Tag: addiction

decaf chronicles

Published on by VelvetLeave a comment

I’ve been told I should switch to decaf. When my neurotic mind is racing at 1.4 light years per second and the words coming out of my mouth can barely keep up.

Or when I’m going to meet somebody and end up word-vomiting all over them before we even say hello or hug.

Or when I was at a party playing a game where you have to shout the name of a Christmas song when your teammate is sounding it out and I turn the sentence-long song title into a single garbled word. “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” became “Roo-doo-roo-doo”.

Slow. Down.

Living in a constant state of planning. Futuristic. Thinking ahead. Overthinking. How much of this is related to caffeine? Honestly, I don’t know. Caffeine gives some people jitters and makes them think quickly. Now that I’m NOT having caffeine I am experiencing these symptoms as well as many others.

Withdrawal symptoms.

This isn’t the first time I’ve kissed my friend Caffeine goodbye. This goodbye is longer and more drawn out there. Not entirely cold-turkey is what I’m trying to say. But it’s still been pretty cold. I could have weened off slowly. Have a quarter less coffee than normal. And then a half. And then cut back another quarter.

Day 1. But instead, I stopped drinking it for a day.

Day 2. Woke up with a major splitting headache. Drank some coffee.

Day 3. No coffee. Foggy head.

Day 4. Had some caffeinated tea. Much less caffeine content than what I’m used to.

Day 5. Same as day four.

Day 6. Tea, and I caved at 4pm and had one small cup of coffee. And then some black tea. *facepalm*

Day 7. No cofffee, but an entire bottle of wine. Over the course of 9 hours people!!! Nbd

Day 8. Nada

Day 9. This is today. Aaaand I kinda have a head cold. And lethargy. And brain fog. This could also have to do with the fact that I didn’t sleep as much as I should this past weekend. I often times get colds when I get run down. Also, that sugary popcorn I ate a few days ago weakened my immune system. I’m WEAK.

But His strength is made perfect in my weakness 😉

I was working outside today raking leaves for an hour and I had to leave work early cuz I wasn’t feeling well. My boss was like “uhh, are you okay?? Maybe you should go get yourself a cup of coffee.”

hahah

Ugh.

The point of me quitting, btw, is so that I’m not addicted to anything. I don’t want to be dependent on coffee for my dang eyes to open. I don’t think it’s really helping me with anything if I have it every freakin’ day. Clearly it’s hindering because then when I DON’T have it, I trip. Hard. I stumble. But I don’t fall. I stumble, but don’t fall. Though I do feel close to falling. Asleep, for one. But also, I don’t want to get siiiick from this.

It didn’t help to Google caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Some crazy coffee fanatics listed off all sorts of scary things that can happen from quitting caffeine including tremors, anxiety, depression, and flu-like symptoms. I don’t have tremors, but I have been feeling rather anxious, and slightly depressed because of my flu-like symptoms. Curses!!!!!!!!!

So now I’m going to try to sleep this thing off. And maybe get some dang caffeine when I wake up so I can go salsa dancing tonight. Am I nuts? Lol don’t answer that. I mean, I’m not giving up on my decaf endeavors. But if I grab a LEETLE caffeine to get me thru the evening…………………………………….

ohmigoodness. I feel like I’m being super inwardly focused rn

This is not okay. Lord forgive me. I should be working on my BOOK right now. Will I ever finish that thing. Sigh.

Okay I have rambled for long enough.

Have you ever quit drinking coffee? What happened?

xxx

V

Sick

Published on by VelvetLeave a comment

There aren’t many things worse than when you’re itching to go on an adventure or do something incredible but you can’t because your physical body is sick. I’m one of those people who tends to get sick more than other people… It’s the unfortunate combination of (1) a weak immune system mixed with (2) the inability to eat small amounts of sugar mixed with (3) having the capacity to spread myself thin like too little butter over too much bread mixed with (4) fate.

I’ve gotten better at avoiding being sick over the years but that inevitable cold Creeps in every few months or every so often. Today is February 8th and it’s been about 3 months since I was last sick with a small head cold. The last time I was sick for a solid week was at the end of September and the beginning of October when I moved from one apartment to the next, started a new job and started taking care of seven or eight little toddlers every week. Being around children that young is a sure-fire way of getting ill but the Lord has protected me ever since for the most part.

Unfortunately there are still other factors that I can control that helps me to stay well but I haven’t gotten smart enough to avoid them completely. One of my downfalls is eating too much sugar which is why I am doing a 21-day sugar detox currently. I am on day 11 right now and things have been going pretty well. For the first 7 days I only consumed 55 grams of sugar give or take a couple of grams and the last 4 days I have tried to be sugar-free. There was one instance the other night where a couple of chocolate caramels made their way onto my plate without me being able to do anything about it so I’m going to let that slide… But for the most part I have been sugar free and it is definitely not been fun. I have had a headache, fatigue and worst of all I think these cold symptoms have something to do with the detoxing effect.

You see, I have never taken a legitimate break from sugar in my entire life. I can remember being 4 years old and robbing the cookie jar as soon as my mother went outside and left me alone in the house. After that I have been known to consume large quantities of sugar every few days and also replace regular meals with a large portion of dessert justifying it because I didn’t really eat a meal so then I could obviously have a giant bowl of ice cream with a brownie on top with a side of three cookies and chocolate syrup and sprinkles and caramel and extra sugar on the side.

But for real, I am not used to not eating sugar and I am very thankful that I’m able to do this detox. I just hope it creates a rift between sugar and I that makes me not even crave the stuff. Whoever says that sugar is not on the same level as other drugs hasn’t suffered with a sugar addiction before. I see this seriously now but for a long time I have joked about it saying that I have sweet teeth and I love dessert and things to that effect. And all that stuff is true… But what is also true is that sugar has led to overeating and weight gain and keeping on weight that keeps me lethargic, makes me unhappy, and weakens my immune system all the same time. So I’m thinking if I can cut this tie with my good friend sugar once and for all I will be able to avoid some of these things for good. I’m not saying I believe that I’m never going to get another cold in my whole life once I stop eating a lot of sugar but I know that it is definitely a factor that I have some control over. Nor am I saying that I’m never going to eat sugar again… I believe that God gave me the gift of self control and it is my desire to exercise that self control over every area of my life including eating. I want to be able to enjoy sugar and dessert in small quantities every so often and I don’t want to give it up for good. But this detox is good for me in the way that my mind won’t automatically start thinking about sweets every time I am finished eating. It might take more than 21 days for this to happen, especially because the first seven I wasn’t completely sugar-free… But at least it’s a start!

Have you detoxed from sugar before? Are you a sugar addict? Post your comments below!

Love you all!

XoxoV