I have been historically a big fan of caffeine: in fact about two years ago I wrote a very popular blog about coffee. I was explaining how to make your coffee “Bulletproof”. Now maybe you’ve heard of the “Bulletproof” blog. This blog (and online store) is geared toward helping people achieve their full potential–to get the most out of every area of their life. This is a purpose I can get behind…so check it out. And I love coffee. I have drunk a cup a day for years.
Here are a few of the different ways I have enjoyed my coffee:
- drip
- Fresh ground French press
- Espresso machine
- with coconut oil blended in
- with butter blended in
- “Bulletproof”
- with coconut oil and butter blended in
- with heavy cream
- with milk and sugar free caramel syrup
- with half and half, when traveling
- black (only when absolutely necessary)
You get the picture. For many years (probably about 10) I have looked forward to my daily coffee. I can remember going to sleep at night and saying to myself “I can’t wait for the morning when I can have my delicious cup of coffee.” Yes, it was true love.
But recently I decided to give it up. Last week, in fact. I have been one week free of coffee. Now why on earth would I decide to make such a batty move?
Well it all has to do with my thyroid and adrenals. Because I am personally what you would call (and we in our office call) a thyroid and adrenal case. It’s not that I have any sort of disease–it’s more that those organs are a little weak and tend toward imbalance from time to time. Especially when I’m under stress. It’s not that my life is terribly stressful, it’s more that I work a lot and demand a lot of myself, and I have to be “on” a lot, which demands that my thyroid and adrenals work harder than usual.
The other thing about thyroids, and from time to time my thyroid too, is that they can become imbalanced in sort of an unusual way. Not quite hypo–you’ve probably heard a lot about hypo-thyroid situations, and not quite hyper (maybe you’ve heard about hyper-thyroids as well). But it’s like the thyroid goes a bit out of whack and wavers between hypo and hyper, which correlates symptomatically to up and down emotions and fluctuations of energy levels as well. This is not a medical condition, it’s just something that we have observed with stressed-out thyroids. Nutrition Response Testing is the only way to identify this sensitive situation. These thyroids need extra special care in the form of nutritional support, stress reduction, and yes–reducing the use of stimulants such as caffeine.
So from time to time I feel a little tired out or a bit keyed-up…I have my husband check my thyroid. My thyroid health is something I’ve been working on using stress reduction, diet and supplementation, but the piece I’ve been missing is reducing the stimulants. This is why I took the plunge and decided to cut out the coffee.
The first few days were rough. I tried to make up for the coffee withdrawal by drinking lots of black tea and mate, but I was still feeling exhausted and foggy. But now I can gladly say now that I’m over the hump, and I’m going to cut my caffeine back little by little from here. And my energy is better! Somehow that one little cup of coffee a day was not serving me. But by golly, am I glad coffee was there for me when I needed it.
So don’t panic and assume that you need to cut out coffee. I almost never recommend that my clients cut it out. But certain people might benefit. Here is a great article by Chris Kresser on coffee: “Coffee is good for you–unless it’s not.”
Here’s my diet log for the last few days:
Monday 10/31/16
7AM: black tea with milk (4)
8:30 AM: chicken with cabbage, onion and guacamole
11:00 AM: SP Berry bar (21)
2:30 PM: 1/2 c pecans (3), pumpkin seeds (1), chicken salad, homemade chai with rooibos and pu-erh tea
8:00 PM: sweet potato with butter (10), 1/2 diet coke, rooibos chai with milk and 1 tsp honey (10)
Carb total for Monday: 54 g
Tuesday 11/1/16
7:00 AM: homemade chai with mate and milk (4), chicken meatballs, black tea
1:30 PM: 1/2 SF chocolate bar (4), gluten free egg, cheese and bacon sandwich (34), mixed nuts (5), apple snitz (10), green tea
6:00 PM: potato chips (36), 1 diet coke
7:00 PM: mixed nuts (5), carrots (3), green tea with milk and stevia (4)
Carb total for Tuesday: 105
