I’m not talking about caffeinated beverages other than coffee or caffeinated anything for that matter.
It’s all about the coffee itself, every feature of it. Plain, forget what you or I put in it, though mostly for years, except on a rare occasion, I took mine black. For years also, I would take my first cup full strength, then drink the remaining pot diluted with water throughout the day and sometimes evening, anywhere from two to four twelve ounce full strength cups plus all that extra water per day.
Recently I began cutting back.
I didn’t need coffee to wake me up, though in my younger years a cup on the way to work is the way both Steve and I went. Just because. There really wasn’t any reason why I had to wake up more quickly than I already had.
Coffee breaks, well what does everybody do on a coffee break? Drink coffee. I didn’t really need to drink coffee to stay alert through the day, but back then I smoked cigarettes and the two would keep me from eating. I used to notice that those who didn’t smoke always ate something with their coffee. Not me. Eating was for meal time, that’s of course before I got into the cooking field and food took over my life, much to my pleasure by the way, since I love to create.
My relationship with coffee varied over the years. Sometimes it made me nervous, sometimes it accentuated nervous, sometimes it relaxed me where I could drink a lot without any nerves. People say it helps them to focus. Even though it probably did, it also got me stuck in the focus, so my neurons weren’t firing as rapidly as I wanted.
Looking back on it coffee has been in my life a long time. I love the smell of fresh coffee brewing. It doesn’t remind me of anything, like smells sometime will, it just gives me pleasure to smell it. Although as a kid my favorite ice-cream was coffee flavored, the coffee in the cup didn’t satisfy nearly as much.
I did a decaf stint for a while, but what’s the point? It’s kind of like drinking alcohol-free beer, what’s the point, does it really taste that good that I would pursue either one absent the drugs in them?
Coffee does a stain number on the teeth, it wrinkles your skin, dehydrates you, makes you breath stink, so why continue the affair when I’m getting nothing out of it?
Does it really help in weight reduction? No. It makes me after a point want to eat more, and then I do, just to settle my system. What it does is drain the body of fluid, which is what probably makes me feel hungry, and why some say it helps in weight reduction. I’m struggling with my weight and I drink coffee, so it obviously didn’t help me to lose weight and I’m the one I care about. Let everybody else do what they want. So in my view coffee can turn off the hunger signals or turn them on. So do I really want that iffy quality of coffee in my life any more?
No. I want to live without it. I want to see how my body-brain, given that I have neuromuscular deficits, respond to no coffee.
Two days in. These last two days I felt like I was on toxin overload. Hell. Never thought it was the absence of coffee till this morning when I woke up very early and actually wanted to get up. What did I do differently yesterday? Well, I forgot about the coffee till I went to type my input for the day for the AFC RAPID FAT-LOSS DIET, then remembered.
It looks like two days was my withdrawal period. Now I’m good. But for those two days I was up in the air somewhere, shaky, horrible abdominal pain, atropine-like dry mouth. I thought I was sick with some kind of bug I got at one of the places I go to socialize.
Yup I’m good.
Years ago I read in some papers that coffee prevented Parkinson’s disease. I didn’t believe it. If anything, in my limited knowledge, it would cause it, not prevent or cure it. Since nearly everybody drinks coffee, why so many people with Parkinson’s disease? Unless they really meant caffeine, whereby the amounts would have to be so large that the overstimulation of the brain would stall out the tremors.
I have dystonia, the opposite of Parkinson’s (kind of). Both are movement disorders supposedly originating from the basal ganglia of the brain that controls movement. The cause can be genetic or induced.
The abnormal movements associated with Parkinson’s are involuntary. The abnormal movements associated with dystonia occur upon voluntary movement of the affected muscle. It was once theorized that if you had one form you couldn’t have both. After many years of living with dystonia I know that there is some overlap.
Because of all the chemicals found in coffee, I wouldn’t recommend that anybody with a neurological disorder of any kind drink it. Sure I did, and some people with neurological disorders or diseases probably swear by its effectiveness for them. And that’s fine.
For me. It was time to end that relationship.
So, two days in and I’m good. We’ll see. Maybe abstaining will be beneficial. I could say that maybe it won’t matter, but I know it will. I’d rather my own systems take charge of functions they are designed by nature to perform, rather than trust a lot of unknown chemicals to do it.
In the meanwhile take a look at all the chemicals found in coffee.
This is what convinced me, in addition to its lack of efficacy in my particular situation, to stop indulging in this so-called harmless drug.
Chemicals found in coffee can be categorized in the following groups:
Hydrocarbons
Alkaloids
Caffeine, Theophylline, Trigonelline
Alcohols
Quinic acid, Acetoin
Aldehydes
Ketones
Acetoin
Acids and anhydrides
Quinic acid, 3,5-Di-caffeoylquinic acid
Esters
3,5-Di-caffeoylquinic acid
Lactones
Phenols
3,5-Di-caffeoylquinic acid
Furans
Pyrans
Thiophenes
Pyrroles
Oxazoles
Thiazoles
Pyridines
Pyrazines
Nitrogenous compounds and amines
Putrescine
Sulfurs
Dimethyl disulfide
Water
Minerals
Carbohydrates
Proteins
Lipids
Phenolic compounds
Waxes
Oils
Volatile components (not in the sense of volatile organic compounds)
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