Profound Effects of Green Tea Dieting
September 20, 2010 by admin
Filed under Going Green
For centuries now, the benefits of green tea diets have been the subject of countless writings and scientific investigations.
More than four thousand years ago, green tea diet has become a staple beverage for most Asians because of its countless health and medicinal benefits. It is said that the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was the first one to have discovered green tea diet. Emperor Shen Nung was reported to have been boiling water when some leaves of a nearby plant fell into his pot. The leaves actually came from Camellia sinensis, the herb from which green tea diet is extracted.
Having a green tea diet is associated with several health benefits. One of the benefits of having a green tea diet is providing a potential cure for cancer. According to some studies, certain substances in green tea diet can destroy cancer cells without harming any neighboring healthy tissues. This substance in green tea diets is called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).
The results of the study on the cancer benefit of green tea diets were astounding and it led to further more researches that investigate other aspects of green tea diet. In a study conducted by American and Swiss scientists in the University of Geneva, it has been found that the EGCG found in green tea diets can increase the 24-hour energy expenditure of the body. They concluded that this is due to the ability of antioxidants present in green tea diet to stimulate thermogenesis, otherwise known as fat metabolism. According to their findings, people who were on a green tea diet exhibited a significant four percent increase in their normal metabolic rates. This led the scientists to conclude that green tea diet has a major contributing factor in weight loss.
Another study conducted in China was designed to investigate further on green tea diet’s weight loss benefit. They decided that since green tea diet can significantly increase fat metabolism, then green tea diet probably would help lowering down cholesterol levels as well. Their hypothesis was proven when they introduced green tea diet on 240 people with mild to extremely high cholesterol levels. After only twelve weeks, they observed that those on a green tea diet dropped sixteen percent in their cholesterol levels.
Based on the above study, it can also be hypothesized that green tea diet can cure obesity. Green tea diet’s catechin polyphenols can delay the reaction of gastric and pancreatic lipases in the body. These enzymes are the ones responsible for storing calories into fats in the body. By delaying these enzymes, green tea diets can therefore lessen fat concentration and prevent obesity in people.
This being a truly remarkable nutritional supplement, green tea dieting is used to improve the body’s health in many ways. Further studies were made on the benefits of green tea diets. The latest ones were able to prove that green tea diet can effectively protect the skin from damage due to ultraviolet light radiation. Green tea diet is also widely recognized as a substance that can protect against many different cancers such as stomach cancer, ovarian cancer, cancer of the colon, oral cancer, prostate cancer, and breast and cervical cancers.
Calvin Johnson brings over 25 years of nutrition, fitness, and healthcare experience into the Health Nut Shop. Powered by Quixtar, quality nutrition is only a click away at http://www.healthnutshop.com
Everything About Dieting: #1 How Dieting Works
August 24, 2010 by admin
Filed under Fuel Economy
Dieting is one of those things that is completely integrated into American culture. On any given day, a huge portion of the U.S. population is “on a diet” and “counting calories” in one way or another. And look at how many of the diet names in the following list you recognize: The Atkins Diet, The Cabbage Soup Diet, The Grapefruit Diet, The Hollywood Miracle Diet, The Rice Diet, The South Beach Diet…
You probably recognize many of these names because you hear them all the time!
In this article, we will look first at weight gain and why gaining weight is so easy. Then we will look at what you can do about weight gain—in the form of diet and exercise—to maintain a consistent weight.
Your Body’s Efficiency
Have you ever wondered why, for so many people (and especially for anyone older than 30 years old), weight gain seems to be a fact of life? It’s because the human body is way too efficient! It just does not take that much energy to maintain the human body at rest; and when exercising, the human body is amazingly frugal when it comes to turning food into motion.
At rest (for example, while sitting and watching television), the human body burns only about 12 calories per pound of body weight per day (26 calories per kilogram). That means that if you weigh 150 pounds (68 kg), your body uses only about:
150 X 12 = 1,800 calories per day
Twelve calories per pound per day is a rough estimate.
Those 1,800 calories are used to do everything you need to stay alive:
They keep your heart beating and lungs breathing. They keep your internal organs operating properly. They keep your brain running. They keep your body warm.
In motion, the human body also uses energy very efficiently. For example, a person running a marathon (26 miles or 42 km) burns only about 2,600 calories. In other words, you burn only about 100 calories per mile (about 62 calories per km) when you are running.
Interesting facts:
You can see just how efficient the human body is if you compare your body to a car. A typical car in the United States gets between 15 and 30 miles per gallon of gasoline (6 to 12 km/L). A gallon of gas contains about 31,000 calories. That means that if a human being could drink gasoline instead of eating hamburgers to take in calories, a human being could run 26 miles on about one-twelfth of a gallon of gas (0.3 L). In other words, a human being gets more than 300 miles per gallon (120 km/L)! If you put a human being on a bicycle to increase the efficiency, a human being can get well over 1,000 miles per gallon (more than 500 km/L)!
That level of efficiency is the main reason why it is so easy to gain weight, as we will see in the next section.
