Made Moon Blog

The Oprah green tea diet, made famous on her show with the diet’s originator, Dr. Nicholas Perricone, is not entirely without merit. As to how much weight you can lose on the green tea diet, is really a matter of many other factors in your diet and lifestyle.

Green tea and green tea extract (green tea extract is simply a concentrated form of the effective ingredients in green tea) offer many other health benefits, which may not directly promote weight loss, but which are good health tonifiers. Green tea has been found to lower cholesterol levels, lower hypertension, prevent certain cancers and prevent or reverse liver impairment.

The green tea diet has captured the hopes of dieters worldwide. Dr. Perricone and Oprah inadvertently unleashed another fad diet waiting to happen. The internet has seen a rapid rise in green tea weight loss products, similar in intensiveness to the acai berry diet sensation. Fad diets should be considered with circumspection, especially when pricey products touting quick results are being tendered. Fad diets can be harmful to the dieter not only by their high cost and inspirational promises, but also by being harsh on the body. Rapid weight loss plans and crash diets are typically unsustainable (the weight loss will eventually come back) and can put the body into any number of nutritional imbalances that can do the dieter far more hurt than good.

The green tea diet is not a weight loss miracle as the green tea weight loss industry would have you believe. Nonetheless, this in no way lessens the fact that green tea can be a fantastic addition to your weight loss diet program. Dr. Perricone’s advice to replace coffee with green tea is a wonderful piece of wellness wisdom. His assertion that a green tea diet by itself can effect amazing weight loss is, unfortunately, a disservice to the millions of dieters who are searching for a magic bullet.

Bottom line: Yes, go get some green tea or green tea extract. Look for low cost bagged tea products or bottled green tea extract ($8 per bottle). Drink or drop your green tea every day. It has relatively low levels of caffeine, so it is safe to drink (diluted) throughout the day. If you are looking to lose weight, don’t fall for the idea that the green tea will do it for you. Real, lasting and safe weight loss only results from dietary changes and regular exercises.