Are green tea pills really effective?

I've read up on different articles on green tea and the pills and I get varying info. On articles, I'm told they work, but when I looked at the forums here & other places, people have said they didn't lose weight, but they had more energy.

I'd like to lose weight faster & have increased energy, so could anyone please give me their personal experience taking the pills? And can you also include the brand name, since different brands may work differently.

If there was a pill that made you thinner no one would be fat. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT.

Tea is full of caffeine so really, there's your extra energy

No.

 Define "effective" - while the EPGC in green tea has been shown to boost metabolism and be somewhat lean-mass sparing in mega-doses, the metabolism boost is on the order of 4.4% of your BMR, which for the average 1500kcal/d BMR works out to 66kcal/d or the calorie equivalent of half an ounce of Tostitos.

 Seems to me that while adding green tea can't hurt, the more efficient route to calorie reduction would be to cut out the Tostitos. Cut a whole ounce from your diet, and you'll have twice the effect of green tea. Heck, by not eating a medium bag (10 ounces) on the weekend you'll have saved twice the calories of scarfing down green tea pills the whole week.

I also heard that green tea helps to promote weight loss. Supposedly, it is supposed to keep your body from converting as much sugars, carbs, and proteins into fat. Not sure how valid that is. However, green tea has been shown to help eliminate cancer causing free radicals that are produced during exercise and muscle developement so it's good for you. The fat oxidation that green tea diet pills claim to promote probably comes from the caffeine.

That being said, I recently started drinking decaf green tea instead of water ( I just got sick of regular water, really. I hate water.lol!) so that's about 4-5 cups of warm to hot tea a day. On top of that I take 2 Mega-tea diet capsules 1x a day (instead of 2x a day as recomended on the bottle cuz the caffeine is a little much for me later in the day). 

I have lost about 2 lbs this week, maybe a little less. It's nice because I think it has helped me to get over a plataeu I was on for about 2 weeks. Now i'm losing again. YAY!

Keep in mind that is a LOT of green tea but since it's decaf (besides the 2 pills which has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee) I feel like I'm getting the benefits without feeling... uncomfortable.

Melkor makes a very valid point. Green tea alone is not going to make you lose weight by itself if one doesn't adopt a healthy nutritional diet along with it. But think of it this way. You're going to be cutting that unhealthy stuff out of your diet anyway. Green tea will burn some extra calories for ya. Every little bit helps.

 

Also, as far as increased energy goes, I haven't really noticed any even from the caffeinated pills.

Very NiCe explanation - too often what is scientifically significant makes its way into our everyday lives as "useful" for something - when it actually does so little.

I know green tea alone wouldn't make me lose weight, but I've been dieting for almost a year, and at most lost about 25 before gaining back 10 more.

I'm getting pretty desperate here and I want something to boost my weight loss.
I'd rather cut back on the chips AND add green tea. But I don't like the taste of the tea & I didn't want to add sugar or anything else to it.

I've always felt every little bit counts. If it were to take green tea a year for me to lose just 10 pounds, so be it. At least that's 10 less than the last year.

Well, I just calculated my BMR (1667) and with the boost of 4.4% I'd lose about an extra 7.5 pounds a year.

So, now my next question is: that 4.4%--how much green tea is that? In terms of pills or cups of tea. I guessed one pill....

The pills contain: Green tea leaf standardized extract -600 mg  (provides 90 mg EGCG and 50 mg naturally-occurring caffeine) I don't particularly like the taste of the tea either. I was loading it up with equal until I read about how bad artificial sweetners are bad for you. Regular sugar to me isn't worth the calories b/c i'm on a 1200 cal diet so I just made myself drink it straight. Hated it at first but am becoming used to it The  tea that I've been drinking is liptons and it has 130mg of green tea per bag or 8oz serving. That would be about 4.6 cups of it a day. go with the supplements if you don't like the taste of the tea but still want the benefits... I do both. They're about $15 a bottle for 90 capsules. I personally seem to lose weight and keep it off better when on them.

I doubt you'll lose any extra weight from drinking tea but it is high in antioxidants. I think taking a green tea pill is silly when you can just drink green tea. Try the mixed ones - green tea with ginger/lemon/orange/jasmine etc if you don't like it plain, or add a squirt of fresh lemon or some grated ginger.

I just worked out if that if I just walked one mile extra per day, I'd also lose 7.5lbs in a year, all things being equal. I'm betting that if I did that and you took tea pills every day, I'd have lost more by the end of the year.

I like Merylwhilte1's approach - if you're going to get nutrition then do it naturally -

In any event, antioxidants on their own probably don't do anything at all for you other than take the bulge out of your wallet!  There's no reliable proof of their effectiveness.

I took the green tea pills when i first started "dieting" (ie life style change). For the first week on my change without the pills I always felt hungry. It was awful. I went to bed hungry, woke up hungry and I was eating all my calories. So the next week i was in the drug store buying some items and I came across the green tea pills. They are mostly caffeinated pills but what i liked it said it curbs appetite. So i bought the small pack to see if it worked and it worked the first day. I didnt feel hungry anymore and I could wrap my mind around other things like working out and being more active, rather than thinking about my next meal. When I was getting towards the end of the pack I slowly got off of it and see if i got use to lower intake of food. Now I dont use them because I know when im hungry and I am full with the right proportion of food.

Everyone is different so it may work or may not work for you. But what spirochete said “If there was a pill that made you thinner no one would be fat.” I mostly used it for a kick start boost.

Here is what i used: http://www.cvs.com/CVSApp/catalog/shop_produc t_detail.jsp?filterBy=&skuId=396958&p roductId=396958&navAction=jump&navCou nt=3

My sister tried the Liquid Soft-Gels type and they melted. 

I drink green tea (without sugar) and it doesn't help me.

green tea pills and the drink are the same thing.

If people are getting more energy from the pills, it's likely to do with the caffeine content of their source. 

I've read a lot of articles on green tea, most of them really emphasize the fact that the EGCG for the 'increase' in thermogenesis; however, this increase has usually been found to range from 3-5% increase in total energy expenditure. For a person whose expenditure is ~1800 cals a day (not intake), this would come out to be around 70 cals. Over a year, if you total up the amount of increased caloric expenditure, an individual might lose 4-8 pounds. In 365 days. That's not all that much of a boost, especially for the amount of money you'll be spending on the capsules. 

Though it's weight loss benefits probably aren't very high, I've read (note I haven't read EVERY article, but I've seen a good number) that there is decreased activity of some enzymes like amylase, thus might result in a lowered blood sugar level; however, I've also seen studies that say EGCG has no significant effect on lipolysis (fat breakdown). 

Now, in terms of it's other effects, there is no doubt in my mind that Green Tea is an excellent health product, high in antioxidants (though you CAN get them elsewhere) and polyphenols etc. There are lots and lots of studies outlining the other health benefits, unrelated to weight loss.

So the bottom line, in my opinion, is to just drink green tea on a regular basis, and see what you think. I used to try the caps, saw no effects. But I started drinking green tea (lots of GREAT flavors like pomegranate raspberry, and inexpensive for a whole box, you dont need fancy starbucks stuff) and love it just even out of habit. 

So that's my two (+) cents. Hope that helps!

edit: I forgot to say in the middle of this that it's easier just to cut down on something useless in your diet - if you can get rid of something sugary that will both help to reduce blood sugar levels and increase your caloric deficit by more that expensive green tea pills will!