Green Tea Secrets from Asia

Jo Ann LeQuang is a professional writer specializing in medical topics and a Christ-follower who blogs at AWretchLike.Me.

Green tea has been enjoyed in Asia for over 5,000 years, and Asian physicians, philosophers, and scientists have claimed that this beverage provides astounding health benefits. Green tea is associated with everything from longevity to curing cancer, from weight loss to increased physical endurance. But is it true? Right now, in the west more and more people are discovering green tea and scientists here are trying to determine if the “green tea secrets” from the Orient are fact or fiction. First, we have to establish the differences among teas. There is black tea (the most commonly drunk tea in the United States), white tea, green tea, Oolong tea, and fragrant teas (such as jasmine tea and other “Chinese restaurant teas”). All teas come from the tree known as Camellia Senesis. The differences between teas come from when they are picked (white tea is picked sooner than black tea) and how the tea leaves are processed after picking (black tea is exposed to the most oxygen). Green tea is steamed after picking and not exposed to much oxygen, resulting in a mild flavor and pale-colored tea. These distinctions may seem trivial, but the health benefits of tea have been shown to vary depending on the type of tea.

To get the health benefits of green tea, you have to buy “green” tea—not regular tea (which is black) or white, Oolong, jasmine, or herbal teas. Second, you cannot drink green tea with milk. The casein protein in milk inhibits the benefits of green tea.

Plus, it tastes funny. And you cannot get these health benefits from drinking green tea beverages sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners. These drinks may taste good, but they are trying to cash in on the green tea label without delivering the real health benefits. So far, scientific studies have demonstrated that there are a lot of health benefits from regularly drinking green tea.

· Green tea really does lower the risk of developing heart disease. Asians, as a rule, smoke more than Americans and have less heart disease. Green tea has been proposed as the possible reason why.

· Green tea is loaded with antioxidants and vitamins. One small cup of green teas has as much vitamin C as an orange! Antioxidants help with anti-aging. This may be one Asian secret for youthful-looking skin!

· Science in the West has found that drinking green tea promotes relaxation and is a good stress-buster. No wonder some Japanese corporations serve green tea to their hard-working employees!

· Green tea has been shown to promote healthy gums.

· Green tea does indeed boost T-cell production which means it enhances your body’s natural immune system. Regularly drinking green tea allows your body to be in top shape to fight off infections, colds, and whatever else is “going around.”

Green Tea and Weight Loss

Green tea has been promoted as a weight loss aid. That’s both true and false. Simply drinking five or six small cups of green tea daily will not make you thin. So if that’s your green tea diet, it won’t work. However, green tea is a definite weight-loss aid. It is packed with polyphenols and has caffeine (do not buy decaf if you want weight loss benefits). Polyphenols and caffeine together stimulate the body’s ability get rid of fat. In fact, five or six small cups of green tea daily (figure about 30 ounces total, taken over the course of the day) can boost the metabolic rate by 4%. So it aids in weight loss. If you want the real “Asian secret” to green tea weight loss, here are some tips:

· Drink five to six small cups (about 5 ounces) of green tea daily throughout the day. Do not add milk, do not add sugar or artificial sweetener. Green tea is a bit of an acquired taste, but if you stick with it, you will soon find it very refreshing.

· Substitute green tea when you can for higher-calorie beverages, including coffee drinks (which can contain more calories than a meal) and sodas.

· Green tea cannot help you lose weight unless you eat less, watch what you eat, and exercise more. If you are on a sensible diet and exercise plan, green tea can help you lose weight.

· Drink green tea throughout the day as a snack or pick-me-up.

· After eating a meal, cap it off with a small cup of green tea to help settle the stomach and promote good digestion.

Green Tea May Also Prevent…

There is a great deal of research going on regarding green tea. In some cases—as often occurs with early research—results are unclear. Here is where we are still exploring what green tea may (or may not) be able to do for us.

Green tea just might be able to:

· Prevent dental cavities

· Reduce the risk of developing kidney stones

· Lower cholesterol

· Improve insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance (for helping to control blood sugar in people with Type II diabetes)

· Enhance brain function in people with Parkinson’s Disease or Alzheimer’s Disease

· Prevent glaucoma and other eye diseases.

Benefits of Apples

What an apple can benefit your body?

♥1) Bone Protection

French researchers found that a flavanoid called phloridzin that is found only in apples may protect post-menopausal women from osteoporosis and may also increase bone density. Boron, Another ingredient in apples, also strengthens bones.

