Wednesday, April 21, 2010

(almost) caffeine-free

216.2

It has been 13 days today since I last had a cup of coffee. My horrible migraines of the third weekend of April convinced me that perhaps I should have another go at giving up caffeine. While I have still had tea on occasion, at this point I have eliminated my daily morning cup of coffee entirely.

I'm not gonna lie; quitting has not been easy. Last week in particular was hard. . . . I felt sleepy and sluggish a lot during the day and had some mild headaches (which, surprise surprise, responded to one Ex.cedrin tablet. . . which contains 65 mg of caffeine). I was literally sleeping nine hours a night in order to wake up feeling rested, and the feeling still wasn't lasting all day.

Now, almost two weeks in, I am back to just sleeping eight hours a night. More often than not over the past several days, I have woken up before my alarm, feeling rested. My concentration at work has been fine. Today and yesterday I have felt the most energetic I have felt in a long time.

I have not been exercising (aside from walking the dogs for 20-30 minutes most evenings) and have not been focused on eating any particular way. Aside from cutting out the coffee, the only other change I've made is that I started five days ago taking a daily supplement for migraines called Mig.reLi.ef, which is a blend of riboflavin, magnesium and feverfew.

I am happy to report that, aside from the mild headaches I've had up until several days ago from caffeine withdrawal, I have had no headaches since April 11. This past Sunday, I made the 5-hour round trip drive to Tucson and even spent the better part of an hour out in the direct sunlight and did not get a migraine. (I often come home from trips like that with a bad headache.) I hope this trend continues; we shall see.

From the weight posted above, it's probably clear that I haven't been making an effort in the weight loss department. I have not been eating horribly, and I always drink 8-10 glasses of water a day, but I haven't been eating many fruits or veggies of late (and as I said, I haven't been exercising). The scale is starting to creep up again, and I know I need to get back on track.

Not much else to report. Work has been VERY slow this month, which for me is actually more stressful than being busy, but now I finally have a few projects. I'd better get to 'em.

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