Green Tea

These days you hear a lot about how green tea cures everything from a headache to a touch of cancer. Magical stuff this tea. Now, it is reported (as the surely accurate "Woman's Day" boasts) that green tea can help you loose weight. A quick search on the internet will reveal that green tea practically burns the pounds right off of you. So, you might be asking yourself, is this for real? Can tea really do anything to change your metabolism, let alone burn the pounds off?

As a girl who just dropped a Cheet-o headed for her mouth, I'm counting on that cup of tea a day to melt the pounds off. And as I stare into my mug now and study this mysterious green concoction, I begin to feel a specific answer float up out of the depths of my brain: I hope so.

I first started forcing the tea down about three months ago when I went to stay with my grandpa. He doesn't touch the stuff, says it's awful, but my aunt had bought some because the nurse had advised it for my grandfather's sore throat. Let me advice those of you who aren't tea drinkers, green tea is the nastiest tasting tea out there, it's kinda like swallowing gulps of warm, liquified grass, but once you begin to make it routine, it starts to taste good. (But who am I? I used to try my horse's oats when I was a kid, and after awhile, grew quite fond of them.)

Anyhoo, the first real benefit I noticed from the tea was regularity. (I write this portion now with caution both for the sake of my reputation, and because I am composing at work, so excuse me if I refer to the almighty "poo" with some euphemisms.) Granted, this B.M. came in the form of various shades of green, but some of us take what we can get. But I found the color didn't matter, what did matter was size. Goodness! The size! Initially, I must have lost two or three pounds just in shit! That alone seems to justify a cup of the green stuff.

But the second thing I noticed about drinking green tea was that it truly did perk you up, and it's not caffinated (which for someone who's been addicted to caffeine since in utero, this is quite a desirable trait). True, it's not the shot in the head that an Excedrin Migraine tablet is, but it's still perky. So both the poo and the perkiness make green tea a valuable commodity on its own without these supposed weight loss miracles.

However, if this stuff somehow balances out the Cheet-o consumption, I'm all for it. After all, I haven't been very vigilant about the running and something should be counter-acting the over-eating and drinking (again, too much to drink after bowling last night), and I believe in the power of green tea almost as much as Tom Cruise believes in Scientology. Don't worry, I won't tell you that green tea will heal depression.