♥ 2) Asthma Help

one recent study shows that children with asthma who drank apple juice on a daily basis suffered from less wheezing than children who drank apple juice only once per month. Another study showed that children born to women who eat a lot of apples during pregnancy have lower rates of asthma than children whose mothers ate few apples.

♥ 3) Alzheimer’s Prevention

A study on mice at Cornell University found that the quercetin in apples may protect brain cells from the kind of free radical damage that may lead to Alzheimer’sdisease.

♥ 4) Lower Cholesterol

The pectin in apples lowers LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. people who eat two apples per day may lower their cholesterol by As much as 16 percent.

♥ 5) Lung cancer Prevention

According to a study of 10,000 people, those who ate the most apples had a 50 percent lower risk of developing lung cancer. Researchers believe this is due to the high levels of the flavonoids quercetin and naringin in apples.

♥ 6) Breast Cancer Prevention

A Cornell University study found that rats who ate one apple per day reduced their risk of breast cancer by 17 percent. Rats fed three apples per day reduced their risk by 39 percent and those fed six apples per day reduced their risk by 44 percent.


Colon Cancer Prevention One study found that rats fed an extract from apple skins had a 43 percent lower risk of colon cancer. Other research shows that the pectin in apples reduces the risk of colon cancer and helps maintain a healthy digestive tract.

♥ 7) Liver Cancer Prevention

Research found that rats fed an extract from apple skins had a 57 percent lower risk of liver cancer.

♥ 8) Diabetes Management

The pectin in apples supplies galacturonic acid to the body which lowers the body’s need for insulin and may help in the management of diabetes.

♥ 9) Weight Loss

A Brazilian study found that women who ate three apples or pears per day lost more weight while dieting than women who did not eat fruit while dieting.


★ [ IF YOU LIKE IT THEN - S H A R E ] ★

Dieting with a Practicing Mind

BY: Thomas M. Sterner 

Your mind is your strongest tool in the journey to weight loss.

Based on the book The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life , (c) 2012 by Thomas M. Sterner. Printed with permission from New World Library.

What’s the first thing we do when we set a dieting goal? We aim at the final destination: “I want to lose 25 pounds.” This immediately sets up a perspective that breeds struggle and beckons failure before we have made that first step onto the treadmill or passed up that first donut. Why?

Most of us have a habit of setting our goals too far out in front of where we are at that moment and immediately become attached to the point in time when that goal will be reached. This is both counterproductive and a misuse of the goal. Instead of our goal serving as a rudder to guide our effort, it creates a feeling within us that every moment along the way to reaching that goal is something we have to overcome, something we must endure. We experience impatience and struggle, and if we fail to sustain our extended effort, we can lose confidence in our ability to reach any particular goal we set. We also usually attach a time frame for reaching our goals that is totally unrealistic and not based on any factual information, but instead is driven by the thought that reaching a particular goal will make us feel more complete than we already are.

The key is to break our final goal into more manageable parts. Losing 25 pounds is the end of the journey, but to keep us inspired, it is much more helpful to set a goal of first losing only 5 pounds. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, or even fearful, that we will not be able to overcome our cravings for certain foods on any given day or, worse, for an entire week, we should focus on just breakfast and then just the midmorning snack. We know the rest of the day is out there, but we accept that we are here now and that there is just this one meal, this one temptation to deal with. We see only the physical exercise we need to do today, not the cumulative effort it will take to integrate exercise into our schedule for the rest of our lives.

We focus only on one small, simple task as we move through each hour of each day. Doing this requires the same awareness and control of eating and exercise that we need to reach the final goal of losing 25 pounds, but it sets us up with a much shorter “cycle of dieting” that we must adhere to before experiencing success. That experience of success then breeds the motivation and stamina necessary to keep moving forward.

It’s also wise to limit your number of trips to the scale. Stepping on the scale more than once or twice a week can be counterproductive because it can strengthen your attachment to reaching your overall weight goal as opposed to the process of achieving the weight loss. In systems such as Weight Watchers you only have one weigh-in a week. It is normal for your weight to fluctuate a little day-to-day, and stepping on the scale every day when you are trying to lose weight is like constantly looking at your hair in the mirror after a bad haircut to see if it has grown out. What you are really doing is measuring the distance from where you are to where you feel you want to end up. At some level you are saying, “I am not where I want to be, and until I get there, I am incomplete and so can’t feel good about where I am right now.”

