Coach Wilkins looked down at his clipboard of plays, his forehead exhuming sweat from the three point lead the other team held. There wasn’t much time left on the clock and his roster was scarily thin. His quarterback had gone down with a concussion back in the third quarter and his running back was limping around like a wounded jack rabbit.

 “Bobby,” the coach yelled to a young undersized kid, his helmet in between his hands. Bobby had almost dozed off. Coach never called his name.

 “Yeah coach?” His response was half excitement and half drowsiness.

 “You’re going in son. Quarterback.” Coach Wilkins swallowed hard, all the dreams of moving on to coach college championships sinking down the drain faster than his ex wife cleaning out his bank account.

Little Bobby scrambled, running to the field as he buckled his helmet under his chin. This was his chance! He would show everyone! The crowd grew eerily quiet as the undersized freshman took to the field.

“Benny, you run a quick route. Joey, make a break for the end zone. Pete – well – pretend I gave you the ball. Everyone break on three.” The once under-appreciated Bobby Gardner was not going to let this chance pass him by. He was going to show the world that the bench was not his place.

Small Word- Big Benefits

The word “tea” doesn’t exactly instill confidence. It doesn’t make you think tough or powerful. Coffee equates to go, go, going and tea to wind down. But don’t let tea fool you. Especially green tea. It’s a powerful little guy and it might be time to include it in your daily routine.

Green tea has been around for centuries, especially in the far east, where its been a popular staple of the diet over there. Everyone from bodybuilders to athletes have jumped on the bandwagon, recognizing there may be more here then meets the eye. Here are some ways green tea may boost your health in the right direction. 

First and Ten (Cholesterol) – More then a few studies seem to suggest that green tea might help lower bad cholesterol and boost the good kind, making it a big time ally to your heart. A recent Harvard School of Medicine Review of roughly 41,000 Japanese people showed a decreased risk of heart attacks and strokes by about 26% for those that drank five small cups a day. If you wanna win the big game, you gotta have heart first and foremost. 

Second and Five (weight loss) – Everyone is always searching for the magic pill to help shed that stubborn fat. Well, some research shows that coupled with exercise, green tea extract may in fact, help that slow and painful process along. One such study, conducted by the good folks at  Provident Clinical Research, found that green tea extract helped one group shed belly fat faster than the control in the study. 

RED ZONE (cancer) – It all comes down to this. Nobody wants to hear the C word in their lives, whether for themselves or loved ones. Green tea has been shown to help support your bodies fight against unwanted cells with the all important antioxidants. The University of California  recently completed a study on men with prostate cancer. The men were asked to drink a few cups of green tea a day before they went under the knife for surgery. Although the study wasn’t long enough in the researchers opinion, they did see encouraging signs of lower than expected proteins in the men’s bodies that are believed to cause that cancer. Helping save lives = scoring touchdowns in my book! 

There are a lot of choices out there for supplements and while its true that Green tea has been out for a while now but its not to be forgotten. You have a lot of plays in your playbook. Green tea may be a smart one to call. 

In part 2 of our green tea series, we’ll look at the other side of this supplement and see why too much might not be such a good thing.