Drinking tea is great for weight control, but not in the way you are thinking, unless you are thinking about snacks.

All the ramifications of what is in tea, and how it suppresses appetite is not what I mean.

Here’s my logic, and the habit.

When I go out for coffee (and this is only when I go out), I get a snack. Coffee plus pumpkin bread. Coffee plus donut. Coffee plus croissant. Coffee demands a snack, for me, when I am in a coffee shop. However, if I am at home, I can drink coffee all by itself. I don’t need the snack. What’s up with that?

When I go out for tea, on the other hand, I never get a snack. I get just the tea. Most tea houses that I frequent serve tea in a pot, from which you pour, after it has steeped. Maybe that’s it: I need a distraction when I drink warm drinks; either the visual of the teapot and the pouring of the liquid, or eat a snack.   

I suspect that it’s more. I grew up a tea drinker. We drank tea at home. It was habitual. We did not include snacks. When I became an adult and drank coffee, it revolved around going out somewhere to have a cup of coffee. Hence, what the heck! There’s that snack in the case, or on the plate, or in the refrigerator. That’s a different habit. 

Now that I am losing weight, on purpose, I find that I don’t want to go out for coffee. The pull is too strong for the snacketto.

I will stick to tea. It’s safer, healthier, and less calories.

Another gold star for tea.