Welcome to my science based guide to green tea and weight loss.
You'll be glad to see that science has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that green tea can actually help you lose weight.
Not only will you discover a few different benefits of green teen for weight loss, you'll also find out how many calories green tea can help you burn and how much weight it can ultimately help you lose.
Before we get started, here's a short overview of everything that I've covered in my guide to green tea and weight loss:
Does green tea actually help you lose weight?
If you're looking for a short answer on whether or not green tea can make you lose some weight, then you'll be glad to know that:
A scientific review[1] of recently published science on green tea and weight loss has shown that yes, green tea CAN help you lose weight.
In fact, scientific research puts green tea among one of the most effective, natural, and safe fat burners on the planet.
So let's dive right into the scientifically-proven benefits of drinking green tea for weight loss.
Science-proven benefits of green tea for weight loss
As you'll see, science[2] has already discovered quite a few benefits of green tea for weight loss.
Green tea will not "only" boost your calorie burn rate and help you laser-target that stubborn body fat, it can also bring down your hunger and appetite.
Even a single one of these benefits can give you a huge advantage over people who struggle really hard to get rid of that ugly belly fat.
But combine all of them together and you basically get a guarantee that you'll get bigger and faster weight loss results.
Without further ado, let's start with the first benefit of green tea for weight loss, the boost of your thermogenesis:
Green tea boosts thermogenesis in your body
Yes, smart scientists have figured out long ago that green tea boosts the calorie burning process in your body called thermogenesis.
Thermogenesis is just a fancy word for the production of heat by your body (by burning calories).
One study[3] has discovered that green tea can boost this awesome calorie burning process in your body by 35–43%!
(If you want to find out how many calories per day thermogenesis can actually help you burn, how much weight it can help you lose, and discover a couple more ways of boost this calorie-burning process in your body even further, you can go to my dedicated, science based guide to speeding up weight loss with thermogenesis.)
But delivering a major boost of the calorie burning process in your body is just one of the many weight loss benefits of green tea.
So let's take a look at another one:
Green tea slows down the digestion of fats by -37%
Scientists[4] have confirmed that green tea has the potential to put the brakes on your body's ability to absorb fat.
This means that out of all the fats that you eat with your food, more than a third of them could end up not being absorbed...
...but will simply pass through your body undigested (instead of ending up in your body fat reserves).
This would be pretty awesome news, if only the scientists hadn't used a concentrated green tea extract.
But even if you stay away from the extract, and drink "just" a couple of cups of green tea per day (which is exactly what I'd suggest you do), you'll still enjoy at least some of this amazing benefit of green tea for weight loss.
Green tea blocks the conversion of carbs into body fat
Your body is naturally programmed to break down any carbohydrates (carbs) you eat into simple sugars.
After this, your body will do everything in its power to convert those simple sugars into fat and store that fat in your body fat reserves.
Most people will tell you to keep burning off any extra carbohydrates you eat with long, slow, and boring exercise.
But instead of slaving away at the gym day in and day out, consider this alternative:
Science[5] says, green tea can prevent certain enzymes in your body from breaking down the carbohydrates you eat.
If those carbohydrates can't be broken down into simple sugars, they also can't be converted into, and then stored away as new body fat.
In other words, green tea can help some of the carbohydrates you eat simply pass through your body (instead of them being broken down and stored as more and more annoying body fat).
On to the next amazing benefit of green tea for weight loss.
Green tea reduces your hunger and appetite
If I had to name the single biggest killer of all weight loss dreams that would easily be intense hunger, cravings, and appetite.
All of these will start to occupy your mind as soon as you dip your toes into just about ANY weight loss diet.
Luckily, green tea can help. Science[6] has proven green tea can put the brakes on your hunger, cravings, and appetite.
Ultimately, green tea can help you stay away from fattening junk without your mind becoming obsessed with food in the process.
Let's take a look at...
How many calories per day can green tea burn?
In one study[3], green tea was able to increase the calorie burn rate of people by 4% on average, which means that:
Green tea can help you burn around 80 calories per day.
That being said, green tea helped some people in the study burn off as little as 64 calories per day, while some people burned off as much as 200 extra calories per day!
So on one hand, you could burn a little less than 80 calories per day with green tea, while on the other you could end up burning more than twice as much.
Now, if you're not exactly impressed by the ability of green tea to boost your calorie burn rate by "just" 4%, then you need to ask yourself this:
How much weight can green tea help you lose?
Here's a study[7] in which a group of people drank lots of green tea for weight loss for 8 weeks.
In those 8 weeks, the people in the study lost 5.5 pounds (2.5 kilograms) on average.
So depending on how much weight you need to lose, you can expect to lose an extra 0.5-1 pound of weight per week.
(That's on top of what you'll lose from all your other weight loss efforts.)
And while it's true that green tea may not be a miracle "weight loss pill" that delivers overnight results, you can trust me when I say drinking green tea for weight loss is definitely one of the easiest wins you can get.
Especially considering you don't need to slave away at the gym for hours (or follow some insane diet), you simply need to enjoy a cup of tea every now and then.
But does green tea actually cause fat loss?
We all know that just because you're losing weight, that doesn't necessarily mean you're actually losing any of that ugly belly fat.
You could simply be losing water weight, or worse, your muscle mass. So let's take a look at whether or not green tea actually works for fat loss.
Here's a study[3] that looked at a group of people who burned off 76 grams of pure body fat per day (on average).
But when that same group of people began drinking green tea, they immediately started burning off 103 grams of body fat per day.
So according to science, green tea will not only help you burn more calories in total, it will also help you laser-target that stubborn body fat.
Summary (actionable takeaways)
As you saw, plenty of research has already been done to prove that green tea can actually help you lose weight.
The scientifically proven benefits of green tea for weight loss are:
- Green tea boosts the calorie-burning process in your body called thermogenesis.
- Green tea blocks the conversion of carbohydrates in your food into body fat.
- Green tea has the power to reduce your appetite, cravings, and hunger.
Green tea can help you burn off between 60 to 200 calories per day. This means that green tea actually can cause fat loss (instead of forcing your body to lose some water weight, for example).
All in all, you can expect to lose (or keep off) an extra 0.5-1 pound of weight per week with green tea.
References
Written by Rok Sprogar, CNC, WLS
Rok Sprogar is a NASM Certified Nutrition Coach (NASM-CNC) and a NASM Certified Weight Loss Specialist (NASM-WLS) who has been contributing highly actionable and science-based content to Leanhigh.