I love coffee, fact and have been an advocate of black americanos and their effective use to increase metabolism and drive in the mornings as well as a potent pre-workout stimulant. Not to mention a drink to be enjoyed with loved ones and friends.

The trouble with coffee and especially as a personal trainer, is that when starting at 4:30am, training clients throughout the day and the need to have enough physical and mental focus to perform my own workout at an optimum level, is that it gets addictive and before you know it, one cup turns into two and so on, you know the drill.

The more you have, the less of an effect it has or should I say ‘the less of a desired effect it has’ and you risk entering into all sorts of adrenal issues ie. increased cortisol.

Cortisol
This stress hormone is a real problem when it comes to fat loss and is one of the main causes for storing abdominal fat, as my umbilical skin fold measurement was stating (taken using Poliquins Bio-Sig). I knew my excess caffeine intake was probably not helping.

Due to my daily caffeine levels, I had developed an intolerance to it and have noted a few annoying symptoms, such as :

Grumpiness (my fiancé noted this one)
Disrupted sleeping patterns (not good when you have a small window to get a good nights rest)
Excess body heat (thermogenisis can also be seen as a positive in the fight for fat loss)
Excessive sweaty palms and soles of my feet (I suffer from this at the best of times)
General mental and physical fatigue due to my ‘fight or flight’ senses in action for over 12 hours straight leaving my nervous system feeling fried.

It was a random chat with my healthy hairdresser that put me onto Matcha green tea and she had also given up coffee due to the unwanted side effects but found Matcha to produce similar positive effects, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Theanine
It was then a couple of days later when reading the ‘Cortisol Connection’ (recommended reading) that touched on an amino acid called Theanine, that I found out a few extra cool ingredients in Matcha that can have potentially amazing effects on your body.

Theanine is basically good for anti-stress and cortisol controlling effects by increasing the brains production of alpha waves. This makes theanine extremely effective for combating tension, stress and anxiety without inducing drowsiness. It has also been shown to improve learning performance and concentration.

Alpha Brain Waves
Alpha brain waves are one of the four basic brain wave patterns (delta, theta, alpha and beta)
Alpha waves, also known as a state of “Relaxed alertness” are non existent during states of sleep and drowsiness (delta and theta) or states of high stress and arousal such as fear or anger (beta).

In our busy caffeine fueled society we tend to spend most of our time operating through delta, theta and go straight to beta without spending much time in alpha, where we should be.

In a nutshell Alpha brain waves are associated with your highest levels of mental and physical performance, so it stands to reason that you would want to spend the majority of your waking hours with your brain in it’s most effective state.

Enter the new weapon for boosting drive, metabolism, more antioxidants than any other berry on the planet, cancer fighting properties, increasing mental concentration and alertness, without increasing cortisol levels, even lowering them.

Matcha Green Tea
Not to be confused with the poor quality dried leaves you find in herbal tea bags. It comes in a green powder form, from the crushed leaves.

My favourite brand is Yamakaen and can be found at a good Japanese supermarket or even better online, at around £17 for 100g it sounds expensive but should last nearly a month. It’s worth spending that bit more for the quality (as it dissolves better), so you don’t end up having to drink a lumpy green uninviting mess .

Buy here at the Japanese Kitchen…

Use half a teaspoon with some luke warm water, (never use boiling as it can destroy the beneficial properties of the tea) and down like a shot first thing in the morning for a large dose of anti oxidants and if you need it, another mid afternoon to keep you mentally driven, until the bell for home time sounds.

Summary
If you’re looking for a break from your caffeine regime and to give your adrenal glands a rest, I can highly recommend it, as it has been a revelation for me switching from Coffee to Matcha Green Tea. I find that I am operating in a more mentally alert, relaxed state of mind, with more settled sleeping patterns, my umbilical skin fold reading has lowered and I’m also really happy now that my fiancé is calling me Mr Strong again instead of Mr Grumpy.