The hidden joy in losing weight is a basic truth that is present in any cycle of creating a goal, working toward it, and then eventually reaching it. That joy is revealed in the awareness that the “moment” of achieving your goal is happening in every moment of your effort. In that awareness, you are open to accept those positive emotions in real time because you become aware that you are “living your success” right now.

Thomas M. Sterner is the author of The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life. Visit him online at www.thepracticingmind.com.

Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/Health/Weight-Loss/Dieting-with-a-Practicing-Mind.aspx#ixzz1tr9tRcFA

Rub Your Stomach Away

A got this article from my email box sent by a close friend of mine. I presumed the article may be useful for you.


... that you can rub your stomach away effortlessly using nothing but your hand -- for only 2 minutes a day?

This may sound hard to believe, but Dr. Stephen Chang, an M.D. and Ph.D. who's trained in both Western and Chinese medicine, states that this simple 2-minute internal exercise, which does not come from Western medicine, but rather from the wisdom of ancient Chinese sages -- has been used successfully as a self-healing mechanism for over 6,000 years.

Whatever you do, don't confuse this internal exercise with the external exercises of the Western world, such as sit-ups, crunches and other movements that only firm up the underlying stomach muscles ... but do nothing to melt the fat surrounding those muscles.

According to Dr. Chang, losing weight is a simple matter of increasing the efficiency of the digestive system. If you've ever wondered why you fail to shed pounds even when you reduce your food and/or caloric intake -- the reason is because your digestive and eliminatory systems are not functioning efficiently.

The following 2-minute exercise works like a gentle colonic irrigation that helps speed up a sluggish digestive system (which usually carries at least 5 pounds of fecal matter within it), and this elimination of useless sludge has the effect of burning off excess fat. The exercise effectively metabolizes the fatty tissues around the stomach and intestines, and flushes them out of your body through blood, sweat, urine, and feces.

Here's how to do the stomach-rubbing exercise:

1) Lie flat on your back on your bed or on the floor. Take your top off or pull it up so that your abdominal area is bare.

2) Rub your hands together vigorously for about 15 seconds, or until they feel hot.

3) Place one of your hands directly on your belly button and begin to rub in small circles around your belly button, and gradually make the circles larger (as shown in the diagram). Use fairly firm but comfortable pressure and rub at a slow, even pace, approximately 1 circle per second.

4) Concentrate on the heat building up in, around and throughout your stomach.

5) Do about 40 to 50 circles, or for an approximate duration of 2 minutes or more.

Note: It is important to keep the abdominal area warm while doing the exercise, especially during winter months when even heated indoor air tends to be cool.

For best results, do this routine twice a day for 2 minutes -- first thing in the morning (before breakfast) and just before you go to bed. Most people see noticeable results within 1 week of consistent practice.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the stomach is the center of energy. Massaging the stomach in the manner described above therefore accomplishes more than just melting away adipose tissue (fat). It also ...

* stimulates the abdominal organs
* helps speed up slow digestion and remedies constipation
* increases blood circulation in the abdominal area
* helps heal indigestion, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and the adverse
effects of overeating

Apple Hijau Untuk Sihat dan Cantik

Sebelum puasa saya telah dirujuk oleh doktor MOPD yang merawat saya kepada pakar pemakanan kerana berat badan saya makin meningkat. Secara jujur memang sukar saya untuk mengawal tabiat makan terutamanya jika bertemu dengan makanan yang menjadi kegemaran saya dan nampak sedap.


Saya dinasihatkan supaya mengurangkan pengambilan kabohairat dan gula. Pakar tersebut menyediakan jadual pemakanan yang lebih flaksibel dan mudah diikuti. Saya boleh makan kebanyakan makanan kegemaran tetapi dalam jumlah yang kurang. Disebabkan jadual betemu dengannya saya berazam untuk mematuhi jadual yang diberikan. Saya juga dinasihatkan untuk mengambil sebiji buah apple hijau sebelum makan tengahari dan makan malam.


Apple di atas saya baru beli dari supermaket... nampak menyelerakan.... dan lebih enak kalau dibuat jus.


Pada perjumpaan baru-baru ini, (yang sebenarnya saya juga amat terkejut) saya mampu menurunkan 2kg dalam tempoh 2 bulan setengah. Jika tabiat baru ini diteruskan saya mungkin akan mencapai berat ideal dalam tempoh 6 bulan lagi. Tak salah kalau mencuba.


