So can you drink coffee and still follow the Paleo/Primal lifestyle?

I wanted to find out so I did a little search around the internet and I found a great article on whether or not coffee…let alone caffiene…is something you can keep in your life while trying to be primal.

Mark’s Daily Apple

This is a website you should read daily. Mark has so much information and experience with the Primal lifestyle that he makes a lot of us jealous with it. (They guy is a living encyclopedia) When you click the link above you will be taken to an article where he discusses coffee and the primal lifestyle. I like this from the article…

As far as the long term, I think the tipping point is relying on it for sustained energy levels. Caffeine can give us the occasional leg up, but if it’s keeping us upright day after day, it’s covering a larger problem. In both cases, the amount is unique to each person, although it’s known that we grow more sensitive to caffeine the older we get. For most folks, 200-300 mg of caffeine a day (100 mg being the typical content in a 6 oz. serving) – imbibed at least eight hours before bed – probably won’t cause significant problems. Once you’re downing a whole pot (500+ mg), however, you put yourself at risk for everything from heart palpitations to muscle tremors. My suggestion for upper limit: gauge your individual tolerance, but drink only what you need and keep it below 3 cups/300 mg of caffeine daily (generally when health benefits level out and negative symptoms increase).

Related articles:

• Does Caffeine Sensitivity Increase With Age? (livescience.com)
• Quitting Coffee (nutrition.suite101.com)

I posted 7 days of my caffeine reduction plan on this website. After that life got the best of me. I won’t make excuses but instead move forward and provide some good tips that I discovered while reducing the amount of caffeine I drink.

This was not an easy journey, but I found following the paleo diet while doing this made things much easier. My body felt better and cleaner and therefore it was easier to kick the habit.

A body full of carbs really made me crave coffee and soda for some reason. However, when I cut out the grains and stuck to vegetables, fruits, and lean meats I lost the craving for any of that.

I admit there were a few days that stress got the better of me and I resorted back to bad habits. You see, if I don’t get much sleep and have a stressful day lined up I go to coffee to get through it. I don’t smoke and I don’t drink, I go for coffee. The flavors and smells give me comfort and push me forward. Using it a little bit wouldn’t be that bad, but when half a pot is gone before noon…we have a problem.

I have studied a lot of caffeine reduction plans and they all have similar ideas on how to do this. I will give you 5 conventional ideas and then 5 not-so-conventional ideas. Here they are in no particular order.

1. Lots of water: Make sure you are staying hydrated. This will help with your headaches and any withdrawal symptoms. Chances are you were dehydrated from your caffeine addiction in the first place.
2. Meds if you have to: If your headache gets to bad, and water and stretching isn’t working. Use the meds. I know I know…a Paleo diet follower wouldn’t touch Advil, but if you are serious about kicking your caffeine addiction you are going to need to use any tools you can get.
3. Early morning walks: If you are like me and live in the Pacific Northwest, you can take a morning walk and be exposed to brisk fresh air. This really helped me whenever I started to feel withdrawal symptoms. It kept me awake and relieved my headaches.
4. Fruit: I found that cold fresh fruit really curved my cravings for coffee and soda. Whenever I had the craving I would find some fresh fruit and enjoy. The natural sugar boost was great for my energy levels and it got rid of the craving.
5. Tea: If you want to take slow steps to reduce your caffeine consumption, go to tea. Puerh teas can have coffee like flavors if that is what you are missing. If you are just looking to make steps start with tea, and slowly work down to herbal tea. Sometimes we find out that our coffee addictions are just addictions to your morning ritual of drinking a hot liquid.

Now those are some great conventional caffeine reduction tips that will help you out. Here are some other things I found worked for me during my 30 day reduction phase.

1. Binge: A couple of days during my reduction phase, I binged. I had way too much coffee…or even GASP an energy drink. You know what? It helped me. I had reduced my dependency on caffeine enough that the amount I drank really gave me the shakes. I felt like crap, because of this the next day I really didn’t want anything to do with the stuff.
2. Get a cold: I got a cold around day 11, believe it or not it was a great thing. I was getting a lot of sleep in order to recover and thus my need to stay up was gone. Also the cold medicine really helped with any withdrawal symptoms I was having.
3. Waking up early: I found that if I got up super early, 4:30 am, that I was tired at a normal time (9:00pm) the next day I would get up at a more normal time and because I got a good nights sleep I had a reduced need for caffeine.
4. Focusing on it: Because I was writing about it, or at least for a while, I was aware of my decisions. I highly recommend either blogging or journaling about your experience while you go through it. It will keep you going.
5. Don’t take it too seriously: Like I said, there were a few days that really required my full presence being there. I needed to be at a high level of intensity and so I used caffeine to get me there. I was using the drug in order to enhance my performance. You know what, I didn’t feel bad about binging. If I did, I could have sabotaged the whole process.

