One of the issues with a diet such as Atkins is that although you can still eat a quite varied diet, that includes bacon and eggs for breakfast, roast beef, pork and chicken (and the tasty fatty bits), you have to drink what seems to be a tank-full of liquid every day. This is to make sure your body remains in a state of 'Ketosis' all the time (where the body is drawing on its fat store for energy - i.e. eating yourself up!), so this liquid intake is very important to its success and to your continued health while on the diet.

Apart from the fact that even my grandkids now laugh at how many times I need the toilet each day, trying to maintain this volume of liquid intake can be very daunting, especially when you consider beer, lager, and all alcohols are out, and tasty stuff like lemonade is also a no-no, what on earth is left apart from water, gallons of coffee, or tea?

Well, coffee and normal tea are both full of caffeine, and as I can not have milk while on Atkins, tea has to be taken black and sugarless.

So, I switched to taking copious amounts of green tea, not in the least because it came in such a fantastic range of blends with many fantastic combinations of ginseng, lotus flower, orange, all pure, and n added sugar, that green tea of some sort became quite a good replacement for at least 2 pints of liquid a day.

Now, when you are on a diet 'Ketosis' mode, it is most important that you do drink the recommended liquids that you are told to - otherwise, the colon for instance, will extract liquid from your 'waste' materials, making it very difficult to go to the toilet.

But rather that just sloshing plain water through your system, why not use at least a quarter of that quantity, with a natural product that has so many beneficial effects on your system?

While your body is chewing away at its own fat content, the healing actions of the green tea components will be acting as a detoxifier, removing a lot of the harmful free radicals in your body.

Here is a summary of the beneficial effects of green tea...

Well, it would all seem to point to a substance contained in some teas called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). This is not only just a very powerful anti oxidant, but it also has properties that can cut down cholesterol, inhibit the formation of blood clots (Western society of course prefers rat poison for that!), would seem to be able to act as a cure for cancer, and can even search out and destroy cancer cells in the body.

So, let's look at a list of the most common ailments in the Western world that have the highest mortality rate.

-Cancer

-Heart disease

-High levels of bad cholesterol

-Rheumatoid arthritis

Then look at some other afflictions, less deadly, but equally as debilitating to our lives:-

-Obesity

-Tooth decay

-Headaches

-Depression

-Impaired Immune functions

-Infections (food poisoning for instance)

-Acne

Would you believe that every one of those issues is believed to respond to Green Tea?

So, while your body is getting into a better physical shape, what's left is being encouraged to become a lot fitter, thanks to Green Tea.

Next time you consider a diet, make sure as much of your liquid intake as possible consists of some flavour of Green Tea.