I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 30.
It was the year I started blogging.
The year I really launched my photography business.
The year I started staying up after my baby, preschooler, and kindergartener went to bed to create this space for myself online and grow my small offline business into something that could help support my family.
While I was building two businesses, I was also working the night shift part-time at the hospital.
I carved out time to work on building my businesses while the kids were napping, and then I went to work at 6:30 in the evenings when DudeDad came home and worked until 11:30pm. I would walk in the door right around the time Dude 3 woke up for his nighttime feeding.
It was my happiest and most sleep deprived year of life and coffee was the only answer.
But, I never really enjoyed coffee.
Not for the flavor anyway.
I found it bitter and icky and only tolerable with copious amounts of sugar and cream to offset the aftertaste it always left haunting my mouth.
I called my morning pick me up coffee flavored cream and sugar, since the ratio of coffee to cream and sugar was greatly skewed in favor of cream and sugar.
And I only ever drank one cup in the mornings. Because two cups made me jittery and ate up basically all of my suggested calories for the day.
I needed that one cup, though.
Life could not start each morning without it.
I could not mother or wife or even human sans coffee and I came to rely on it to stave off things like hunger, and moodiness, and migraines.
Even my freaking bowels depended upon the stuff to function regularly.
After a few years, I realized that the sugar was probably doing terrible things to my waistline.
I’ve always been someone who prefers to eat her calories and not drink them so I decided to switch to an artificial sweetener and sugar free cream.
Those made my stomach hurt –daily I felt all bloaty and grumbly and gross in that sick way only artificial sweeteners can be blamed for.
So I switched back to a heaping spoonful of good old fashioned sugar right around the time I quit the gym. I have the 15 extra pounds to show you what an epic fail that turned out to be (note: 15 extra pounds can not solely be blamed on my coffee flavored sugar and cream beverages, but they played a role).
I was rolling through life, sugar laden coffee and extra belly roll in tow until earlier this year when I came down with a serious case of bronchitis.
I was sick for daaaaays. Weeks actually.
Like, I thought I would die. I could barely move about my house without coughing and I certainly couldn’t do so before like 10am, which was well past my coffee drinking time.
Because my body was busy betraying me, I didn’t have a single cup of coffee for two whole weeks! I basically gave up coffee just because I couldn’t make it to the kitchen to make myself a cup.
And then I had my hysterectomy and, unable to make my own expertly sugared coffee each morning, I stuck to my I-don’t-drink-coffee vibe for another 7 days.
That three week coffee free stint broke the habit and I gave up coffee for good!
I am officially in my 4th month of coffee free living and I have to say I am quite pleased with the outcome!
I wish I could say I lost 15lbs, but there are other positive outcomes I can lay claim to.
I Gave Up Coffee and Here’s What Happened
I discovered tea.
I was never much of a tea drinker before and it’s not like I have it daily, but I have learned to enjoy a warm cup of tea when I’m feeling like a warm cup of something is needed. And, apparently, there are tons of tea options that do good things for you!
Aloha beauty tea is my favorite thing to drink right now. I don’t feel an ounce more beautiful, but it is delicious to drink.
I stopped getting belly aches.
A symptom I attribute more to the sugar than the coffee. But still, I feel better in my guts thanks to the consumption of less sugar.
I stopped getting headaches.
Not immediately, eventually.
In the immediate, I was wrecked by daily migraines. The kind you go to sleep with and wake up with too. Withdraw I guess.
But eventually, I woke up one morning and it was gone.
And I no longer suffer from the multiple times a week, full blown migraines I used to face. Since giving up coffee, I swear I haven’t had a handful of migraines. Tension headaches and sinus headaches, yes, but migraines have been few and far between. THANKFULLY.
I eat breakfast more often.
I used to use my coffee as breakfast. Now I am digging things like oatmeal and smoothies in the morning instead.
I’ve saved some dough.
Coffee and flavored creamers are not cheap! Because I took them out of my grocery budget I have saved quite a few dollars.
As far as vices go, I can’t say I ever felt a moment of guilt about being a coffee drinker, but I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would.
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