give up coffee?

sandrakay · Post by **sandrakay** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:08 am

Any one have tips to kick the coffee habit? I have diabetes, so juice, milk and other drinks are out. I can give up diet soda or at least I am doing better giving that up than coffee. I have been drinking black coffee for almost 50 years and so many foods and drinks are off limits to me that I am having a hard time accepting that I must give up coffee also. And I do not like tea. Is it really that important? Is there any help to to get the mind to accept these losses?

LisaLisa · Post by **LisaLisa** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:35 am

Hi Sandrakay. Giving up coffee was easier for me than my husband. He was a full-pot-of-coffee-a-day guy. We had to take it slow. If we put five scoops of regular coffee in the maker, we did four regular, one decaf. We did this for a few days, then stepped it down to three regular, two decaf, etc. It took a few weeks, but he now is on decaf without all the headaches, crankiness, etc. A good decaf to try is Caribou's Decaf.

Getting off the food that triggers anxiety was easier for me to go cold turkey until I got used to my anxious feelings. Now I can have chocolate, sugar, etc., but in moderation. When I feel the physical symptons of the anxiety, I know it was probably because of too much chocolate.

Good Luck to you.

LisaLisa

Mary Wargo · Post by **Mary Wargo** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 5:04 am

It took me a pretty long time to go off coffee. I slowly decreased it like LisaLisa did due to getting headaches if I stopped abruptly. I now have green tea which does have some caffeine but doesn't effect me like coffee did. I think it depends on how much the coffee is contributing to your anxiety, and sometimes we don't even realize this until we stop. I can see where you would feel a little deprived without the coffee since so many other drinks are off limits to you. You could always just switch to decaf and see how it goes.

sandrakay · Post by **sandrakay** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 3:41 am

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I will try decaf and/or green tea and see how that goes. Actually I am doing better than I thought I would. My coffee consumption has dropped a lot. Even my diet soda is less than it was which was a lot. Again thanks for the support.