Does Drinking a Lot of Green Tea Cause You to Lose Muscle Mass?

[Frank2500]

Greetings to everyone,

I have a concern. Due to the supposed health benefits of green tea, I tend to drink it every morning at least five out of seven days a week. However, ever since I've been doing so, I feel as if I've lost a significantly more amount of weight than I would have liked and my muscle definition is by no means as visible as it used to be before. When I wear dress shirts my arms/biceps qnd tricpes no longer fit within them as tightly as they used to. I know I have a very stressful job and tend to often handle a lot more of a heavier work load in comparison to my less hard working and less productive colleagues but can stress alone cause one to lose that much muscle mass?



I have to admit nonetheless that the past three months were particularly stressful to me because I lost my mother-such a wonderful, loving and caring woman. It created very deep wounds in my heart that I'm still trying to heal from and for a while I didn't get a chance to go to the gym although I restarted doing so about a month and a half ago. Everyone began to tell me "You have lost so much weight." I wonder if it is the green tea alone or a combination of that and stress. I wonder if perhaps I should reduce the quantity of green tea I take to three days a week only, since it is known to cause tremendous weight loss.

 

[Duracell_Bunny]

Green tea will not be the cause, it's full of antioxidants and health benefits. Effective in lowering cholesterol, risk of heart attacks etc. etc.

It has been known for fat loss, but not loss of overall weight.


I assume the stress may have caused the muscle loss issue. Some people respond to stress in different ways, i.e. gaining fat, losing apatite, poor sleep quality which will all contribute to a change in weight.

Have you been eating well? If you are consuming under your metabolic rate, this can lead to a loss of lean mass - especially if you are lacking protein intake and have not been challenging your muscles.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Green tea is a stimulant. You have a stressful job. Stimulant + stress = less appetite, focus. You work less in the gym, maybe cut some corners, you eat less and you lose muscle mass.

I say switch to Camomile. It's a slight downer, it calms the nerves which you need more than to stimulate.

 

[Bible_Belt]

My condolences on the loss of your mother.

The only thing in the tea that should be relevant is a small amount of caffeine. Unless you're hyper-sensitive to caffeine, you should be fine.

Do you ever drink coffee? You're still working in Africa, right? I bet they have some amazing coffee, at least in some places.

 

[Frank2500]

Re: Many Thanks

I thank you both sincerely for your comments and suggestions. They were extremely helpful to me. I've been working on a temporary contractual basis in Central Africa now for three years and in my current environment, I don't think things like Camomile are available. I do believe that an insufficient intake of protein is one of the primary factors. There are no pretty much no protein supplements either in powdery or liquid form in most of the stores here and one often has to depend on someone coming from abroad to bring them if that is possible. So from the way things are going, it seems as if I pretty much won't really regain my real physical build until when I'm no longer in my current location.

 

[Frank2500]

Thanks a lot for your condolences, Bible Belt. Life does deal us some difficult blows but we have to try to stay strong and roll with the punches. There certainly are lots of varieties of coffee in my current location but I recently have been preferring to drink green tea because of its supposed health benefits especially in terms of fighting cancer cells, lowering cholesterol and preventing heart attacks, which I doubt coffee can do.

 

[Frank2500]

Re: So Should I Cut Down My Green Tea Intake?

So what do you guys think? As I said, I usually drink green tea five days a week in the morning at breakfast time. Is there a contradiction between drinking a lot of green tea that is known to cause a lot of weight loss and trying to bulk up and build muscle mass? Should I cut down on my green tea intake to preserve muscle mass?

 

[Bible_Belt]

I don't know anything about muscle mass, maybe someone else can help you with that. But relating to what you said about coffee, it's full of antioxidants and actually does have a lot of research backing up its overall health benefits. Then again, how that relates to bodybuilding is likely a separate topic.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Even if you lose the muscle mass you can bounce back very quickly. If you have it off for a significant amount of time (months) then it will take you more time to regain it.

How long are you going to be there?

 

[iwanttofight]

Green Tea helps in weight loss. Maybe the combination of your stress and weight loss emaciated your muscles. It won't be too hard to recover your size back though, just relax

 

[Frank2500]

Re:

Well, the thing is I'd like my focus to be more on building muscle mass than on losing weight. Green tea is very effective in terms of weight loss and I'm already naturally a slender guy. If the consistency with which I drink green tea causes me to repeatedly lose muscle mass, all the time and hard work I spend working out at the gym would have been spent in vain. To the poster who asked how long I have left here, I'm scheduled to be here at least for one more year.

 

[DanZy]

Green tea has some positive effects on fat loss only. Honestly, there's zero chance it could cause your muscles dystrophy, that's plain stupid

 

[nuke123]

Green tea is very good for the body, and also hair loss my stopping the production of DHT, so if you suffer from hairloss aswell i would recommend it.

 

[Frank2500]

Ok, I'll Keep it Up

All right guys, thanks a million to each of you for sharing with me your take on this issue. Since you all believe I have no reason to be concerned, I guess I'll keep on drinking green tea as much as I do (five days a week), although I still for some reason feel as if it's contributing toward my loss of muscle mass. Anyway, as one poster said, it could be a combination of my very stressful job in an environment of injustice where promotions aren't based on merit and hard work in addition to the recent loss of my Mom. Thanks a lot again to you all.

 

[marmel75]

The green tea isn't causing muscle loss but that excessive cortisol you are producing by stressing out like that is sure chewing right through it...

 

[Nik TPT]

I drink a huge amount of green tea and I have seen no loss in muscle.