Many companies are marketing tea and coffee products for weight loss. Advertisements are specifically targeted towards women, promising changes in as short as a month of drinking slimming tea and coffee products. While these advertisements slip in the miniscule disclaimer that they’re not approved by the FDA and that these products only act as nutritional supplements, the desperate are fooled into believing that coffee and tea directly reduce body fat.
How Does Coffee and Tea Help Lose Weight?
Calorie Content
Counting calories is usually an effective method of knowing whether a food item is contributory to weight gain or not. Coffee contains a small amount of calories. For every 1g of coffee, it only has 5 calories. On the other hand, 1g of tea contains 10 calories.
These numbers even go higher or lower depending on the type of coffee or tea. Coffee, or tea, mixed with milk and sugar will have a higher calorie count. For anyone looking to lose weight, it’s better to stay away from hot beverages mixed with sugar.
How Caffeine and Theobromine Work
The active component in coffee is caffeine, and in tea, theobromine. Many articles show how caffeine helps individuals lose weight, and some are successful in explaining that coffee increases metabolism.
Caffeine activates a part of the body called the sympathetic nervous system. The SNS is responsible for a lot of things including body heat production, or more evidently during cold weather, shivering. The muscles of the body decide how much calories to consume even when you’re not moving, so more muscles mean a higher metabolism.
Theobromine works by relaxing the smooth muscles. Smooth muscles are primarily found in the heart, and other “automatic” parts of the body. In essence, theobromine helps the heart pump blood effectively. Theobromine doesn’t affect the sympathetic nervous system.
The Role of the Nervous System In Weight Loss
The sympathetic nervous system is heavily involved with fat loss and metabolism. The nerves activate white adipose tissue and brown adipose tissue. Adipose tissue is a fancy way of saying fat cells.
White fat cells contain a single oil drop, while brown fat cells contain multiple tiny oil drops. That doesn’t mean brown cells are bad – they’re actually better since these cells are lined with mitochondria. These tiny structures burn the oil droplets. Babies have a lot of brown fat cells and lose it as they grow up.
Since adults no longer have these brown fat cells, they turn to liposuction. Minimally invasive liposuction procedures like AirSculpting, and chin fat reduction medication like Belkyra substitute for the function that brown fat cells do instead.
Caffeine Crash and Theobromine Poisoning
Since caffeine and theobromine work so well in helping the body initiate processes to dissolve fat, a lot of people are including it into their diets, and sometimes excessively.
Caffeine crash is a term for the extreme fatigue after drinking large amounts of coffee. Excessive caffeine eventually tires out the nervous system, and the fatigue is a combination of mental and physical exhaustion. Mental exhaustion is due to caffeine after-effects of decreased blood flow to the brain after it wears off.
Theobromine poisoning happens when there’s excessive consumption of tea. Symptoms include sweating, nausea, vomiting, and headaches. These symptoms are what dogs also experience when they eat chocolate by accident.
Smooth muscles are found all over the gastrointestinal system of both humans and dogs. The fur babies have it worse since their bodies cannot get rid of the substance.
Conclusion
Caffeine and tea help the body lose fat. These substances do not dissolve fat directly. Coffee is ideal for anyone who wants to increase their metabolism and have a hard time losing it via exercise. Tea helps individuals have a better cardiovascular health, and may contribute to better performance during exercise.