Kepada kawan-kawan yang ada masalah macam saya, jumpa pakar pemakanan dan adakan temujanji dengan mereka. Untuk berjumpa dengan mereka adalah motovasi yang kuat kerana setidak-tidaknya kita perlu memaklumkan kenapa berat badan tidak turun. Kerana segan secara tidak langsung kita akan cuba mematuhi jadual pemakanan yang diberikan. Cubalah... saya dah cuba.

Green Tea and Weight Loss

As I promise in last blog, this time I would like to share about one and most important benefit of green tea - that is weight loss. The Scientific research shown that green tea can increasing metabolism. Increasing metabolism іѕ one οf tһе mοѕt іmрοrtаחt steps taken tο speed weight loss. Green tea һаѕ proven tο increase metabolism аחԁ іѕ commonly found іח many weight loss аחԁ fitness formulas. Tһеrе аrе several ways tο consume green tea, ranging frοm liquid drinks tο supplemental form. Many find tһаt tһе best way tο take Green Tea іѕ bу choosing herbal supplements, minerals, οr vitamins tһаt һаνе Green Tea аѕ аח added ingredient.

Water аחԁ caffeine һаνе bееח known tο increase metabolism аחԁ indirectly to increase weight loss. Drinking plenty οf water each day (at least 8 glasses) tһе best steps tο ensure the maximum health and increase metabolism. Instead of water,green tea аƖѕο widely revered fοr іtѕ ability tο speed metabolism. Tһе benefits οf drinking water nad/ or green tea аrе vast аחԁ уου′ll find tһаt уου саח improve уουr energy simply bу increasing уουr fluid intake. Many health programs recommend tһаt уου to drink plenty οf water especially if one consume food supplements аחԁ training уου аrе performing.

Caffeine іѕ known fοr іtѕ fаt burning properties аѕ well. Caffeine encourages tһе body tο release fаt frοm fаt cells, аחԁ tһе added water tһаt уου drink wіƖƖ ensure tһаt уουr body flushes tһе fаt away. Studies shown tһаt caffeine іח limited amounts іѕ very beneficial tο tһе body, аחԁ play аח іmрοrtаחt role іח weight loss аחԁ fitness of the body. It is іmрοrtаחt tο determine һοw much caffeine уου саח consume before feeling jittery, bυt fοr many people tһаt limit саח bе аѕ high аѕ 300 milligrams.

Green tea mау һаνе caffeine οr bе decaffeinated. Wһеח added tο supplements, уου′ll οftеח find іt alongside caffeine. Taking green tea everyday іѕ a ɡοοԁ way tο met уουr water needs аѕ well аѕ enhance уουr metabolism. Iח addition green teas thermogenetic properties, іt іѕ аƖѕο a plant polyphenol, οr a particular form οf bioflavonoid. Plant polyphenols аrе phytochemicals tһаt аrе powerful of antioxidants. Tһеrе іѕ חο doubt tһаt green tea provides many benefits for our body, that is why green tea known as an "Aerobic in the Bottle".

Green Tea

Nowadays everybody talking about antioxidant and free radical, free radical an element which destroying in body cells and it will cause an aging. The effective agents to stop free radical are foods or supplements which contain an antioxidant. One of the best antioxidant is the green tea. Why the green tea is good? Most people understand that Green Tea or green tea supplements are good for our body, but very few people really understand why it is good and they probably won’t have an answers. Indeed, in China tradition green tea is known long time ago during great wall age. and now the green tea has proven scientifically.

What are the benefits of green tea?. There are numerous benefits from consumption (regular consumption) of the substance. Currently, the scientific researched has revealed the following benefit:

- reduction in heart disease.
- increase in metabolic rate/ fat oxidization.
- prevention of the death of brain cells – meaning less chance of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases.
- lower incidence of cancers.
- Protects against premature ageing
- Promotes better complexion
- Strengthens immune function
- Reduces stress and improves energy
- Encourages healthier blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels
- Encourages healthier intestinal flora which improves nutrient absorption
- Improves oral health (controls dental decay, plaque build-up and bad breath)
- reduction in bad cholesterol and to assists in weight loss (promotes thermogenesis and metabolism of fat)

In the next post we will reveal more about green tea and how its help human being in their life.