THE PAUSE
LIVER OPTIMIZATION TOOL
TEA
Recall there are four strands to The HOPE Protocol, a system designed to make us "Pause Awesome."
Hormone Optimization
Organic Sustenance
Purification Protocols
Enlightenment Coaching
The Purification Protocols are a string of three protocols to optimize different organs, therefore optimizing health. The first organ we optimize is the liver. In today's course, I will share the next tool we used to optimize our livers.
"Tea is the elixir of life."
Lao Tzu
"Tea makes our pauses awesome-er."
Doc Mac
Before moving forward, let me repeat the goals and purposes of the Purification Strand.
GOAL: To optimize our liver first, then our gut, and then our brains.
PURPOSE: To achieve optimal health.
TEA
TEA AND LIVER OPTIMIZATION
It’s always nice when you can enjoy something, and it is good for you.
When I decided that I needed to live into my nineties so that I could dance at my grandchildren’s weddings, I realized that I would have to optimize my hormones, weight, health, and mind.
To do that, I needed to do everything that gave me the best chance to be optimal in each of these strands of life.
One of the tools I could use to increase my chances of achieving my goal was coffee.
Cool! I love my early mornings reading and writing with my cups of coffee.
Then, as I researched, I found that coffee’s cousin, tea, would also help me optimize my life. I fell for tea just as hard as I did for coffee.
Isn’t it strange that the way we in America think about our coffee, the rest of the world thinks in the same way about their tea?
So, in today’s course, I want to educate you a bit about tea and why it is so darn good for our livers because…
“We are only as healthy as our livers.”
Doc Mac
So, how does tea optimize our livers?
Tea possesses a flavonoid that goes into our cells and neutralizes the enemy to our health and lives. These enemy vandals are called oxidants. Their mission is to make us unhealthy, age us, and eventually kill us. I am not kidding!
Oxidants are cellular wastes that destroy and deteriorate our cells from the inside out.
Whenever we metabolize something, these radicals are formed, and like chickens without a head, they bounce around in our cells looking for their heads.
Their missing head is an electron. These vandals will bounce around within our cell, looking for an electron to loot.
If they ravage an electron from our DNA, our cell becomes mutated. If they loot enough from our cellular membrane, a hole will be formed, and the cell will collapse and die.
Oh, by the way, cancer is a mutated cell.
So, tea provides us with warriors who will neutralize those vandalous molecules.
So, how can tea help?
Tea leaves have battalions of flavonoids waiting to be released to fight for our health and life. All we need to do is soak these tea leaves in clean filtered water and drink it all up.
Did you hear, “Put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up?” Me too!
The National Institute of Health, who knows a bit about health, says this about flavonoids.
"Flavonoids possess a number of medicinal benefits, including anticancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral properties."
So, who is the NIH? The NIH catalogs all published medical research and does some amazing research to help us improve our health and lives.
Oh, by the way, there are many different liver-detoxifying flavonoids within tea, but the ones everyone talks about are called catechins.
Catechins
So, the tea leaves soak in warm to hot water, and these catechins swim right off these leaves and into the water. Then we drink the tea, and these catechins travel through our body, looking for cells that need help in destroying these vandalious oxidants.
“Oxidative stress is a state that occurs when there is an excess of free radicals in the body's cells. The body produces free radicals during normal metabolic processes. Oxidative stress can damage cells, proteins, and DNA, which can contribute to aging.”
Oxidative stress ages us! That means oxidation makes us look and feel old. I don’t know about you, but I want to look and feel great while time slips through my body.
I learned a long time ago that if I write something that you don’t understand, it might put you to sleep. So, let me explain the two primary metabolic processes.
Catabolic is the process of breaking down larger molecules into smaller components, releasing the energy that holds these molecules together.
Anabolic is the process of constructing molecules from smaller components. This metabolic process needs energy.
Whenever these reactions occur, oxidants are formed.
“Catechins neutralize the enemy by surrendering their electrons to these oxidants.”
Doc Mac
FYI, the most well-known catechin you may have heard about is EGCG, epigallocatechin-3-gallate.
Oh, you haven’t? Have you ever heard of or maybe even taken green tea extract to lose weight? Yup, that’s EGCG.
There are several other catechins. The type of catechin that is formed depends on how the tea leaves are processed. The processing determines what kind of tea is made. It’s the processing that makes the tea white or black or oolong or green, and then there is one tea that is processed even more so, called Pu-erh.
Oh, but how does all this help the liver?
“Green tea with high-density catechins improves liver function and fat infiltration in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients:”
Catechins help optimize our livers in several ways:
Regulates fat metabolism, reducing fat in the liver.
Protects the liver from the damage alcohol does to it.
Prevents inflammation of the liver.
Improves blood markers of liver health
Reduces liver enzymes that indicate liver damage.
The diuretic effect of caffeine supports the liver by flushing toxins.
Offers a protective effect against cancer becoming malignant.
That is why drinking our fair share of tea is important to our livers. Let's see if I can turn you into a tea connoisseur.
TYPES OF TEAS
First, I want you to realize that all tea comes from the same bush. Green tea gets all the accolades when it comes to liver health and weight loss, but, in reality, all teas are good for your liver and health.
