Health Benefits of Green Tea

Whole world is aware of the health benefits of green tea. If you are not, then I am telling you no other food in this world is as beneficial for health as the green tea. Chinese knows its beneficial effects from as long as 4,000 years and they have been using it for treating various disorders of human body.

The researches all over the world have shown that green tea has vast application in treating various diseases of humans.

Beneficial effects of Green tea in various human diseases

Cancer: In an epidemiological study conducted by National Cancer Institute, it has been found that green tea reduce the risk of esophageal cancer as much as by 60% in Chinese men. It has also been found that Green tea reduce the proliferation of cancer cells.
Weight loss: All over the world green tea is being used as an alternative medicine for weight loss. Research show that they cause more burning of calories and hence help in loosing weight. Their effect is magnified when they are used with caffeine.
Anti-Aging properties: It has been found that has very powerful anti-oxidant, epigallocatechin gallate that helps in destroying the free radicals in the body and hence acts as anti-aging agent.
Cardiovascular disorders: Green tea has been widely researched for its beneficial effects on heart. And it not only prevents the heart attacks but also makes the heart powerful. It decreases LDL (Low density lipoproteins) hence are very helpful to the heart.
Other benefits: besides all the above benefits, it is also useful in dental decay as it kills the tooth bacteria. Green tea is useful in common cold and other body infection due to presence of vitamin C. If you eyes are itching then keep green tea bags in fridge for 15 minutes and then keep them on eyes, you will get an instant relief.
So all of you must be thinking why are these magical effects of green tea? This is due to the anti-oxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG not only prevents cancer cells from proliferation but decreases LDL, and all above effects of Green tea are due to EGCG.

French Paradox and Green Tea

French people eat a lot of fat and still have a low mortality due to cardiovascular diseases. This has been argued, that is due to Red wine, which French people drink. Red wine has Resveratrol, an anti-oxidant which prevents the cardiovascular diseases. And you will be amazed to know that EGCG is two times as strong as Resveratrol.

Why only green Tea, not the black tea?

Well black tea is prepared by fermentation and EGCG present in it is converted into other compounds so it’s ineffective.
So you must drink green tea and enjoy a healthy beautiful life.

Your Food & Heart Diseases

One of the biggest reasons for mortality in adults is cardiovascular diseases. We see around and read in news paper people suddenly dieing of heart attack or any other heart disease. This really terrifies everyone.

So a question arises here, who have the risk of cardiovascular diseases?

People having high blood pressure or hypertension have a high risk of heart attack and other heart diseases.
Eating a highly fatty diet, it may be tasty on your tongue but surely your heart cries when you eat such food.
Obesity, its being said “An obese person is a house of all diseases” and its right, if you are obese then you are on a high risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Lifespan of a person is decided by the food he eats so if you are eating a healthy food then you can reduce nearly all major risks of heart diseases.    Now hearing this line another question arises in your mind, how to decide what is a healthy food?
Well American Heart Association has recommended certain changes to your diet that you call, will be a healthy diet for you.

Grains: You should eat different variety of grains, and you should eat at least 6 servings of grains per day.
Fruits and vegetable: Any diet plan is incomplete without these two essential parts. You should eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.
Avoid fat: This is a must if you want a healthy heart. You can include low fat or free of fat milk products, lean meat and skinless poultry. If you cook oily food then choose less saturated oil like olive oil.
Avoid junk food: We all loves junk food. But you know what they are very unhealthy and give a lot of calories and you can put on weight from them.
A wise advice: Eat only the numbers of calories you require daily don’t eat too much. Also, avoid too much salt as salt increase your blood pressure. Avoid alcohol if you can, but if can’t don’t more than 1 drink/day.

If you follow above chart you can surely maintain your weight, keep a check on your cholesterol level and blood pressure. This food chart is also useful for other health problems like diabetes and some cancers.

Why fat so risky for heart?

I know you will be thinking on this, well fat increases the cholesterol level of the blood and also the LDL, low density lipoproteins. These fatty substances go into the blood and get deposited on the walls of blood vessels. And so chokes the normal flow of blood and you would have understood the risk now, if they block certain artery in the heart, you get a heart block and sometimes a sudden death. Also heart has to work under load to pump the blood into choked and narrowed blood vessels.
So, you must follow the guidelines given above to live a longer and risk free life.

How to Set Weight Loss Goals

You can’t start dieting randomly. You have to set up some goals that you can achieve. Now it’s very important for you to set those goals that you can achieve. Here by stressing on achieve I want you to realize that you set realistic goals for you. Like you can’t set a goal that you will walk 10kms daily! Not only it look unachievable, you can’t predict of its daily success as you can’t give that much time. So set the right goal and just follow it sincerely.

In the initial stages of your dieting plans, setup short term goals. And divide them into levels so that they look realistic. You can take lesson from athletes who set up goals and then follow them till they win the match. You can setup different goals for different plans like, dieting goals, exercise goal and a weight loss goal. You must be thinking, what’s the need of categorization. The answer is that you can work more efficiently.

Let’s talk in a bit detail for your every goal.

Dieting goal:

You have to setup a goal. Like, if you are eating 2,000 calories a day, you can set your goal to be decreasing it by 100 calories every week till you reach 1400 calories/day. This plans seems easy to follow and realistic. Most of dieters will like this simple approach and they can set it according to their needs and caliber.

Exercise goal:

As I have said before set a realistic goal that you can follow. You can set it like walking 30 minutes 5 days a week. You can devote 2 days a week for swimming. These goals are easy to follow. Not to get bored of walking every day you can count the number of steps you walk daily and steadily increase them. Exercise is a very essential part of any dieting plan and without it or by avoiding it, no dieting plan can succeed.

Weight Loss Goal:

You must keep in mind one thing; you can’t loose weight in hours, in days in even weeks. So have patience. You can measure your waist and other dimensions weekly. Avoid measuring them daily as you would have heard “a watched curry never cook”. You can setup goals that are realistic like loosing 2 pound weight weekly and that are a good progress.

So you must have understood till now that setting up a right goal is so much essential for your dieting plan to be a success. Here it’s necessary that you stick to your goals and don’t change them daily or you will never succeed.