Not that you asked

[jayfurr]

I'm all but giving up caffeine for Lent. The "all but" part comes from a grudging acknowledgement that I felt sick the days I tried to go completely cold turkey on coffee. The last two days I've had one (1) cup of coffee upon first getting up, and none at all the rest of the day. And I've had no caffeinated soda nor chocolate nor anything else containing caffeine or theobromine. And I just loaded up my arms with my boxes of K-Cups and Via packets and cans of Coke Zero and even some lightly caffeinated Crystal Light drink packets and took them off to the break room and left them.

Do I think this will draw me closer to God? No. I don't have a weird idea that God is sitting up there in heaven ticking off, each day, whether I drank coffee or not. If people make a big fuss of giving something up, but otherwise IN NO WAY try to be more thoughtful and kind and Christian and so on, it's not really accomplishing anything, is it? If you're religious, you should be spending the Lenten season in contemplation of Christ and what he did for us and what he tried to teach us, NOT acting like someone who's just embarking on a new fad diet. So, no, I don't have that motivation. Christ doesn't care if I drink two cups of coffee instead of one.

So: the real reason "why" is actually pretty simple: I drink WAY too much coffee. I used to say "Naw, I don't overindulge, I don't get a headache on the weekend if I don't have a cup." Well, sure, maybe I could make it ONE DAY without feeling too rotten, but I just had it painfully demonstrated that I can't go multiple days on absolutely no caffeine without feeling like death warmed over.

If I'm going to try to get healthy (by going vegetarian, by losing a lot of weight, by exercising more, and even by trying to become a halfway competent runner), it makes no sense to go on crippling myself with an addiction that leaves me feeling sick and awful on days I try to cut back.

Perhaps this will even help with the nodding-off-behind-the-wheel urge I've been fighting for years on long car trips. If I sleep better at night because I'm not always coming down from the pot of coffee I had before noon that day, I might be more rested and functional ALL THE TIME.

So that's the vow: one cup of coffee per day, in the morning, and then nothing else containing caffeine. That means no caffeinated soda, no chocolate, no caffeinated energy drinks, and definitely no caffeinated tea or coffee.

And if I can, in a week or so, or maybe sooner, I'm going to try another no-coffee-at-all day and see if I still feel rotten. One way or another, the goal ultimately is not to need that morning cup of coffee at all.

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I'm not even Christian, and I've occasionally given up stuff for Lent just as a method of self-discipline for a finite period of time. Usually what I give up is sugar. That is rough going, man. I've been a vegetarian for 20 years, and that's never been as hard as giving up sugar for 7 weeks!

[jayfurr.livejournal.com]

I'm a little unclear how one gives up sugar. It's in virtually everything. I mean, obviously one abstains from candy and ice cream. But it's in EVERYTHING. A loaf of bread has sugar in it.

What rules do you follow?

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

It's not easy...I did my best to avoid things that were very obviously sugary, as you mention, and to avoid adding sugar to anything. If I wanted a sweet treat, I went for sugar-free versions of those items. It wasn't a perfect system by any means, but it was about as close as I could reasonably get without major contortions.

[jayfurr.livejournal.com]

You know, I should do that too. Abstaining from chocolate would obviously knock out a lot of sugar but I do need to form the habit to think "Do I really need a sugary snack?"

For me, though, the #1 food kryptonite items are cheese and nuts. I can eat virtually unlimited quantities of either.