Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Weight Loss Wednesday: How to Wean Yourself Off of Caffeine


I have never been an out-of-control pop drinker, but I usually drink 1-2 cans per day.  Until recently.  I had tried to stop drinking pop altogether a few times before, but after about a day and a half with no caffeine, I would get these terrible headaches.  I had always heard rumors that quitting pop, even diet pop, can not only improve your health, but help with weight loss.  I always figured it's not that big of a deal, I'm drinking diet so it's not like I'm consuming empty calories plus tons of sugar.  Well, recently I decided that I will take the plunge and stop drinking pop, just to see if it makes a difference.  How did I do it?  Well, I couldn't just quit cold turkey because of the headache problem.
Here's what I did:  Since I would drink an average of 1-2 cans of pop per day, I used 2 cans as a starting point.  For one week, I drank one can of pop per day, and only one.  The next week, I measured out and drank 6 oz of pop (one can is 12 oz so 6 oz is half a can) per day.  The next week, I went down to 3 oz of pop per day.  And then from there, I drank 3 oz every other day for one week.  I ended up marking a disposable plastic cup with a permanent marker, one mark for 6 oz and one for 3 oz.  That way, I didn't have to keep getting my measuring cups dirty every morning.

And now I am free of my caffeine addiction!  You can do it too.  Just figure out how much caffeine you are drinking/eating each day, and start decreasing by half.  From what I have read, you don't really need to continue each step for a whole week.  You can do each step in three days.  I just decided that for me, it would work better to give myself plenty of time.    

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