The Benefits of a Lemongrass Tea Detox

Do You Need to Detox?

Once all the rage, juice cleanses have long since been getting a bad rap, paving the way for a new method of detoxing: the teatox. Rather than replacing meals completely as a liquid diet would, a tea detox involves adding a few herbal cups to an already healthy diet.

A report published in the December 2013 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that polyphenols’the natural plant compounds found in tea’and the caffeine content in tea increase energy expenditure and fat oxidation, providing benefits for achieving and maintaining an ideal body weight.

‘When it comes to detox, if you’re drinking high quality teas, you’re giving your body a break from digestion,‘ says Elaine Brisebois, a Toronto-based certified nutritionist. ‘You’re freeing up energy to go towards other metabolic processes, such as detoxification, rather than that energy being spent on digesting food.’

The Detox Benefits of Lemongrass Tea

Based on their ingredients, different detox teas offer different types of benefits. In the case of lemongrass tea, Brisebois says the herb aids in stimulating digestion, has antioxidant properties, and is a diuretic‘this increases the quantity and frequency of urination, which helps in cleansing and flushing harmful toxic wastes out of the body.

And what is it about lemongrass tea specifically that holds the key to weight loss? The infusion of lemongrass brings out an essential oil in the herb known as citral, which has been proven to be effective in combating obesity by enhancing the oxidation of fatty acids in the body and promoting the use of stored energy. In other words, lemongrass tea aids in maintaining a healthy metabolism and prevents the accumulation of abdominal fat.

It’s important to remember that the lemongrass tea detox, or any teatox, isn’t going to help you lose weight on its own. To truly detox your body, Brisebois suggests doing away with highly processed and refined foods and adding more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins to your diet. Once you’ve created a healthy, balanced diet for yourself, the body will be able to optimally benefit from the natural weight loss properties of lemongrass tea.