explain to me the logical basis behind deterring coffee consumption...

Are you getting caffeine from anywhere else? Cokes/sodas? Tea? Energy drinks?
 

 

I guess I'm immune. I can go off and on caffeine any time. I don't have any specific routine. Honestly, I don't think caffeine has much, if any effect on me. I'll drink coffee if it is cold, and I'll drink a coke every now and then, but I'll go with water much of the time.

 

i never was much of a coffee drinker...I think I can count on my fingers the number of times I've had a cup of coffee in the past 3 years. I maybe average 4-5 cups a year.

I used to get my caffeine from diet sodas but even with those I stopped recently.

if I drink diet soda now its 7up or caffeine free dr pepper

i am trying to get rid of any dependence of caffeine out of my system.

my parents were hooked on tea and my mom would have huge withdrawals if she didnt have her cup in the afternoon. i think thats what scared me away from coffee and tea.

you see all the crazy looks i get when i go to india and my relatives ask me what i want to drink i and just say water.

 

This really doesn't apply to your post in the strictest sense, but I wanted to share my wealth of knowledge on caffeine during my work for the pentagon in the last 10 years (Yes, I work for the pentagon and am sharing vital secrets with you). My experience with caffeine is a mixed bag. I sleep fairly ****ty 70% of the time, which I'm working on with different routes and different doctors so I'm caught in the middle. Do I take caffeine and increase my anxiety and stay awake or do I have lower anxiety and lower caffeine amounts with more sleepiness and "will" myself to accomplish things?

That's one of the reasons I don't have too much of it a day (60-120 mg tops), but it's an interesting deal too as I'm trying to cut back as well but the alternatives to caffeine that are actually "stimulating" are very few.

1) guarana 2) ginseng 3) yerba mate tea 4) guaranine.

By definition, nothing is stimulating without caffeine except cocaine or meth , lol. Caffeine is in every damn thing these days and so I find it particularly difficult to stay away from it. Sure you can drink the p***y drinks and drinks that no one enjoys like "vegetable juice" , "perrier" , "sparkling water" , "prune juice", "pomegranate juice, "decaffeinated green tea (yes, it exists, lol)" and other crap. I put them all in quotations because no one drinks them and if you do, you're in the lame 1% of society that does.

On to my continuation of my caffeine is in everything point. It's hard to escape. Water is fine to a point but you want something different with your foods. I substitute those flavored carbonated sodas, that aren't quite sodas but don't have caffeine / calories. Propel is good too. Green tea in the stores contains caffeine, diet drinks contain caffeine, some foods even contain caffeine, most of the popular drink mix packets you toss in your water bottle have caffeine. Nothing you enjoy drinking contains less than 11-25 mg per 8 oz.

On my above list of replacement and slightly more natural stimulants, I've tried ginseng and it blows for energy. Green tea does have a slight catch though that makes it's caffeine better for you than caffeine in sodas/etc in that it has "tannin" which is supposed to decrease the rate of caffeine absorption so you don't get as much at one time and don't go through the wall. I think that's bull**** as I'd never heard of tannin until 2 days ago.

To sum up my thesis, I have no point. Only observations and information

 

Root Beer: Mug and A&W have no caffeine. But be careful: Barq's root beer does have caffeine.

Sprite and 7-up have no caffeine.
 

 

That's very true. I didn't include those because of my battle with late night eating. I love soda, but 150 cal/per 12 oz can is rough.

 

I can relate to what you went through. Gave up caffeine for Lent thinking it would an "easy out". Boy was I wrong.

Went through the same symptoms you went through, and although I'd still like a cup in the morning now, I don't NEED it. It's really opened my eyes to how addicted to it I really am.

Granted, I'll probably go back to it after Easter, but I'm going to try and limit it to some caffeine in the morning. No Coke at lunch with a Coke at 4pm to finish the day. Also no Coke with dinner either.

Like another poster said, everything in moderation. On the plus side, I've lost 5 pounds just by cutting out all that sugar!

 

If it works for you, do it. It doesnt matter if A_3PO feels sorry for you or RC Cola gave up sodas or MadMax sees the mystery of God in his coffee grounds.

It sounds like you live a very healthy lifestyle. You deserve a vice. A little java every morning seems like a reasonable one.

 

Yep, its good if you have maybe one cup every few days.

 

Well, then, it's just gonna have to be H2O for you. Milk has calories. V-8 is expensive as hell and is loaded with sodium (so is Gatorade).
 

 

hmmm ...

I guess you could try some of the non-addictive stimulants (like TheBigAristotle posted).

And, to answer your original question...
The harm in using caffeine is..

(1) it's a diarrhetic, so you might end up going to the bathroom a lot
(2) it's a stimulant, so it may interfere with your ability to sleep
(3) it's physically addictive, so you may be forced to consume it regularly or suffer withdrawals.

If you don't mind those, drink up.
 

 

Just to keep the argument fair...

I drink 1-2 small cups in the morning and one iced coffee after lunch on workdays. On weekends I drink a cup in the morning.

My bathroom habits seem pretty normal, if two dueces a day falls within the range of normal poopology.

I go to bed at 11pm on nights I dont go out and wake up at the same day every day (including weekends thanks to the kiddo)

I dont like instant coffee, so when I go hiking or camping, I do without. I managed to hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu last spring without coffee. Yeah, I had porters carry my packs up the steep hills (hey, its vacation) but I didnt go into withdrawal symptoms or grow horns due to lack of caffeine.

