Trying to kick (well reduce..) the coffee intake...

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:54 pm

I am one of those people who cannot function without coffee in the morning. I try to limit it to two cups.. but usually I fail miserably.

It is especially difficult during the grey winters, that first steaming hot sip is magic, and it somehow helps to dispel the dark, overhanging clouds and the lethargy gripping me as I attempt to surface from Nocturne's grasp.

Even worse, I drink it strong, black and unsweetened. Now, you'd think this might curtail the quantity I consume, but it does not. *sigh* Maybe because I drink the high grade arabica, organic stuff, so it doesn't leave my stomach twisting in protest

But, my problem is that coffee is an appetite suppressant, so in the winter mornings, my appetite does not kick in until at least mid morning, which means I am running on an empty fuel tank; this is not beneficial for the creative process I require at work.

The summer is not as bad. I drink protein shakes in the mornings... easy to digest, lots of energy. But it is difficult to manage this in the witer for some reason.

Sooo... does anybody here have some suggestions. I can't eliminate coffee completely; to do so would result in force five migraines (yes, I'm addicted).. but I'd like to at least reduce my intake.

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 2:07 pm

Try substituting it with black tea. I've found unsweetened, strong Earl Grey to be a good replacement for coffee when I need the caffeine in the early hours of the morning / late hours of the night

. When I get the crazy idea of cutting caffeine intake I replace Earl Grey with green tea, but I usually don't last long before returning to Earl Grey.

Moonbiter · Post by **Moonbiter** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 2:24 pm

Ah, coffee....

A few years back I employed a secretary who used to greet me in the morning with a steaming pot of the best Java I've ever had , and just kept'em coming through the day. Needless to say I was a complete mess. I barely ate anything before lunch, and when I quit smoking in -99, the problem just got worse. I ended up having to simply go into rehab, being like the "Coffee Guy" on Mad TV, which meant that I blimped out completely as it involved eating a lot and substituting coffee with a lot of fruit juices and water. In 6 months I looked like a whale, but I eventually weened myself off the stuff, and today I barely touch it anymore.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 2:42 pm

I have a similar problem (Except that I have no intention on kicking the problem

). My advice would be to ween yourself down, using lower grade coffee. There was a period of time where I was unable to use my usual Gautamalan/Kenyian blend, and was forced to subside on Tim Hortan blend. That was a bad experiance. For sometime afterwards, I had a difficult time consuming a lot of coffee.

Just a thought.

CM · Post by CM » Wed Jan 19, 2005 6:39 pm

Switch to tea. It is healither and if you get the right tea it is more effective than coffee. I hate coffee by taste but when i do drink it, it has no effect on me. Heck coke has a stronger effect on me.

Tower_Master · Post by **Tower_Master** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:47 pm

I used to be a coffeeholic, but I found that just plain steamed milk in the mornings wakes me up really nice. It might be worth trying!

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:08 pm

I used to be a coffeeholic, but I found that just plain steamed milk in the mornings wakes me up really nice. It might be worth trying

Hmm... That might be worth a try. We have a cappuccino maker, and while we use the espresso function * a lot* we don't use the steamed milk wand very much. Of course, I could always just start of slow and simply add steamed milk to my morning coffee, which would dilute it somewhat and also give me at least some nutritional value

Switch to tea. It is healither and if you get the right tea it is more effective than coffee.

Try substituting it with black tea. I've found unsweetened, strong Earl Grey to be a good replacement for coffee when I need the caffeine in the early hours of the morning / late hours of the night. When I get the crazy idea of cutting caffeine intake I replace Earl Grey with green tea, but I usually don't last long before returning to Earl Grey.

Unhappily, I am allergic to the tannins in most black teas, and I end up feeling extremely nauseous when I ingest them. Though, oddly I can (and often do) drink Earl Grey. I think the bergamot oil must neautralize the tanic acid or something. Equally, I can drink green tea. The thing is... teas just don't seem the same as cofffee, they lack the pungent, heartwarming richness that coffee provides. *sigh* But yes, I have tried in the past to switch to green tea of Earl Grey after one cup of java, with mixed success.

I ended up having to simply go into rehab, being like the "Coffee Guy" on Mad TV, which meant that I blimped out completely as it involved eating a lot and substituting coffee with a lot of fruit juices and water. In 6 months I looked like a whale, but I eventually weened myself off the stuff, and today I barely touch it anymore.

*eek* That must have been nasty. Happily, I don't smoke, so I don't have to fear going into double withdrawl. And even when I'm not fueled up by caffeine I frequently forget to eat

, though when I do remember it is fairly healthy stuff, so I'm hoping I won't be in danger of being hauled out to sea

My advice would be to ween yourself down, using lower grade coffee. There was a period of time where I was unable to use my usual Gautamalan/Kenyian blend, and was forced to subside on Tim Hortan blend. That was a bad experiance. For sometime afterwards, I had a difficult time consuming a lot of coffee.

*shudders at the thought of Tim Horton's coffee*
I'm not sure I'm quite at that point...

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:34 pm

[QUOTE=dragon wench]

*shudders at the thought of Tim Horton's coffee*
I'm not sure I'm quite at that point...

[/QUOTE]
I was quite disturbed to see that Tim Hortan's coffee was just as bad in BC, as it was in Ontario. It baffles me that it is, somehow, our number one source for coffee in Canada...

InfiniteNature · Post by **InfiniteNature** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:53 pm

Buy one of those huge Coke bottles, drink that instead in the morning.

Take up Junk food and errrr Smoking.

