Wednesday, March 26, 2014

No More Buzz - Update

Not quite a month ago, I wrote about my goal of giving up caffeine.

So... right about now I bet you're wondering if (A) I stuck to it and (B) I've killed someone yet.  After all, I'm the one at the office who is constantly pissed off when they go to fill their coffee cup and the communal pot has been left sitting empty...

 

 


Well, the good news is - no.  There have been no killings.  Not even when I switched down to decaf.




I mean, yeah, I had a few days of random mild headaches that would come and go.  And strangely, when I decided to jump down from decaf to nothing, I had another day of headaches.

But after that, I was in the clear. 




Great news, right?

Seems too good to be true?

Well... maybe.  It's a little soon to tell.  I say this because, I noticed after I gave up coffee entirely, I started having a wicked bad sweet tooth in the AM.  I'm not sure if that was just physiological because I missed coffee, or maybe because I used sweet cream in my coffee, or maybe because the coffee served as a mild appetite suppressant and now I don't have that anymore.  I don't know.

What I can say is that I really miss having some sort of hot liquid in the AM to help me perk up and prepare for my day.  Nothing quite does it like coffee with a bit of sweet cream in it.  And although I could look into herbal teas or something else, that doesn't really help me with my ultimate goal, which is to reduce my overall sugar intake (since I know I'd never be able to drink something hot that's unsweetened).

BTW, I am doing quite well on the less sugar goal.  I haven't caved to any Easter candy (my ultimate weakness) in over two weeks. 



If you've never been to a MN Ren Fair, you might not get this joke.


I'm also doing very well with my counter goal - drinking water in the morning in lieu of coffee to help me get a jump start on hydrating more through out the day.  Yes, yes.  Queue peeing machine.

Interestingly, this no caffeine thing has helped me totally kick my diet soda habit, too.  Not that I drank a ton of that, maybe 1-3 cups per week at most.  But that means I've pretty much eliminated my chemical sweetener use (read: calorie free, sugar substitute).

To be honest, I have broken the no caffeine rule a couple of times for race day events, but really ... I didn't have any setbacks because of that.  So, I think I'm good.  I've kicked the addiction.

And, I can honestly say that overall, I'm glad I started this test.  Before I say I'm totally done with coffee, I'm going to give it one more full month of evaluation.  But maybe I'll dump the habit for good?

Have you ever given up coffee?  Something else?  Tell me about it below!!



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