I will admit that the cup of Joe I had at the Inkaterra Lodge in Aguas Calientes was pretty damn good. Then again, for the price of the rooms up there, it should have been ground by Juan Valdez himself.

 

Instead of coffee, jog in the morning. You won't be comatose after that. Coffee is not the only cure for being tired in the morning.

I have coffee every morning, but not as a stimulant. I'm not tired in the morning and I never notice any stimulant effect from coffee. But, a couple of years ago, I noticed I got headaches from caffeine withdrawal if I didn't have my morning coffee. So, I switched to decaf. What's the point of being addicted when I get no benefit anyway?

 

I like this suggestion.

I think the facts are pretty clear that regular, heavy coffee drinking is physically not good for you in the long-term. It seems to be one of those "the sky is blue" kind of facts. So it would probably be wise to try something else. Exercise seems like a valid option.

That said, if even that doesn't work for you, and nothing else seems to, it would seem to be a personal decision about whether the long term potential health issues are ok if it means you are living better in the moment, which you seem to be. Personally, if I exhausted everything possible like you mostly seem to have done, then I'd just keep drinking coffee. Think about the future, but live in the now.

For me, I"m in the love the way coffee smells, like coffee flavored ice cream, don't like coffee. Don't like it's taste, don't like the way it makes me feel so "full" in the morning, etc. This puts me in a bit of a pickle. I have been searching for a good morning energize your day option for a while. Coffee is out. I've done morning smoothies off and on, but they also aren't my favorite. They are almost always too "filling" as well, and unless you make one on your own at home, you always seem to get too much (even if you order a small). I guess the problem is I don't know what I'm really wanting - orange or cranberry juice...well, that just sounds too weak. I don't know...

 

http://men.webmd.com/features/coffee-new-health-food

After analyzing data on 126,000 people for as long as 18 years, Harvard researchers calculate that compared with not partaking in America's favorite morning drink, downing one to three cups of caffeinated coffee daily can reduce diabetes risk by single digits. But having six cups or more each day slashed men's risk by 54% and women's by 30% over java avoiders.

"Overall, the research shows that coffee is far more healthful than it is harmful," says Tomas DePaulis, PhD, research scientist at Vanderbilt University's Institute for Coffee Studies, which conducts its own medical research and tracks coffee studies from around the world. "For most people, very little bad comes from drinking it, but a lot of good."

Consider this: At least six studies indicate that people who drink coffee on a regular basis are up to 80% less likely to develop Parkinson's, with three showing the more they drink, the lower the risk. Other research shows that compared to not drinking coffee, at least two cups daily can translate to a 25% reduced risk of colon cancer, an 80% drop in liver cirrhosis risk, and nearly half the risk of gallstones.

Coffee even offsets some of the damage caused by other vices, some research indicates. "People who smoke and are heavy drinkers have less heart disease and liver damage when they regularly consume large amounts of coffee compared to those who don't," says DePaulis.

There's also some evidence that coffee may help manage asthma and even control attacks when medication is unavailable, stop a headache, boost mood, and even prevent cavities.



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/02/health/webmd/main3127995.shtml

The data show that coffee drinkers were 41 percent less likely to have been diagnosed with liver cancer than people who don't drink coffee. For every daily cup of coffee people drank, their odds of having been diagnosed with liver cancer dropped by 23 percent, compared with people who never drink coffee.

People who drank a lot of coffee were 55 percent less likely to have been diagnosed with liver cancer than those who didn't drink any coffee.


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...high-in-healthgiving-antioxidants-504669.html

Coffee might soon be considered a health drink following a study showing it is a surprisingly rich source of anti-cancer agents.

A study has found that coffee contributes more antioxidants - which have been linked with fighting heart disease and cancer - to the diet than cranberries, apples or tomatoes.

Fruit and vegetables have long been known to be a good source of antioxidants, but the new findings are surprising because it is the first time that coffee has been shown to be such a rich source of the agents.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031015031251.htm

Drinking coffee may help prevent colon cancer, according to a group of researchers in Germany. They identified a potent antioxidant compound in the popular brew that appears in animal studies to boost the activity of phase II enzymes, which are thought to protect against colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.

The study is scheduled to appear in the Nov. 5 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Although researchers have suspected for years that coffee consumption may offer some protection against cancer as a result of the drink's high antioxidant content, this study represents the first time that a specific, highly active anticancer compound has been identified in the beverage, say study leaders Thomas Hofmann, Ph.D., professor and head of the Institute for Food Chemistry at the University of Mnster in Germany, and Veronika Somoza, Ph.D., deputy director of the German Research Center for Food Chemistry in Garching.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6919249.stm

A cup of coffee could help protect your skin from the sun, US scientists say.
A combination of exercise and caffeinated water reduced the skin-damaging effects of ultra-violet radiation in experiments on mice.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study found the mice's natural defence against pre-cancerous cells was boosted by up to 400%.

 

I can understand that, but the larger point is that coffee isn't the only game in town. Or just keep drinking coffee. Smooth, rich, Columbian coffee.

 

Believe it or not, I've never drank coffee my entire life. I get my energy supplements via natural sources like Korean Ginseng, Echinichea, Golden Seal, Green Tea leaves and Guarana seed.

 

Do elaborate, which has been the most effective?

On my list that I tried to scour the internet for guarana and ginseng were on them. I bought "American ginseng" for what that's worth. Aside from having a horrible burp aftertaste, it doesn't do a damn thing. Isn't it all the same stuff? Korean? American? etc?

How's the guarana also working out? I was thinking about trying that as well.