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The time of Venus of Willendorf is long gone. Today, 27 000 years after, we are looking for a different kind of shape. Tight bodies, flat tummies and toned legs are a must. With the rising popularity of tea, and still enough mystery around it, it’s easy to sell a dream. In this case, a dream of a perfect body.

Does Fit Tea work?

Half-naked skinny girls with little clothes on, long hair, perfect make-up, holding an unnatural pose might make wonder – does it really work? Will I look the same? Maybe I will like it so much I will also want to take a full 28 days tea pouch with me to the beach. Or take the pouch for yachting because I won’t be able to live without it? Or even just hold it in hand when taking a walk for the whole world to see how I achieved this incredible body. Will this make wonders for me as well? Does Fit Tea work?

Fit Tea is only one in the wide range of weight-loss teas. It claims to “reduce your bloating, support your metabolism, detoxify your system, antioxidant ECGC, decrease your water retention, cleanse your digestive system”.

14 and 28 days teatox programs are aimed at people struggling to lose a bit of weight. Or, a lot of weight. But, does it really work? To understand what detox teas are it’s important to see the list of ingredients and the whole story around them.

Night and Day Detox

Detox teas usually contain green, oolong, mate, rooibos and matcha tea, goji or acai berries and a few other ingredients such as Garcinia Cambogia or Senna. The idea is to offer a tea packed with antioxidants and other trendy ingredients for promoting weight-loss, suppressing appetite or with a laxative effect. This is where things get grey.

Day detox teas usually contain diuretics and antioxidants, and night detox teas have herbs with a laxative effect or even sleeping aid such as valerian root. In general, detox teas may be beneficial, but will they really help you lose weight? In most cases they will help you switch from sugary drinks to a healthier alternative, thus lowering calorie intake. Other times, they might work as a placebo, helping you lose only a bit of weight not necessarily linked to the ingredients in tea. You might actually unconsciously change eating habits while on a teatox regime.

Night detox teas usually contain Senna, herb commonly used as a laxative. They might be more beneficial to obese people than those wanting to lose just a few pounds. A Journal of Medicinal Plant Studies suggests that Senna should be taken longer than advised (and in larger quantities), if you really want to lose weight. However, that might have severe effects on health.[1]

Are ingredients written correctly?

Looking at the ingredients list of Fit Tea is quite puzzling. Before deciding to include any food supplement into your daily routine, it is important to fully understand all possible side-effects and benefits. It is very difficult to say what fuarana and a whole sencha tree might do for your health. The same amount of effort should be placed into informing consumers about the product as for creating it.

When you decide to include any supplement or tea into your diet for self-healing (which we do not recommend) or enhancing your health, you should know exactly what you are using and the exact amount of each ingredient in the blend. Supplements and vitamins are generally not FDA approved. Therefore, they are never a real medicine or help, just supplements that should be taken with a grain of salt.

Green Tea

Just looking at the ingredients list of Fit Tea doesn’t say a lot. Green tea is still not researched enough to know if it does or does not offer any benefits to weight loss. Most studies suggest that it may help with weight-loss, but only if taken in a certain dosage for a specific period and under special conditions. Those almost always include regular exercise and balanced diet. Interestingly, most of them have been “based on middle-aged animals’ populations”[2], and not on people.

Still, green tea has undoubtedly many benefits for humans. It is important to know exactly which green tea is in your supplement, as every green tea will have different levels of EGCG, caffeine and other substances. Those levels will depend on numerous factors. Fit Tea contains sencha, a tea type that (usually) comes from China or Japan and has hundreds of different sub-types, all with different EGCG levels. Read our full in-depth guide on green tea to learn more about the potential benefits and side effect.

Oolong Wu Yi

Oolong tea became a popular weight-loss aid after being promoted by Oprah. In fact, knowing that oolong tea comes from Wu Yi is not enough. Which Wu Yi tea? How was it produced? Low or high quality? One study suggested that oolong tea might help with reducing weight in obese patients, but the dosage was significantly higher than the amount of oolong leaves in Fit Tea. Participants were taking 8 grams of pure oolong tea per day for 6 weeks. [3] One bag of Fit Tea has 5 grams of 13 different ingredients.

