Can green tea lose its fat-burning power? Knowing I always gain weight around the holidays, I decided to nip it in the bud by drinking four cups of green tea daily to boost my metabolism. But my friend says green tea stops working after a while. Is she right?
It’s true that daily green tea consumption eventually stops having a metabolism-boosting effect because the body adjusts to its active ingredients. But you can “trick” the body into benefiting from green tea’s long-term slimming properties. Try drinking it for two weeks, stopping for three to seven days, then starting the cycle again. Or you can switch the times of day you drink to keep the body off-guard (e.g., have all your tea before 3 P.M. on one day, then spread the cups out more evenly the next day.) For best results, drink two to four cups daily. And add a little citrus juice such as lemon, lime or orange to each cup-a study at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, found that its vitamin C boosts absorption of green tea’s slimming EGCG by 56 to 75 percent.
