I gave up almost all caffeine one year ago this week.

I did a detox where one of the requirements was no caffeine or alcohol. Friends joked and said they’d have more trouble giving up alcohol than caffeine.

I love to have a cocktail on the weekends and occasionally during the week, but giving up caffeine and my beloved Diet Pepsi?

Giving Up Caffeine | JustBeEnough

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I was scared.

By 4 p.m. on the first day, I  wondered if I should drive. I thought driving my kids across town to gymnastics might be posing a threat to us and any drivers around us. I couldn’t think and the pounding in my head was debilitating.

At gymnastics, I had to lie across two chairs because the very thought of getting back in the car and having to concentrate again for 20 minutes was almost more than I could bear.

That night I went to bed at 8:30 p.m. and slept straight through til 6:30 the next morning.

And as I moved through the 10 days of the detox, I began feeling better and better and better. By the end, my husband and I had a talk about not “going back” to the old caffeine usage.

We decided to give it a try – giving up caffeine as much as would be practical for our lives.

I started by only having one Diet Pepsi a week – I considered it my “treat.” By the end of the month, I no longer did even that. The taste that I’d previously craved almost viscerally, I could no longer tolerate. And I’d never been a big coffee drinker, so that was easy to give up.

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Now, one year later, I’ll have the occasional hot or iced tea and our drink of choice when we go out is Red Bull and vodka. So I get some caffeine in my system.

But I will never, ever, ever again get as hooked on it as I was a year ago.

I’ve learned something important in the last year:

Water really is enough to fuel your body.

Have you ever given something up in the name of feeling better? How did it go? 

xo

Missy

About Missy


Missy Bedell blogs at Literal Mom where she encourages all parents to be thinking parents. She uses wit, humor and sometimes even tears to share her message. But above all that, there is hope, for our next generation. You can also find her on Twitter at @LiteralMom.

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