What’s the Secret with Weight Loss Tea?

So there you are, walking through the grocery store, eyeballing the coffee and teas, when you find something that nearly jumps off the shelf at you: weight loss tea. Wait, what?

A tea that helps you burn through stubborn fat? Can that be true? Is it a hoax?

So many different questions run through your head, but the price isn’t bad, so you figure why not. If you can blast through more calories during the day and drop weight by adding some tea to your dietary routine than it’s all worth it.

But does weight loss tea actually deliver weight loss, or is it another product that swears it will help you lose weight but not actually deliver?

We have everything you need to know about weight loss tea and if it is worth your hard earned money.

Weight Loss Tea Secrets

So What Is A Weight Loss Tea?

There are all kinds of weight loss teas sold. Whether you walk into a mega-chain grocery store or your local health food store, if you search for one you’ll probably find it. The actual ingredients will differ, but in general, the main idea of a weight loss tea is to fire up your metabolic rate. This will help you burn through more calories over the course of the day.

The actual increase to your metabolism will vary based on the ingredients and your own body, but most of the ingredients have been found to boost how your body churns through energy.

That’s the basics behind your weight loss tea. It boils down to being a metabolism super-charger.

However, you need to make sure to not confuse a weight loss tea with a detox tea. These are completely different. Where as a weight loss tea is designed to help your body burn more calories, a detox tea is designed to help flush out your digestive system.

Sure, you’ll lose some instant weight with a detox tea, but this isn’t caloric weight.

It is from undigested foods within your stomach and intestines. For most of these teas you’ll find some warning labels that indicate you should not consume more than a few servings of the tea over a set period of time.

Drinking too many servings of the detox tea can, well, be explosive, and you’ll need to remain near the bathroom. If you have a weak stomach or digestive issues this may wreck havoc on your digestive track as well. So, if you end up opting for a detox tea, use it as instructed.

Some Regular Teas For Weight Loss

The beauty of tea is it is already a natural metabolic booster.

Caffeine itself can assist in your ability to boost your metabolism anyway. Black coffee, for example, is a great way to give your body that extra kick (no, don’t swap in soda or coffee loaded with creams and sugars).

Beyond the caffeine in many teas (which is minimal, when compared to coffee and pre-workout supplements), some tea leafs and ingredients are helpful in your weight loss quest, all without the combination of different ingredients.

Green tea, for example, is one of the healthiest beverages you can drink.

Period. If you’re not on the green tea bandwagon yet you should be. It’s an exceptional beverage for improving your metabolism and it does so much more for your body as well.

It can help if you suffer from heart disease, it comes packed with antioxidants, can help prevent type 2 diabetes, and it has been found to improve brain functionality. With so many health benefits there’s really no downside to green tea (Healthline, 2020).

For a heightened intake of green tea there is matcha, which is a concentrated form of green tea. In terms of weight loss potential matcha and green tea are similar in strength. If you’re looking for an added boost in antioxidants the matcha does deliver about three times the amount, so if this is something of interest to you than you should consider matcha.

However, green tea is generally less expensive, so if you don’t mind drinking a few more cups you can consume the same level of antioxidants as you would with matcha but for less money.

Black tea is another tea that can naturally help with weight loss.

There are a handful of back tea varieties, with puerh being the best black tea when it comes to aiding in weight loss. A common form of Chinese tea, a study conducted with a group of men taking a puerh supplement once a day dropped over two pounds more during a three month trial on average than the control group of men who did not take any additional supplementation. All other dietary and workout regiments were exactly the same (Phytother Res, 2014).

If you struggle finding that specific form of black tea there are all kinds of other black teas on the market. A tea becomes black due to oxidation, similar to when an apple turns brown after sitting out for a few minutes.

Some common forms of black tea include English breakfast, Irish breakfast, Early Grey, and others. So, if you want tea and don’t feel like going with traditional green, you’ll find black tea variant at the grocery store.

In reality, just about any non-processed and non-sweetened tea is going to have some kind of health benefit and ability to boost your metabolic rate. If you decided to go with a root based tea (such as a ginger root tea), or a white tea, which obtains its color because it is harvested earlier in the growth of the leaf, you will gain valuable weight loss benefits.

However, if you want to maximize your weight loss potential with tea, you should look for a tea that comes with several ingredients, not just one particular tea leaf.

Dietary Beneficial Teas

Beyond simply boosting your metabolism, there are a number of ingredients found within certain teas that can help you lose weight, depending on how your body currently functions.

