If you want to eat a cookie without worrying about its effect on your waistline, add a cup of oolong tea to your snack. The antioxidants in the tea will burn the calories in a small -- ginger snap or vanilla wafer -- cookie. Skip the cookie and drink 4 to 5 cups of oolong tea every day, and you'll lose weight. That's the premise of the Wu Long Tea Diet.
Weight Loss Potential
You needn't follow any particular meal plan on the Wu Long Tea Diet. A moderate, calorie-reduced diet that includes drinking oolong tea daily could help you lose 1.5 lbs. per week. If you reduce your daily intake by 500 calories, you would lose a pound per week, based on the formula that 3,500 calories equals a pound. And participants in a weight loss study who consumed 520 mg of tea anitioxidants -- about 4 to 5 cups of strong oolong tea -- lost more than ½ lb. per week in a study conducted by Arpita Basu and others at Oklahoma State University. Participants in Basu's study, published in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, lost 5.5 lbs. more in eight weeks than those who drank water during the same time frame.
Caffeine and Antioxidants in Wu Long Tea
Wu Long tea is a premium brand of oolong tea grown in China's Wu Yi mountains. Some drinkers prefer its taste, but it contains the same chemical properties as all oolong tea. Claims that Wu Long tea outperforms other teas for weight loss are marketing tools unproven by science. Wu Long tea contains caffeine, an appetite suppressant and stimulant. It contains less caffeine than black tea, but more than green tea. It also contains nearly as many catechins as green tea. Catechins boost metabolism without any stimulating effect. They help your body burn fat more effectively. Catechins are present in all natural teas -- black, green, oolong and white -- but many are lost through oxidation. Black tea, which stays on the vine the longest, contains about one-third as many catechins as oolong tea.
Wu Long and Green Teas Compared
The catechins in Wu Long tea, combined with special elements in its polyphenols -- another antioxidant -- make oolong tea superior to green tea for weight loss, according to Guo Xirong, winner of the Soong Ching Ling Foundation Pediatrics Award for obesity research. Guo says the polyphenols in oolong tea are especially efficient at activating a fat-dissolving enzyme called lipase. And the catechins in Wu Long tea produced weight loss in 15 clinical studies, according to a review by Craig Coleman, associate professor of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut.
Belly and Upper Arm Fat
Wu Long tea may be especially effective at eliminating belly and upper arm fat. In a study by Kevin Maki, president of Provident Clinical Research and Consulting, a private research firm in the United States, participants who drank the equivalent of five cups of Wu Long tea lost significantly more abdominal fat than people who drank black tea, according to a report in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Nutrition. Nine of 12 oolong tea drinkers lost fat in their waists, and eight of 12 lost fat in their upper arms in a study led by Japanese researcher Masatoshi Nakoma, who presented his findings at the Japan Society for the Study of Obesity in October 2001.
Considerations
Wu Long tea is considered safe, but the caffeine it contains may not be well tolerated by some. Pregnant women should limit their caffeine intake to no more than 100 mg daily, according to the British Medical Journal. Women who consumed caffeine in higher amounts were more likely to give birth to low-weight babies. The catechins in oolong tea are tolerated in amounts of up to 2,000 mg daily, according to the Mayo Clinic. Consult a doctor before embarking on a weight loss program.
References
- USDA: Inside the Food Pyramid
- "Los Angeles Times"; Slim Chance Green Tea Can Burn Fat Off; Chris Woolston; Aug. 16, 2010
- "Journal of the American College of Nutrition"; Green Tea Supplementation Affects Body Weight, Lipids, and Lipid Peroxidation in Obese Subjects with Metabolic Syndrome; Arpita Basu et al.; 2010
- "The Washington Post"; Give Green Tea a Try, but Get a Handle on the Perfect Brew for You; Robert L. Wolke; April 25, 2007
- USDA: Flavonoid Composition of Tea
- "China Daily"; Scientists Say Drinking Oolong Tea Helps You Lose Weight; (NO BYLINE) June 6, 2007
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