I hope both sets of tips can help you out in regards to your journey to drink less caffeine. I love not being quite as addicted to the drug that runs America.

Got any tips that you have used to get off the sweet crazy energy drug? Leave them in the comments or email me at paleoaddict@gmail.com

Keep it lean!

Related articles:

• Caffeine Reduction: Day 6 & 7 (paleoaddict.com)
• Caffeine Reduction: Day 2-5 (paleoaddict.com)
• Caffeine reduction (paleoaddict.com)

Day 6 & 7 no caffeine but I got help with my headache, yes I said headache. I think the withdrawal symptoms finally caught up with me. However, I got some help, I got a cold. With a cold came some NyQuil, therefore help with my headaches.

It really has made going with no caffeine much easier. Being sick tends to deter me from coffee and draws me towards herbal teas. I have been drinking a lot of Yogi Tea’s Peach Detox. I love the way it smells and the way it makes me feel. I figure it is a good idea to detox after using cold medication like NyQuil.

Feelings: I love not being attached to the coffee cup, when I get up in the morning I have a choice now. No longer, COFFEE!, but now I can choose a glass of ice water and not suffer any ill affects.

If you have an addiction, really to anything, you should try a gradual reduction system that works for you. Work with your doctor or homeopath (your choice) to set up a program that works for you. I have really seen good results in reducing addiction symptoms with coffee by using a Paleo diet plan to clean out my system and satisfy the nutritional needs my body was lacking.

I think a lot of my problem with caffeine use was because I was lacking nutrients and vitamins that my average American diet simply wasn’t giving to me. I don’t remember the last time I ate this much fruit, vegetables, and lean protein. My diet consisted mainly of carbs and processed food.

Look to your right, click on the Paleo cookbooks link and get started. I can’t highly recommend it enough, plus you will be supporting this site. Win-Win-Win

Things that helped:

• Cold medication: Just a coincidence.
• Paleo meals
• Will power
• Accountability through this site.

Related articles:

• Caffeine Reduction: Day 2-5 (paleoaddict.com)
• Quitting an Addiction – No More Coffee (funkykaraoke.com)
• Caffeine Reduction: Day 1 (paleoaddict.com)
• Caffeine reduction (paleoaddict.com)
• Love your cup o’ Joe? (thindependence.com)

Well did you miss me?

I took time to go on a Men’s retreat this last weekend, got a lot of good work done. Well back to caffeine reduction.

Days 2-5 were very interesting. I decided to go drastic on day 2 and 3, slipped up on day 4 and day 5 is going good! In fact I had 1 sip of coffee today and that is it.

Feelings: Day 2 and 3 were great, I was focused and even on the retreat I kept up a paleo diet and didn’t have the craving for caffeine. However, day 4 was a very long rainy day on the Oregon coast and with that came the desire to have a few cups of hot coffee. They were great, I could see the increased effect of it on me now though. Due to going a while without a large amount of caffeine, it hit me real hard. Luckily I could go on a nice long brisk walk to get it out of me.

Diet: Temptation was great on the retreat but I stuck to my guns, I felt much better for it. The first day I did have some carbs, and I paid for it with a stomach ache. As the week went on I even passed on fresh baked cookies each night. Wow, I have grown!

Caffeine Content:

N/A on days 2, 3, and 5

Day 4 115 milligrams x 6 = 690 milligrams

Normal intake: Coffee 115 milligrams x 4 = 460

Headache?

Nope

Things that helped:

• Paleo meals
• Hot herbal tea
• Talking with good friends to keep my mind off of it.
• Walking outside (brisk ocean air)

Days 2-5 went satisfactory, but I really need to get going and start being drastic. If you have any tips to fight cloudy day coffee cravings, let me know by making a comment or it me up on twitter @paleoaddict

Keep it lean!