White Tea
White Tea is my favorite. The heart and soul of the Organic Strand of HOPE is to consume Godmade products. White tea is the closest to being the most natural.
White tea leaves are air-dried and have the least amount of oxidation. Because of how it is processed, white tea has more catechins than all the other teas.
I find that white tea has a subdued, mellow, sweet taste that goes well with lunch.
Harvesting high-quality white tea is an art; the violence of steeping white tea in boiling water would destroy the art of it.
Steep white tea in hot filtered spring water just below the water’s boiling point of 212 degrees at sea level.
Green Tea
Green tea gets all the accolades primarily because it has the most research done on it, but as mentioned above, white tea has more of the catechin EGCG than green tea.
Green tea is processed more than white tea. The tea leaves are heated immediately after harvesting.
Where white tea has the most catechins, green tea has the next most.
Green tea has an earthy, grassy taste and should be steeped in water at a temperature even lower than the temperature we used to steep white tea.
Oolong Tea
Oolong tea lies somewhere between green and black tea regarding catechins. This is the most popular tea in China and Taiwan.
The leaf is oxidized a bit to darken the leaf. It is then heated and rolled. There is an art to making a great Oolong tea.
Oolong has a sweet floral roasted flavor.
Black Tea
Black tea leaves are completely oxidized before being heated. Black tea is the most popular tea in America.
Many argue that black tea is the lesser tea. That is correct when you are talking about EGCG catechins. But black tea has a boatload of other antioxidants that make up for its lack of EGCG. All teas do a great job of neutralizing oxidants.
I used boatload as a pun because black tea was the primary tea thrown into the Boston harbor.
Black tea is best when boiling water is used. Experts say that black tea should be steeped between three to five minutes.
Black tea has a full and bold flavor, so much so that many add milk to it.
Pu-Erh Tea
Pu-erh is an aged, fermented tea. The aging and fermentation give pu-erh tea a unique flavor.
Since it is fermented, Pu-Erh Tea is good for our gut microbiome (It’s fermented!), and anything good for our gut is good for helping with health and weight optimization.
Pu-Erh is a natural probiotic beverage. This oxidized and fermented tea is often served at the end of a meal in China.
Since most of us know nothing about Pu-Erh Tea, click here to watch a short video on how to brew Pu-Erh Tea.
You might have noticed that all of my Amazon links are for tea bags. As a beginner tea connoisseur, I recommend starting with tea bags.
But if you want to take it to the next level, purchase loose teas. Below is a link to The Art of Tea, where you can purchase loose tea and learn even more about tea.
All teas are also rich in GABA and theanine, which can help reduce stress levels and improve sleep quality even though they have caffeine. We will revisit tea and GABA in our Mind Optimization Strand.
I have been spending all my time writing about catechins, but let's not forget about caffeine.
Caffeine
When it comes to tea, each type of tea has its fair share of caffeine. And we all like our fair share of caffeine because it increases our…
Alertness
Energy
Concentration
The stimulation caffeine bestows upon our neurology can last anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. In some people, these effects can last up to 12 hours.
Unfortunately, my tolerance is pretty high. I can drink coffee or tea just before bedtime and fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.
Caffeine can also affect us mentally. It can affect our…
Mood,
Short-term memory
Mental Clarity
Recent research has also found that caffeine may help protect us against Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. But like everything else, there can be consequences if you take in too much caffeine.
The side effects of consuming too much caffeine are…
Anxiety
Sleep Disturbance
Headaches
Nervousness
Restlessness
Nausea
Just like there are differences in the catechins found in the different teas, there is also a difference in the amount of caffeine within each type of tea. In this case, it is reversed.
Black tea has the most caffeine, followed by oolong, then green tea, with the least caffeine found in white tea.
There is another group of teas that are not really tea. These teas are called herbal teas. These teas are also called infusions or tisanes. These teas are made from flowers, herbs, and roots. They are not made from the leaves of the camellia sinensis tea plant. We will discuss herbal teas in a different course in the future.
Oh, and besides revisiting tea in the Mind Optimization strand of HOPE, we will also revisit tea in the Weight Optimization Strand of HOPE.
Where coffee is part of my morning ritual, tea is part of my daytime rituals. I like and prefer that my clients drink tea between 10 AM and 4 PM. If you have sleeping problems, make sure to stop drinking tea by 4 PM.
Drink tea and optimize your weight, health, and mind.
THIS WEEK'S US-IE
On Christmas Eve, we had a few forgotten grocery items, so me and my 1.5-year-old granddaughter went shopping. Vicky and I have six grandchildren, five grandboys and one granddaughter. She has my heart in her hand, and I love the emotions that come with being a grandparent. They're just the best.
My coaching roster is full, so I cannot offer my free week of coaching at this time.
I can only take referrals from current clients because I will always find time for my clients' friends and family.
But, if you're "PAUSE" miserable, I will make the time to talk to you and explain EVERYTHING you need to do to become Pause Awesome...
And remember...
"IT'S ALL ABOUT YOUR HORMONES!"
"Because when your hormones are balanced, your weight, health, and mind will follow."
❤️ Doc
© 2023 | Doc Mac Coaching
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