But I LOVE Caffeine!

I write to you on No Caffeine June Eve in my Operation Consumption Liberation.  And physically, I'm good to go for a month without coffee, tea, colas, Barq's root beer, Mountain Dew, chocolate, Excedrin, NoDoz, and any other caffeinated-energy drink/concoction.  When I say "physically," I mean that I have been cutting down my caffeine level semi-steadily over the last five weeks to the point where today I went completely caffeine free.  Now going without caffeine for a day does happen from time to time in my world.  But going without caffeine for thirty days straight--Ha!  Are you crazy?  (Answer: clearly!) 

My May 12 morning cup of coffee, fully loaded of regular

Unlike this past month or, say, No Alcohol March, I've been actively preparing for this month of my OCL, "training" if you will, since late April.  I've had caffeine-deficit migraines before.  I had a few this month while cutting back.  They suck. So for my morning cup of coffee, I slowly started mixing decaf coffee beans with my caffeinated beans in the coffee grinder.  I gradually increased the decaf and decreased the regular.  About two weeks ago, I stopped regular beans all together.  I sucked down decaf and its approximately 13mg of caffeine for a week, and then for the past several days, I drank Yogi Tea's Mayan Cocoa Spice tea (5mg per cup).  And today I drank Provence Vanilla Rooibos tea, which someone generously bought at The Teacup to have on hand at his place for me during No Caffeine Consumption month. 

My May 12 morning cup of regular poses with a regular-sized cup of coffee.  Sniff.

I wasn't quite so conscious about cutting my consumption of chocolate.  Dear GOD, I love chocolate.  I wasn't going to include chocolate in my No Caffeine month.  Then, while I was researching the various amounts of caffeine in coffee and decaf, I saw that a 1.45-oz serving of a Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Bar has 31mg of caffeine, and a regular Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar has more than my Yogi tea (mind you, I like REALLY dark chocolate best).  So I decided that I better quit chocolate this month as well, to make sure I'm not secretly feeding my caffeine addiction.

Espresso Dark Chocolate--caffeine frenzy!

This leads me to ask: Am I really addicted to caffeine?  Answer: I don't know, I'm not a doctor!  I can tell you that when I smell coffee in the morning, it makes me smile. Except for the last few days when I've had to decline, and then the smell of coffee makes me want to whine and kick things.  Seriously. I can also tell you that the prospect of eating good chocolate makes me feel a little funny in the stomach; it is similar to how a gal feels upon reflection the morning after she kisses a super awesome someone with super awesome kissing powers for the very first time.  I LIKE that feeling.  A LOT.  

Only hot cocoa can make me smile like that.

So giving caffeine the boot this month may feel at times like I'm mutilating a part of my soul.  I expect suffering.  Please, send me Celtic sea salt caramels (these ones, please) and Fresca.

To counterbalance the withdrawal of my favorite drug, I'm adding a few things to my month.  1. More Ice Cream (without chocolate or coffee, of course).  2. 10 hops in the morning (to help wake me up, and according to my yoga teacher, to build bone density).  3. 30 minutes minimum of yoga in the mornings (to make me dewy-eyed and strong and pliable).

And now I'm off to bed, so that I'm not too desperate for coffee in the morning!

If all these people could do it...

...then surely I can go without sugar for a month!

Thus began my lifelong passion for cake...

 

Going without sugar for a designated period of time is not exactly an original idea.  Okay, it is totally NOT an original idea.  A lot of people give up sugar in one way or another for one reason or another, and a lot of people blog about their trials and tribulations during the process.  And a lot of these people are much more informed and articulate than me in explaining the difference between refined and unrefined sugar, relating all the potential health problems caused by excess sugar consumption, etc.  Lastly, some of these bloggers are blogging rock stars, posting frequently, tweeting, and with lots of links to relevant articles, websites, and so on. 

Since I'm only focusing on avoiding ASF ("added sugar forms") for the month of January in my Operation Consumption Liberation, there is no way my blog can come close to reaching some of these blogs in terms of prolific sugar-busting investigative journalism. I'm okay with that.  But perusing the superior content of these people's blogs IS inspirational for me when my willpower threatens to waver.  

The sugar eaters are falling like dominoes. Wa ha...

Here are three blogs that have inspired me lately to keep curbing my consumption of added sugars.  Explore away!  

• My Years Without Sugar: Wow, this gal has pretty much been off refined sugar for THREE years.  And she covers it all: uncovering hidden sugar in french fries, pizza sauce, and cereal; breaking down the glycemic index; the nutritional value of cane juice and other so-called unrefined sugars and artificial sweeteners; advice on how to quit sugar and curb late night munchies; and providing lots of recipes using her preferred 100% natural sweeteners.  

• Stop Being Sweet: This fellow has been living a life of sugar restraint for five years and has turned his blog into a sugar addicts support community and even has put together an ebook to help you quit sugar.  He also has weekly sugar challenges (drink more water!) and a handy quiz to help you determine how hooked on the sweet sugar you are.

• A Year Without Candy: Dana Kennedy was a legitimate journalist before she started blogging about her trials with giving up candy and cake, and she's written a few pieces along the way for the Huffington Post. (She's approaching her one-year mark February 28, 2011.) While her blog does wander off the topic of candy consumption (though she tries to keep things sort of related in her rant about the saccharine quality of Rachel McAdams' performance in "Morning Glory"), she has a pretty great sense of humor about the whole thing.  Today, I particularly relate to this post.

Thinking back to my soda post on Friday, today I stumbled onto this video from the New York City Health Department. I think it is pretty effective, and gross. And it has chipper music! 

