OK so before you all hurl abuse at me for quitting the most sociable drink on the planet (besides wine) and of course one of the most comforting daily wonders in a cup – hear me out….
It all began when I decided to kick start my health regime, I was coming out of a long hibernating style of winter, you know the one where chocolate biscuits and sweet treats seem to become essential to your daily needs and an uncomfortable tyre is forming around your mid section.
So anyway I had my habit, my coffee habit that is, it was a daily routine – get to work and then make myself a coffee before the days work began, then all charged up I would power through my day, until of course 3pm happened. Every day at pretty much right on 2.30pm-3pm I would develop a craving for sweet things and a sudden headache would be pursuant. I found myself needing to take panadol or some variant of it at least a few times per week, if not daily to stop these headaches.
I realized that because of the coffee intake in the morning, I was then crashing in the afternoon and my body was craving sugar to give me the high to continue the day. So I made the decision to detox and stop coffee. But I am not really the kind to cut things out permanently hence I did a 28 day Bondi Beach co tea tox. My intention was to do the tea tox for 28 days and then go back to my happy love affair with coffee. Well the opposite happened, see below my detox chart;
- Day 1 to 3: felt awful, as in bad headaches (climb under your desk type headache) and felt generally quite unwell and very disgruntled, like ‘do not come near me’ kinda feeling
- Day 4-6: starting feeling moderately better each day, headaches reduced but were still there, I was irritable but the moods were lessening
- Day 7: woke up feeling great and felt good all day!
- Day 8: still feeling amazing!
- Now: 9 months later I am still feeling the same amazingness...
Ok so what happened is that after the tea tox was over I enjoyed the feeling of not being reliant on something to “get me through the day”, I was fully charged without it, so I decided to give it another 28 days. And then after that my routine excluded it and I didn’t feel as if I was missing anything. I was drinking tea all throughout the day so my fluids were right up and I was hydrated, which meant I never got the headaches. Plus the clincher of it all is that the 3pm sugar cravings stopped, I now have fruit and nuts in my top drawer and nibble on them throughout the day when I am hungry and do not feel the need for the sugary sweet treat. Subsequently this has meant I have kept my weight at a place that I am much happier with. So to break it down – no headaches, no sweet cravings, weight loss and feeling great! It was a pretty easy decision not to go back to coffee.
That said the hardest part about quitting coffee (once you get past the first week detox) is the social element, I still say to people “let’s meet for coffee” even though I have zero intention of drinking it. I had to learn to substitute coffee with other non-caffeinated and equally yummy drinks that comforted me and made me feel good plus left me with something to do at the café rather than just drinking water. So chai latte (soy or almond milk) became my friend. You too will find another friend that is less destructive if you choose to quit coffee, you just need to be open to it and give yourself a good chance to detox from coffee with at least a 28 day trial.
Check out Bondi Beach Start Me Up Tea which is an all natural alternative to coffee. It has an organic blend of green tea, pai mu tan white tea, lemon verbena, ginseng root, peppermint, spearmint and schisandra berries. "I drink this tea every day in the morning to ’start me up’ and I love the taste and the natural buzz I get!”
