Weight Loss Supplements Part 1: Green Tea Extract

By Anna Catherine Caldwell
Elite Nutrition and Performance

There are thousands of miracle pills, gels, and diets out in the world that promise to help you lose weight, and, let’s be real; it can be more than overwhelming. One of the many things you may have heard about recently is Green Tea Extract and it’s ability to help you lose weight.

What is it?

Green tea extract is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant and has been used in weight loss products for years, but has only recently becoming a popular diet and bodybuilding aid. Green tea is different from other types of tea because other types of tea (black tea, oolong tea) are either partially or completely fermented. Green tea hasn’t been fermented at all, and therefore none of its useful properties, like the one that can aid in weight loss, have been destroyed.

How does it work?

The parts of green tea that are used to make the green tea extract found in diet pills are the leaf, bud, and stem. These parts of the plant are steamed, which leaves important molecules called polynephrols intact. It’s these polynephrols that are responsible for the weight loss benefits of green tea. (For those supplement savvy readers, you may have heard of polynephrols before – they’re also called flavenols or catechins.) These polynephrols have the potential to help raise norepinephrine levels, and norepinephrine is the body’s main fat-burning hormone. In combination with this revved up fat-burning hormone, the caffeine in green tea can also help the body to burn more calories in the less time.

Research has shown that athletes who use green tea extract as a supplement to their exercise plan reduce extra body fat at a slightly faster rate. It’s also been seen that those who use a green tea/caffeine mixture during the weight maintenance phase after losing weight have somewhat higher resting metabolic rates (the ability to burn more calories than usual while doing nothing) and have continued to lose fat mass. However, other researchers aren’t quite as sold on the idea. The differences that green tea extract makes in your body are so small, that they could be flukes in what little research that has been done.

What do I do about it?

So, if you want to add the extract to your supplement stash in hopes of losing a little of that extra body fat, I would hold off for now. For all of the good things that people are saying about it, there are just as many skeptical scientists. A key thing to keep in mind when buying supplements like this is to this: If they can make money off of you buying it, they’ll do all that they can to sell it to you. Make sure you always check multiple sources – just to make sure you have all the information you need to make an informed decision. One thing’s for sure though, a warm mug of green tea every once in awhile never hurt anybody.

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