Just thinking about watching the campaign's other spot, titled "Man Drinks Fat," makes me nauseous--seriously, I'm reaching for sparkling water with ginger juice and lime already. But if I were a soda pop addict and if I needed to lose 10 pounds, I'd definitely consider the campaign's alleged claim that "drinking one can of soda a day can make you 10 pounds fatter a year" to help lead me towards a little weight loss.

My Lasik-corrected eyes are pleading for relief from the computer screen, so I'll have to write about all these eating-sugar dreams I've been having later!

Just a spoonful of sugar...

This must be from The Onion...

Yesterday I had refractive eye surgery a.k.a. Lasik.  It was a really hard half hour of surgery.  Afterward I could barely keep my eyes open and I was pretty dang whiny while my mother and I stopped to pick up prescriptions for Lorazepam (to knock me out) and Vicodin for pain.  Finally, we got home, I shoved down some string cheese and then the two pills, and then Mom taped plastic covers over my eyes so they were protected while I slept.  

What does all this have to do with sugar?  Well, not much, except that, like codeine, Vicodin makes me feel nauseous and puke-y and sick.  When I feel that way, only one thing sounds good--a fizzy sweet drink, better known as soda pop.

HFCS = the nectar of teenage love.

Even before going off sugar, I wasn't a big soda consumer.  Soda is for when I'm air-, sea-, or car- sick or just sick-sick, and occasionally as a mixer in a drink. 7-Up, Sprite, ginger ale--these are my "sick" drinks. So in my post-surgery, kind of blind, super fussy, and borderline vomit-ous state, I didn't know what to do.

In case you were wondering:

• A 8-ounce serving of 7-Up has 25 grams of sugar = 3.125g/oz.
• A 12-ounce serving of Sprite has 38 grams of sugar = 3.167g/oz.
• A 8-ounce serving of Canadian Dry ginger ale has 25 grams of sugar = 3g/oz.

The top two ingredients for all three of these sodas? Big surprise, they are carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). From Coca Cola's handy online ingredient glossary: "A sweetener derived from corn, high fructose corn syrup is a mixture of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose."  Now we know, and knowing IS half the battle.

Well, what about DIET soda then?  Looking at the labels of diet forms of these sodas, it is true, each contains 0 grams of sugar per ounce.  Instead, they all contain aspartame, also known as NutraSweet. As I said in my No Sugar Consumption month rules, fake and unrefined sugars tempt me to eat more of the big bad stuff, so they're on my Not-Going-To-Have-It list too. But it is also worth noting that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the safety of consuming aspartame.

Why, yes, that is Donald Rumsfeld lurking there.  Learn more about his link to aspartame here.

While there's no conclusive evidence that it leads to cancer, lupus, or increases the symptoms of multiple sclerosis as some have alleged, aspartame does present health risks for certain individuals. As nicely summarized by Dr. Andrew Weil on his website:

We do know that people with the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU), those with advanced liver disease, and pregnant women with high levels of the amino acid phenylalanine in their blood have a problem with aspartame because they do not effectively metabolize phenylalanine, one of aspartame's components. High levels of phenylalanine in body fluids can cause brain damage. For this reason, the FDA requires that all products containing aspartame must include a warning to phenylketonurics that the sweetener contains phenylalanine.

Hmm, sounds a little sketchy to me.  Besides, I've noticed that diet soda often makes my tummy feel bad, acidic, sort of hungry.  If I were to drink a diet soda when I felt car sick, it is entirely likely that,

A.) I'd still feel crummy, though maybe in a different way, and

B.) I'd want to eat something to quell the sensation, regardless of whether I was hungry or not. (Perhaps this is why some claim that diet soda can make you fat!)

I could go on about aspartame for a good, long while, because it's in all sort of things (I better check my toothpaste, for one) and there is a lot of speculation and disagreement about its benefits/dangers.  However, let's get back on track to my post-surgery Vicodin-provoked nausea and my yen for a carbonated sweet beverage to soothe my belly.

EXACTLY.  (image by Allan Sanders Illustration)

After Mom had taped my eye protectors over my eyes and I was set for the prescribed 4-hour nap, I asked my mother to go get me some sugar-free seltzer water or club soda and to doctor it with a wedge of lime and some of the Ginger People Organic Ginger Juice I just happened to receive in my Christmas stocking this year.  Ginger juice ingredients: Organic ginger, citric acid.  Perfect.

A few hours later, my mother delivered a glass of murky water to my bedside.  I sipped at it tentatively.  Ginger?  Check.  Lime? Check.  Bubbly?  Wait a second.

"Hey, Mom, what did you make this with?" I asked.

"The club soda I found in your fridge.  It did look kind of flat, " she told me.

I laughed.  "It should, because I refilled that bottle to reuse with tap water God knows how long ago."

Despite the lack of fizz, the ginger and lime water did a pretty good job on their own at relieving both my desire to puke and my desire for a sweet drink.  I did, however, purchase club soda and some natural sparkling water today for more bubbly sick drinks.

On a not-really-related note, I had a Vicodin-induced nightmare last night that I was eating chocolate chip cookies, one after another.  After about five cookies, my dream self went into a "OH SHOOT!  I FORGOT ABOUT NO SUGAR MONTH!" panic attack.  When I woke, I was so relieved to find out that my sugar indiscretion was a dream.  I wonder if I will have more dreams about eating sugar as this month continues.

The Lasik update?  My vision is a little blurry and will continue to fluctuate and improve for awhile still, but I tested at 20-30 today and, legally, I'm okay to drive, though both the doctor and I think it's better to hold off a few more days.  The clinic presented me with a coffee mug full of Seattle Chocolates to reward me for my bravery under the laser--ha!  I've stuffed them in a Ziploc bag and shoved them in the back of the freezer for now.  If anyone would like to take them completely off my hands....