Your morning routine and mood can impact the whole day, so it’s important to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success when it comes to fat-burning and metabolism. One specific drink is shown to have excellent benefits for health, wellness, and weight loss. “It's good for your gut health. It lowers inflammation, activates your metabolism, your body burns harmful and excess body fat,” says William W. Li, MD. Here’s why you should start the day with a cup of this specific drink, according to experts.
RELATED: 7 Mistakes You’re Making with Your Morning Coffee.
Matcha Green Tea
iStockStarting the day with a cup of matcha green tea is an excellent choice for many reasons, not least the metabolism-boosting effects the tea offers. Matcha has 137 times the antioxidant catechins as regular tea, making it a superfood for your health. “Matcha is most readily consumed as tea and people in Asia, especially in Japan and China, have drunk matcha tea for centuries,” Frank Hu, the chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, tells AARP.
Matcha and Metabolism
ShutterstockThe polyphenols in matcha may help with weight loss. “Matcha tea has unique health benefits when compared with most other teas,” says the Cleveland Clinic. “Polyphenols [are] micro-nutrients that treat weight maintenance or weight loss due to its positive effects on metabolism. Also aids in digestion, diabetes, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.”
Matcha’s Caffeine Content
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Caffeine is a known metabolism-booster, and matcha has more caffeine than green tea. Here's how it breaks down for one 8-ounce cup of each, according to Harvard Health:
Green tea: 23 milligrams (mg) to 49 mg caffeine
Matcha: 38 mg to 89 mg caffeine
Coffee: 100 mg to 120 mg caffeine
RELATED: 6 Matcha Benefits You Should Know About.
Matcha Is Milder
Shutterstock Matcha doesn’t give the same effect as coffee when it comes to energy. “Coffee can cause rapid action, but also a sudden drop in energy and drowsiness, which is known as the ‘roller-coaster’ effect,” Karolina Jakubczyk, a professor in the Department of Human Nutrition and Metabolomics at Pomeranian Medical University in Poland tells AARP. “The caffeine in matcha has a different effect due to the presence of L-theanine, which makes the effects of matcha longer and milder.”
Matcha and Fat Oxidation
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Drinking matcha could help boost fat-burning. “You’ve likely heard that green tea boosts metabolism, and there is some science to back this up,” says Natalie Rizzo, MS, RD, via TODAY. “A smallstudy in females demonstrated that supplementing with matcha during moderate intensity exercise caused more fat breakdown than those who did not ingest matcha.”
