10 Ways Tea Can Help You Get a Flat Belly

There are many reasons why drinking tea is good for you: it increases your fluid intake, flushes out harmful toxins, and also improves digestion. This also means that it is a great beverage to incorporate into your weight loss regime.

Get The Right Tea For The Job

All the usual teas we all love, like black, oolong, green and white tea, contain polyphenols and are considered to be healthy. However, they have different strengths. For example, ginger and peppermint are good for relieving bloating. On the other hand, for weight loss, black and dandelion tea are best. About three or so cups daily will set you on the right track for losing some stubborn belly fat.

Ditch The “Iced” In Iced-Tea

Iced-tea is by all means a delicious and refreshing beverage, but keeping your tea warm might be much more beneficial as a belly buster. Warm tea seems to enhance your bowel movements. This is because warm liquids have a stimulating effect on your gastrointestinal tract. On the other hand, cold liquids could slow down digestion by shrinking blood vessels around your stomach.

Add Some Extra Ingredients That Help With Weight Loss

Prebiotic fiber, like inulin, is a food source for the good bacteria in your gut and thus makes for a healthy gut microbiome. This leads to better overall digestion. Many teas already have these fibers in them, but you can increase the prebiotic fiber in your tea by adding some fresh ginger root. This enhances the speed at which your stomach empties and also relieves intestinal cramping and bloating.

Cow’s Milk Is Not Always Your Friend

The degree to which each of us is able to digest dairy differs from person to person, but on average 65 % of the adult US population struggle with lactose digestion. It stands to reason then that adding cow’s milk to your tea can cause quite a bit of stomach problems, if you are lactose intolerant. Great alternatives are almond or coconut milk, which do not contain lactose, but opt for unsweetened varieties.

Choose Sweeteners Other Than Sugar

Sugar itself is not really the problem. Rather, the overconsumption of sugar is. Thus, it is always ‘n better idea to limit your sugar intake, no matter what you eat or drink. There are also some good alternatives to sugar. Honey, although not sugar-free, tastes somewhat sweeter, so you are likely to use less of it. It also contains other nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, which are lacking in sugar. Another option is coconut sugar, which contains some fiber and helps with digestion.

Artificial Sweeteners Are Bad For You

Adding artificial sweeteners to your tea might seem like a great alternative to adding sugar, but this is something that is best avoided. The problem is that sweeteners such as sorbitol, mannitol, or xylitol, cannot be readily digested and absorbed by your body. These sweeteners instead pass on to your gut where they get fermented by the bacteria living there. And this can lead to negative effects such as bloating and gas.

Timing Tea Time

Weight loss is directly affected by sleep. As such, a poor sleep regime can leave the pounds hanging. This has to do with increased stress levels due to not getting a good night's sleep. That is where tea comes to the rescue. A pre-bed tea time can actually improve the quality of your sleep, which will lead to reduced stress levels and hence better weight loss. So, before you go to bed tonight have cup of tea and enjoy some well-earned rest.

Don’t Add Boiling Hot Water To Your Tea

Tea has many good nutrients in it and you want to extract the maximum amount you possibly can. Not only that, you want the quality of the nutrients to be preserved. For example, one of the nutrients in green tea, called catechins, are damaged by boiling hot water. Thus, instead of pouring the boiling hot water on your tea straight away, let it rest ever so slightly before adding it.

“Leaf” Out The Bags

Although tea bags offer much in terms of convenience, they sorely lack in terms of quality. The run-of the-mill store bought tea bag contains a lot of leftover and broken tea leaves (so-called “dust and fanning”). These are the ones that were not fit for use as loose-leaf tea, which should tell you something. Because these bits are so battered and bruised, the essential oils quickly evaporate, leaving you with a substandard amount. Thus, opt for loose-leaf tea, which is of much higher quality.

Brewing 101

Making a great cup of tea can be an art form, and comes down to many things such water temperature, quality of ingredients, and the steeping time. Regarding the latter, the nutrients inside the tea gets released various stages while the tea is steeping. Flavanols and polyphenols are released before the heavier micronutrients and bitter tannins. Thus, you want to find that sweet spot where you are extracting as much nutrients as possible, but without letting the tea become too bitter. Experiment with this according to your own taste and liking. After all, to get the weight loss benefits of tea, you should actually want to drink it!