Two types of Wu Yi Oolong tea (Image source: Tea Chronicles ©)

Keeping up with trends

Garcinia Cambogia is quite a trendy ingredient in the world of supplements. It contains HCA, hydroxycitric acid, used for promoting weight-loss. However, there is still not enough evidence it might actually help in losing weight. An interesting study from 1998 reports that both individuals taking Garcinia Cambogia and placebo achieved similar weight-loss results.[4]

HCA increases serotonin levels, thus influences mood and makes you happier. It’s advisable to talk to your health practitioner before taking any HCA supplements. Four years ago, a case of serotonin toxicity has been reported in a woman who was taking Garcinia Cambogia supplement hoping to lose weight. [5] She has been taking a combination of HCA and antidepressants every day for 1-2 months before being admitted to hospital with serious health problems.

Guarana

Fit Tea has three sources of caffeine – green tea, oolong tea and guarana. The exact amount of caffeine is unknown. It‘s important to know the energy boost will be significantly higher than that of regular green tea or even matcha. When taking guarana, it’s always advisable to know how much caffeine you are actually getting. In fact, caffeine is a diuretic, and large amounts of caffeine may make you lose water rather than fat. Fit Tea doesn’t hide this. One of the claims says it will “decrease your water retention”. In other words, those few pounds you might lose when taking a new caffeine-rich supplement will probably be back as soon as you stop using it.

Should I buy or should I not?

Ditch those artificial drinks and switch to pure unsweetened tea, and the results will come as well. Playing with ingredients such as Garcinia Cambogia or Senna might bring you more damage than benefit if you are taking other medication or don’t follow the instructions. If you are struggling to lose a lot of weight or don’t know how to motivate yourself, Fit Tea might be a good starting point. Losing extra water and possibly feeling less bloated might give you the precious motivation to exercise regularly.

Fit Tea is not a drink regular hard-core gym addict would choose, as they know that the perfect bodies are gained in sweat, hard work and staying away from junk food and not with just drinking tea on sofa or on kitchen counter. In fact, no tea will give you a dream body. However, if you are persistent in your goals and include regular exercise into your life, loose leaf tea in general, not only detox tea, might help you get there sooner. But every tea and every person is different.

Japan might be a great example to look at. With high life expectancy rate, and generally healthier and slimmer people than in Western country, we surely can ask ourselves, is it because of tea? Tea might contribute a lot, but it’s necessary to look at eating patterns and the importance of exercise in everyday life. Small versatile dishes full of raw food and vegetables are quite opposite of fried burgers and huge amounts of sugary drinks. And a lot of pure quality tea throughout the day.

The Perfect Feedback

In fact, replacing sugary coffee and drinks is exactly what some reviewers of Fit Tea have done, giving it mostly 4 or 5 stars. Most of them did, however, receive a sample for free. On the other hand, the only verified user on the site left a 1 star feedback, staying lonely in the category of unsatisfied buyers. More research on Google will mostly result in long praising words including affiliate links. Clicking is not always a bad thing. Amazon users share more colourful opinions where positive and negative opinions are split into half.

Want to try it yourself?

Foremost, check the ingredients list. If you are taking any medication, ask your health practitioner if the ingredients are safe for you. If you are caffeine intolerant, think twice. It would also be a good idea to lower caffeine intake throughout a day when drinking Fit Tea. Do not add any sugar or honey – that would ruin its purpose completely. If you do need to add sweetener, stevia might be a better option.

If a cup of tea per day would be enough to help you get a flat tummy, we would have the best, most natural and cheap cure for obesity – that tastes great as well. World Health Organizations says “In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.”[6]

To finish with a suggestion from Fit Tea site, for the best results “stay hydrated with plenty of water, exercise regularly 3-5 times per week, eat healthy, balanced meals, and repeat.” And you will get that dream body. With or without tea.

To teatox or not? Do you have experience with tea detox products? Does Fit Tea work? We would love to hear your opinion in comments below.

[1] http://www.plantsjournal.com/vol1Issue1/Issue_may_2013/5.pdf

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855614/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19271168

[4] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/188147

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4252288/

[6] http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight