Self-experiment: Feeling Great After 2 Weeks Of No Coffee Or White Sugar

[Ableton]

Serious question at op: did you get that idea in the hair forum?

 

[Fexxx]

I wouldnt overcomplicate things. If coffee is doing harm to you then stop it and don’t overthink it. Coffee and White Sugar are not essential for humans.

 

[thisoldtown1978]

Serious question at op: did you get that idea in the hair forum?

Sorry, I never got an alert for this post!

I think I saw something on the hair forum that sealed the deal for me. I was already doing it, and then it coincided with me reading that.

Why do you ask?

 

[Ableton]

because all of this seems to have started when I recommended people should be trying it out, but I have no idea what I am actually talking about

 

[Infarouge]

Gary Null authored a somewhat convincing critique of caffeine which is at the end of a day, is an insecticide produced by certain plants to protect themselves from insects, to whom it functions as a neurotoxin. Like most stimulants it exhibits toxic effects, which may account for it's sought after effect, increased metabolic activity, which he argues is a protective response to detoxify the substance. I love me some Joe but must concur it is a nearly ideal commercial product, addictive while tasting great. Certain studies have demonstrated that the apparent increase in focus appears illusory; the user feels more attentive but doesn't perform better on quatifiable test scores. In the eastern tea tradition the caffeine is balanced by theanine and other bona fide focus enhancing components. Some coffee merchants add theanine to coffee to mimic the synergistic balance found in green tea and counter the negative stimulant effect.

One thing seems certain, chronic stimulant use is robbing Peter to pay Paul. The increased energy is merely borrowed and chronic abuse leads to diminishing benefits. Adrenal burnout seems to be a common complaint of heavy coffee users after decades of abuse. Whether Null's thesis is correct, I have observed that he and many other health gurus who swore off coffee do exhibit a remarkable level of energy and concentration for their age.

 

[Infarouge]

deleted

 

[mujuro]

That is weird, but would explain why decaff coffee often makes me just as jittery as caffeinated coffee.

Must be the other xanthines. Well, there goes my solution. Coffee is one of my loves but I don’t think it is doing me any good. Decaf was a last resort but looks like I might have to transition to fruity herbal teas to substitute the habit.

 

[opson123]

Must be the other xanthines. Well, there goes my solution. Coffee is one of my loves but I don’t think it is doing me any good. Decaf was a last resort but looks like I might have to transition to fruity herbal teas to substitute the habit.

Got the same issue. Both decaf and normal coffee give me the jitters. It's not the caffeine as coke or pepsi is fine. Coffee also triggers my gastroparesis so no coffee for me.

 

[LLight]

The symptoms people get when they stop coffee (there are lots of testimonies on the decaf subreddit) seem like what people can mention sometimes in the low vitamin A thread:

I wonder how people benefiting from low A fare on coffee.

I don't know if it's just me, but reading testimonies on the decaf subreddit, I find symptoms relieved by low A seem similar to what some people report there: lowered anxiety (not necessarily at first), better sleep, less blurry vision for some, more energy, cured IBS or psoriasis, better skin.
For example:
The journey is hard, but there are real benefits : decaf

I wonder whether coffee/caffeine could not f*ck with enzymes that metabolize vitamin A in the liver (CYP3A4 for example, whose levels vary greatly between people).

Isolation, analysis and in vitro assessment of CYP3A4 inhibition by methylxanthines extracted from Pu-erh and Bancha tea leaves
"In our study, methylxanthine fractions inhibited CYP3A4 in a concentration-dependent manner."

When someone stop drinking coffee, it can produce flu-like symptoms (Fourteen Well-Described Caffeine Withdrawal Symptoms Factor Into Three Clusters - PubMed).

I saw a publication posted here recently making a connection between vitamin A and flu (Role of Fat-Soluble Vitamins A and D in the Pathogenesis of Influenza: A New Perspective).

 

[Zigzag]

I quit coffee 3 weeks ago. To be honest I don't even need it anymore. Energy is good throughout the day.

 

[Quelsatron]

I have the same skin issues, interesting. I may try to cut back on the carbs myself and maybe the coffee as well. There has to be some cause of it. Do you think SIBO can cause skin issues?

I mean, I'm not haidut here so I'm just guessing and repeating things I've vaguely heard, but the intestines seem to be the thing most closely linked to skin problems, and I don't see why SIBO should be excluded. Also, I use a french press which does not have the best filter, so I've probably consumed at least a cupful of pure bitter sludge over the last few years, which can't be good for me. A few days ago I drank loads of coffee to keep me up for studying, and I noticed I got a really rough stomach.

I've also noticed that I burp quite a lot after eating fruit, which actually doesn't seem to happen with normal sweets, so maybe there's something feeding off the fibre? Or would the regular digestion of fruit produce lots of gas?

 

[rei]

Gary Null authored a somewhat convincing critique of caffeine which is at the end of a day, is an insecticide produced by certain plants to protect themselves from insects, to whom it functions as a neurotoxin. Like most stimulants it exhibits toxic effects, which may account for it's sought after effect, increased metabolic activity, which he argues is a protective response to detoxify the substance. I love me some Joe but must concur it is a nearly ideal commercial product, addictive while tasting great. Certain studies have demonstrated that the apparent increase in focus appears illusory; the user feels more attentive but doesn't perform better on quatifiable test scores. In the eastern tea tradition the caffeine is balanced by theanine and other bona fide focus enhancing components. Some coffee merchants add theanine to coffee to mimic the synergistic balance found in green tea and counter the negative stimulant effect.

One thing seems certain, chronic stimulant use is robbing Peter to pay Paul. The increased energy is merely borrowed and chronic abuse leads to diminishing benefits. Adrenal burnout seems to be a common complaint of heavy coffee users after decades of abuse. Whether Null's thesis is correct, I have observed that he and many other health gurus who swore off coffee do exhibit a remarkable level of energy and concentration for their age.

Caffeine has a very different effect compared to coffee with same caffeine amount. This mechanistic reduction principle has caused immeasurable harm to people, and just like with cannabis research where thc alone was found to be a poor drug, while cannabis is miraculous, also the general public must realize caffeine alone is lackluster. But coffee, tea etc. are very healthy.

Maybe it is the specific ratio of different compounds. Maybe it is some vibratory quality which gets transferred when making extracts. We don't know. But we do know in almost every instance an isolated synthetic compound has nowhere near the effect profile of the plant it was extracted form.

 

[metabolizm]

I'm going to try and quit coffee. I'm suspecting that the "running on empty" effect messed me up previously to finding peat, which also included some sort of sibo or intestinal permeability thing and the non caffeine things in the coffee might irritate it further. Also, eating fruit with the morning coffee seems to make me sort of spaced out and weird. I used to think that it was just the "metabolism revealed" thing you get from lowering stress, but it might be the sugars feeding SIBO or the terrible quality of swedish grocery store fruit irritating the intestines.

I'm also suspecting caffeine might mess with the circadian rythm. Not drinking it late, but drinking it early, which I've read could abolish the waking cortisol response, and maybe also send me into abstinence during sleep, which would explain why I have to drag myself out of bed every morning.

I definitely have something messing with my intestines either way, because I have rosacea and completely invincible sebhorreic dermatitis. No vitamin supplements do anything, so it has to be the presence rather than the absence of nutrients.

Did you quit coffee?

 

[Quelsatron]

Did you quit coffee?

No lol, I don't exactly remember why but I got focused on adjusting something else and used that as a reason to abort the coffee tapering, or it was my thesis demanding full energy. Maybe I should get to it again, I'm clearly addicted mentally if not physically...

 

[lvysaur]

None of the coffee studies really matter, since they're associative. Anyone who had a bad reaction to coffee wouldn't have continued drinking it, and wouldn't be included in such studies.

 

[metabolizm]

No lol, I don't exactly remember why but I got focused on adjusting something else and used that as a reason to abort the coffee tapering, or it was my thesis demanding full energy. Maybe I should get to it again, I'm clearly addicted mentally if not physically...

I'm trying it now. It's really hard, but the last time I did it I only noticed positives*. I've said to myself: do this for two weeks. If you feel better, great, you'll want to keep it up. If you don't feel better, then you can start drinking it again.

*better temps, better sleep, improved IBS