Related articles:

• Caffeine reduction (paleoaddict.com)
• Caffeine Reduction: Day 1 (paleoaddict.com)

This is day 1 of my caffeine reduction 30 day challenge. I want to keep a similar format on each day to make it easier to follow along. So the format I use on this post will be used on every post. I am type A like that.

Feelings:

So 2 cups of coffee (roughly 12 oz) is all the caffeine I have had today. I feel alright. At the moment it is 2:52, a time where I am normally pretty tired.

Diet:

I think having a good breakfast (eggs/bell peppers/spinach) and lunch (spinach salad with carrots/cabbage/olive oil dressing/apple sauce) has really helped. I have also been drinking a lot of ice water, which I think has helped a lot. I just feel slightly run down.

Caffeine content:

115 milligrams x 2 = 230 milligrams of caffiene

Normal intake: Coffee 115 milligrams x 4 = 460

Headache?:

Nope

Things that have helped:

• Paleo meals
• Ice Water
• Plenty of sleep the night before
• Walking outside (its currently 43 F outside. Nice and brisk)

I am slightly surprised how easily I have stepped down to 50% of my caffeine intake with no pain medication. I was expecting a large headache. I may have a small cup of coffee towards the evening hours by the way I am feeling. I have a busy evening and might need the good effects of the drug in order to keep going. Again, I am controlling it, not the other way around.

Keep it lean!

Related articles:

• Caffeine reduction (paleoaddict.com)
• Quitting an Addiction – No More Coffee (funkykaraoke.com)
• High-Octane Caffeine May Trigger Headaches (nlm.nih.gov)

Caffeine is something that I have a love-hate relationship with. I love the smell, taste, and feeling of a good cup of coffee in the morning. Or the buzz I get from an energy drink while I am working or playing some xbox.

This relationship I have had with caffeine has been great, but then things changed. I noticed that over the last month or two I am consuming a lot of caffeine everyday…just to keep going. My diet has changed slowly to become more and more Paleo friendly and I started to feel better. However, with this change in diet I have noticed I start to feel tired around 3:00 pm everyday and its a struggle to stay awake the rest of the day.

I can’t point at my change in diet to explain this situation, simply because even with just 1 cup of coffee in the morning I feel very awake. Breakfasts of eggs and vegetables with a little bit of fruit really get me going. A salad for lunch is what I am doing now, but then 3:00 rolls around. Bam! Brick wall.

When I hit this wall I do what any geek would do, head for the caffeine. I don’t like this. I don’t like the control it has over me, I should use it as a tool…not a crutch.

I have read way too much material on how to reduce or eliminate the amount of caffeine in your diet. From getting rid of coffee to switching to tea. You see, I don’t want to quit this drug…I want to control it.

What caffeine does:

In humans, caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant, having the effect of temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness. Beverages containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks, and energy drinks enjoy great popularity. Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike many other psychoactive substances it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions. In North America, 90% of adults consume caffeine daily.^[5] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists caffeine as a “multiple purpose generally recognized as safe food substance”.^{[6] -wiki pedia}

Pros:

-Restores alertness

-Helps you Focus

-Increases Energy

Cons:

- It is a psychoactive drug

- Affects your brain chemistry

- Addiction does occur

- Too much can kill you

Paleo?

I bet a caveman or two ate a few coffee berries. Should be limited though. Most Paleo experts say no, but a little is okay.

http://paleodiet.com/

My first thought is this:

1. Go cold turkey for 1 month, struggle through the pain and use pain medicine to get through the headaches.

2. After that month slowly introduce small amounts of caffeine through tea, dark chocolate, and other sources.

3. Maintain lower level of use.

I don’t know if I can make it through cold turkey though. I consume the equivalent to 6-8 cups of coffee a day.

The other option is to spread this out over a couple of months. First lower the amount of coffee I drink, then switch to tea, then a piece of dark chocolate or two, gradually down to none.

I think I am going to chronicle my thoughts and tips of this experience. A lot of people think that caffeine reduction is a good thing. You can tell by the amount of blog posts written on it.

So I think it is time for a 30 day challenge!

Day 1 will be tomorrow,I am going to opt for the slow steps. I will post my caffeine use through this blog and on twitter @paleoaddict.

Related articles:

• Perky Jerky (coolhunting.com)
• Espresso – It’s not just for breakfast (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• The false god of coffee (kk.org)