Serious advice would be to try and balance it out with something else and not try to make outrageous cuts, keep the coffee but use something to halve it something that is probably not quite as bad as coffee but still bad.

Like a candy bar, or something.

I don't like coffee makes me nauseous, but I find fresh fruit and or various juices, orange juice I prefer to be good, the acidity on a empty stomach plus the energy it gives you helps out.

Learned this in college after I decided I drank Coke way to much.

Also try hot spicy food or drinks, they also do wonders to wake one up.

This I also learned in college, seemed a easy way to utilize leftovers like pizza, etc. and convert it into a pick you up in the morning food or drink. Adding tobasco sauce to tomato juice for example, I mean lots of it.

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:53 pm

Coffee - the drink of the gods. I prefer it strong, and live on it during the day.

Yea, when they bury my cold, stiff corpse, they shall send me to the worms with a nice bag of espresso roast clutched in my hand. In the other hand they shall affix a good quality bean grinder. There's no point in facing the underworld unprepared.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 10:00 pm

[QUOTE=Chanak]Yea, when they bury my cold, stiff corpse, they shall send me to the worms with a nice bag of espresso roast clutched in my hand. In the other hand they shall affix a good quality bean grinder. There's no point in facing the underworld unprepared.

[/QUOTE]
Really? When I go I want to buried with a shotgun, and plenty of rounds... No way those zombie punks are getting the best of me! And if I become a mindless zombie along with them, well hey, I'll have a shotgun, and become the kind zombie

Demortis · Post by **Demortis** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 10:11 pm

I would suggest caffine drinks i use them alot, and they work to a point. it might help to have coffee and an energy drink. if you live in a place with convince store on every frealing corner. if you dont then i dont know what to tell ya. but like Luis would say "theres my 2 cents"

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 12:46 am

Good thing I don't have any such addictions. (other then computer, gambeling, cokes, computers)

I have never liked coffee, but I've only tried it once.
It was a very cold night back when I was in the army, and we camped out at a farm, but I was on guard duty, so couldn't lay in the warm barn

It was like 15degrees frost and it was our third night out so I was very cold and thought - what the heck it might warm me up. I spit it out after the first sip and took a drink of my frozen canteen - or rather licked the ice

I've never touched coffee since

I simply dislike the taste and further more see no reason for learning to drink it. I don't see the fasnination with drinking coffee.

Danged- I must be boring.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 12:55 am

Well, Xan my friend, you more than likely had a poor blend, as there is incredably flavourful coffee out there (Kenyan is very nice. A bit of a nutty flavour). I'd imagine Army-Grade coffee is something completely different. A shame it spoiled your tastes

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:16 am

Actually - it was "farmer coffee", not army coffee.
We camped out at the farm in the barn, and the wife of the farm came out with loads of some danish small baked cakes (there is no english name for them that I know of) and loads of coffee for us - she felt sorry for us having to be out in such weather

(so did we by the way - but winter was hard and long that year).
So the coffee was some regular coffee being consumed all over Denmark.

Perhaps speciel blends are better and I would like the taste of some, but I see no reason to start trying to experiement.

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 1:49 am

DW, I don't think replacing coffe with coke is a good idea!

While coffee is somewhat natural, coke is just melted garbage with bubbles, so that's hundred times more harmful than coffe.

According to the blood type diet, if your blood type is A, coffe is actually good for you, while black tea is not (good that you have already crossed that out - in case you're A, that is).

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:13 am

Good thing I'm not blood type A then

I belive I'm "O rh -" whatever that means for my life.

Brynn · Post by **Brynn** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:51 am

If my sister was here, she'd start listing the food types that's good for you straight away

@DW: one more thing, it is said that you have more chance to be successful at giving up thing and getting rid of bad habits when the Moon is new or growing. So don't forget to look up at the sky the previous evening

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:24 am

@DW I have been in the situation where I get headaches in the morning if I don't have my morning coffee, but I found it's not that hard to go cold turkey. Don't drink any coffee, drink plenty of water, and the headache just goes away. It might be hell the first couple of days, but it doesn't take long to wean oneself off coffee, from my experience anyway.

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Thu Jan 20, 2005 7:20 am

[QUOTE=dragon wench]I am one of those people who cannot function without coffee in the morning...

Even worse, I drink it strong, black and unsweetened...[/QUOTE]
Are you addicted to coffee, or are you addicted to caffeine? I don't know much about coffee, so I don't know if there's anything besides caffeine that makes it addictive. If you are simply addicted to caffeine and want to reduce your coffee consumption, the obvious solution is to drink less coffee but take caffeine supplements. If you suddenly reduce your caffeine consumption, you'll probably suffer from constipation as well as headaches, so I think you need to ease yourself off of it gradually. Maybe drinking lots of water helps, but since caffeine is a diuretic, I wonder what the effect of drinking lots of water would be if you have stopped "taking your diuretic".

Since you like your coffee strong and black, that means you really do like coffee, not some sweet, watered-down confection that's masquerading as coffee. (I'm the same way with chocolate.) Therefore, I would expect that you would miss your coffee even if you got a caffeine fix. But I have found that our tastes for food are transitory: if you stop eating a certain kind of food, you will gradually lose your taste for it. I don't think that a mere reduction in coffee will make you lose your taste for it; unfortunately, I think you'd have to stop drinking it completely for a while.

So to sum up, here's my suggestion: take caffeine supplements instead of drinking coffee in the morning, then wean yourself off the caffeine while you ween yourself off the coffee. In a few months, maybe you can become a light to moderate coffee drinker instead of a heavy coffee drinker.