tea and intermittent fasting

How tea can support intermittent fasting

Whether you follow The Warrior Diet, Alternate Day Fasting, Eat-Stop-Eat, the 5:2 or 16:8 pattern, tea can support you in getting all the benefits of this healthy lifestyle. Try to drink at least 3 to 4 cups each day to boost the benefits of fasting. Here’s why: 

It’s calorie-free: tea contains no fat and no sugar; you can drink as much as you like. Drink it hot, drink it cold, it will keep you hydrated all day, so go on – fill your boots!

It can help control hunger pains: It’s not unusual to experience hunger pains when doing intermittent fasting.  It’s understandable, as your body is used to food every couple of hours and without it, your hunger hormone, ghrelin, will send signals. Sipping tea can quell this hunger hormone and make your stomach feel fuller.  

It may help you shed pounds: Tea contains caffeine and flavonoids called catechins, which boost metabolism and assist your body in breaking down fat. 

It will keep you going: Unlike coffee, tea provides a steady caffeine boost. Tea delivers an energy lift in a more subtle way, without giving you the jitters. 

It helps detox and reset the body: Fasting is a natural way of resetting your body’s metabolic program and tea is the elixir that helps the body flush out damaged cells and rebuild new ones.  

It’s good cold, too:  Steep cold, brewed tea in cold or room temperature water for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight. This process brews the leaves very slowly using time rather than temperature. The result is a sweeter, much milder tea, which contains more antioxidant than 2-3 cups of hot brewed tea.

There is so much variety: All tea is grown from one bush, camellia sinensis. Where the bush is grown, how it is harvested and how it is processed creates the different types of tea – white, green, oolong, black and pu’er. 

  • White is the least processed tea from the camellia sinensis bush and is thought to have the highest levels of antioxidants. 
  • Green is considered the healthiest drink on the planet after water. 
  • Oolong falls somewhere between black and green tea.  It is a semi-oxidised tea that can support heart, brain, bone and dental health.  
  • Black has more caffeine than the others, so it’s good if you feel worn out or just in need of a little more energy
  • Pu’er is special because it is a fully fermented tea. It may also help lower cholesterol and aid digestion. 

 

  • Laura Manning is the founder of BRW Society, the UAE’s first tea company focusing on tea mixology.

 

Livehealthymag.com is for every body and mind in the UAE. This magazine is all about moderation, making small changes, little additions and the odd subtraction.

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