For example rooibos tea is a herbal tea that, traditionally is fermented (although there are a number of variations of this tea). Rooibos contains a large amount of aspalathin, which helps naturally balance out the body’s blood sugar levels. If your body struggles with this, or if blood sugar spikes limit your weight loss potential, rooibos tea is the way to go, so make sure to either purchase this specific tea, or to look for rooibos as a listed ingredient in your weight loss tea.

Ginger does something similar to rooibos in that it aids in regulating your body’s blood sugar.

It helps lower your insulin level, and according to an article published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition (2014), you only need to drink one to two bags (depending on the concentration and brand) in order to obtain these benefits.

Apple cider vinegar and rosehips are two additional ingredients that have demonstrate the ability to help lab rats lose weight during various projects and research. However, we would not recommend drinking both ingredients together at the same time. Apple cider vinegar will give your tea a very bitter, astringent taste, which won’t mix well with most of the other ingredients. If you don’t mind the vinegar by all means combine it, but you may want to look for an ingredient like honey to help smooth out that harsh bitterness.

Making Your Own Tea

Yes, you can go to the store and purchase tea bags rather easily. The bags are inexpensive and you can instantly make hot tea at home.

However, if you want to improve the health benefits of your tea while boosting the flavor, you’ll want to consider making your own tea. Homemade tea is surprisingly easy and you’ll maximize the health benefits.

Teas you purchase from the store have been dried out for months (if not longer) before you purchase the tea and drink it. Over time the dried tea will begin to break down and lose some of the health benefits. This is more substantial with some ingredients than others, but you won’t have to worry about this when you make your own tea.

Plus, you can tinker, tweak, mix, and match the different ingredients when you make your own tea, which allows you to build up an ultimate weight loss tea that also tastes better.

In general, making your own tea will deliver stronger flavors. The longer something has been dried and sitting on a shelf the less intense it becomes. So when you make something fresh it will deliver a stronger flavor.

There are a handful of flavor notes you’ll want to consider when building your own tea. According to The Spruce Eats there are four major flavor notes found in a tea (especially teas that are mixed blends). The first is a flowering note. This can be in the form of rose petals, chamomile, calendula petals, or anything that will help deliver a floral taste.

Next there is something called a placeholder flavor. This is essentially the glue that sticks to all the other ingredients. It needs to blend well together. It also might be a little more subdued.

This allows some of the other flavors to stand out, and yet you always have the placeholder taste on the back of your tongue. This can be anything from nettles, raspberry leaves, or your basic tea leaves.

If you want to find fresher tea leaves and you struggle to locate it at your local grocery store try to head out either to a health food store, a tea-specific store, or you can try your local Asian or Middle Eastern food store.

Most teas will have a fruity note to it. Even green teas have a fruity element to it. If you’re making your own tea you might want to go with a hibiscuses lower, which you can probably find in the spice section in small plastic bags at your grocery store (it will also give your tea a beautiful reddish pink color).

Lastly, there is a finishing “cool” note. This doesn’t need to be added into all teas, but it can be a nice enhancement when the weather turns warm. Some cooling note recommendations include mint.

The beauty of making your own tea is you can use just about any dehydrated ingredient within your tea.

This gives you access to some other items you wouldn’t normally find in other teas. Just about any dehydrated fruit can be added to your tea. It is important to make sure you’re not purchasing dehydrated fruit that is coated in sugar, but as long as it is unsweetened you can pick up anything from apples to kiwi.

A nice apple ginger tea with a green tea leaf base is a fantastic way to boost your weight loss tea potential.

If you have a dehydrator it’s pretty easy to make just about anything, or you can even turn on the oven, put it on low, and leave the oven door slightly ajar and dehydrate your own fruits this way. Even the skin from some fruits, such as grapefruit, can be left out to dry and then used within your tea.

And if you want an added kick to your tea you should consider chopping up and using dried chili peppers. It doesn’t take much, but just a subtle addition can add a surprising complexity to your tea.

Conclusion

Weight loss tea isn’t a magic bullet. You’re not going to suddenly drop dozens of pounds per week just because you decide to start drinking tea. However, tea does come pack with a number of health benefits, and numerous studies have demonstrated the overall benefit of drinking tea with regards to weight loss. With your ability to either quickly purchase ready-made teas or to make it yourself, there are plenty of tea options for you to choose from.

So, if you want an added boost to your weight loss routine and you want something more than just water to drink throughout the day, tea is the way to go.

-Terry Asher

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What's the Secret with Weight Loss Tea?

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Does weight loss tea actually deliver weight loss? We have everything you need to know about weight loss tea and if it is worth your hard earned money.

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Terry Asher

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Gym Junkies

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