrating to get your motivation up, find the perfect diet and exercise program for you and then... nothing. Some people actually do have a metabolic issue that makes it virtually impossible to lose weight, but not many. For most of us the harsh reality is that we're just not being as good as we think we are. The cool thing is that there are a few simple things you can do that will help keep you 'honest' in your weight loss journey.

For one thing, it's amazingly easy to 'lie' to ourselves about what we've eaten in any given day. There have been times when I would have sworn I was good, until a friend (I use that term loosely!) will remind me of that pastry I had at lunch or all the cream and sugar I put in my coffee. Ooops. I didn't mean to lie to myself, it just happened. Most of us are like that to one degree or another.

To keep yourself on track one very simple but effective thing you can do is to keep a food journal. For a week or two, write down every single thing that you eat or drink. You have to be honest and you have to include everything even that second glass of soda at lunch and the two pats of margarine you put on your toast... everything.

If you do that for few weeks, you'll quickly be able to spot the times of the day and the areas in your diet where you might have a bit of trouble. Once you pinpoint the reasons you have difficulty losing weight you can make changes that will help you achieve your goals much more quickly.

The same principle can apply to when you work out. Again, it's easy to think that you're working harder than you really think. If you keep a workout journal it's harder to convince yourself that you've done something you really haven't done. Not only can you track the number of times you go to the gym but you can also track how long you spent on the treadmill (or doing cardio in general), how many exercises you did for your upper body, how many you did for your lower body, etc.

You can also keep track of how much weight you lifted for each exercise. Ideally, you should be increasing your weights over a period of time. It's important to keep your body challenged and not let it get into a rut. By changing up the weights you lift as well as the exercises you do, you'll keep your body 'guessing' which will help you get better results in less time.

Most of the major muscle groups (chest, upper back, lower back, abs, butt, quadriceps, hamstrings) will have more than one exercise you can do. By mixing up the exercises you do for each group you are keeping your toning efforts in high gear. Another benefit is that the different exercises will target each muscle group in a slightly different way which can also lessen a lot of the repetitive types of injuries to your body.

I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but usually when someone has difficulty losing weight it's really more about the way they're doing things than about any metabolic issue with their body.