How I Quit Coffee (and why)

Coffee is delicious, I love it. So much so, I used to claim I'd prefer to "drink my dessert" than give up coffee. But it was time for us to break up.

My love affair with caffeine was reasonable with little side effects. I drank one full (strong) french press a day, and occasionally grabbed a large coffee on the run. I could drink a cup at 10pm and go right to sleep -- caffeine didn't impact me. Or so I thought.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average adult requires 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Acknowledging that sleep is very individual, surely they would frown upon my sleep patterns. Prior to this year, I hadn't sleep 7 hours a night consistently since 2010. Between pregnancy insomnia, finicky babies, regular feeders and bed wetters, I could not even average 2 nights per week of 7 hours. In fact, I was often operating much closer to 4-5 hours per night.

Early this year, we hit a sweet spot with the boys sleep. They regularly went to bed around 8:00 at night and woke up between 5:30-6:00 in the morning. Behr and Hudson fell into the same routine and schedule with very few interruption in the evening. But I was still staying up until 1:00 am doing work, trying to crank through exhaustion.

The Weaning Week
After a week at my parent's house with my snobbish consideration of sub-par coffee, I realize I had consumed far less than my norm. Perhaps now was the time.

The Cold Turkey Week
(can it be called cold turkey if it follows the weaning week?)
On Sunday, I skipped coffee. But Tuesday, I got a migraine so bad, I started hallucinating, something that hadn't accompanied my migraines for over 20 years. At that point, I knew I needed to stick this out. No more coffee.

The Following Weeks
We are now in the middle of week 3 of no coffee, four if you count the weaning week. And there are noticeable changes.

10 pm or very near after is my bedtime. At a wedding last weekend, around 10:30, I realized I had hit my limit. Gone are the days of being awake always.

Black tea is my new best friend. I am still getting a bit of caffeine, but without any cream, sugar, or any form of sweetener. It is also refreshing in the already muggy DC heat.

I have lost weight, considerably. A combination of regular sleep, walking more with the nicer weather and the coffee, no doubt. But this result is good.

My attitude is brighter. Not having the peaks and valleys of sugar surges, I find my day is smoother. There is no hard evidence of this, but it certainly feels better.

No hindrance in efficiency. I am getting the same amount of work done in the same amount of hours, but without the necessary breaks for more coffee.

I don't miss coffee.

Next Steps
I am not planning on drinking coffee soon. If I do start again, its going to be black. And likely just a sip here or there. I would love to get to a point where I can enjoy a coffee or a latte occasionally, but that coffee is not a requirement of my day.

What is your coffee story?

Do you drink coffee? Never touch the stuff? Or gave it up like me?

Have you ever quit a food (or beverage) vice? Or anything cold turkey?

Disclaimer: compensated affiliate links may be used in this post.

Lancaster County Farmer's Market

One of the highlights of being home is visiting the Lancaster County Farmers Market in Wayne, PA. It is an experience in and of itself. With farm fresh eggs being cooked for breakfast and delicious Bucks County Coffee plus stand after stand of fresh fruits, veggies, meats, pies, and pastries! It is where my family gets the ingredients, turkey and all, for every special meal. Here are some photos from our Christmas Eve Morning Trip to the market:




(It was a dark and rainy morning, and it was packed, so these pictures do not do the market justice. You will have to visit someday for yourself to understand why I love it!)

Win Coffee!

Get The Bean

In case you haven't picked up on it, I LOVE coffee! Meaghan has this great contest running on her blog Get The Bean to celebrate and promote the launch of her coffee shop! Check her blog and website out and order coffee while you are at it!

Deep Creek Coffee Shop

Those who know me well, know that I could not go on vacation without finding a great little coffee shop. This post is now long overdue as it is almost a month since I visited this great little place, but I want to share with you all anyway. Trader's Coffee House was located just across the way from where we went kayaking and their frappuccino hit the spot after two hours of paddling. Meghan, Ryan, Brooke and I hung out here and enjoyed some quiet down time. It was especially to see Meghan and Brooke interacting outside the family chaos. They are both growing up so quickly, I cannot even believe it. But back to the coffee shop...

This place was amazing. I bought 3 bags of coffee (one of which we consumed that day - yes my family sucked down an entire bag of brewed coffee beans in one day - and we are not the type to need any additional stimulation). Yum. So delicious. Next time you are in Deep Creek check out Trader's Coffee House.

Pennsylvania

Last weekend we went to PA and had time to catch up with everyone. First we celebrated Michael's graduation with a huge party. It was absolutely insane! I promise, the "Top 10 Most Outrageous Things about an Angelos Party"...coming soon! The party was a great time to see the family. Grandmom, Pop-Pop and Yia-yia were all there and doing well. Aunts, uncles, cousins, old neighbors were all there. I think we had over 100 people. The party was packed! Brian, Mike and Kelsey came over and we had fun playing horse shoes. Mark and the guys clearly had the upper hand, but every once in a while Kelsey or I tossed a ringer. It was great to see them.

Once the party finally started to wind down, we were able to hang out with Sarah. Seeing an opportunity to escape the Angelos household chaos, we headed to Burlap and Bean. It is this great coffee shop in Newtown Square run my some Messiah grads. Mark and I are trying to convince them to open one on Capitol Hill. We love it! Unfortunately, we don't get to frequent it enough, seeing how it is over 100 miles from where we live! :-) We usually try to buy a few bags of beans to hold us over from one visit to the next. It is really that good. It could cure me of my starbucks addiction!

Anyway, Saturday happened to be a mic night and we walked into the coffee shop during a lull in a song (literally dead silence). It was AWKWARD. Oh man, it was awekward. Everyone stared. Sarah and I could not stop giggling. The guy singing just stopped and stared...it was hillarious. So we decided to move our party outside where we proceeded to sit on the curb and drink our coffee.
On Sunday, Faith, Kyle and Noah came to visit. It was wonderful to see them all. Aside from being a bit sleep deprived, everything seems to be going well for the new family. Here are some pictures of the little guy:

As you can see, Noah is precious. When he stretches his arms above his head, we curls his hands in as if he is stretching. It is adorable. We are so happy for Faith and Kyle! You can already tell that they make terrific parents.

Denver

Without DazBog, I would have never survived! DazBog was this great coffee joint right in our hotel, and I visited frequently. It is incredible how early morning meetings, a CFO business conference, and time change can increase your need for coffee exponentially.

In spite of my mass coffee consumption, Denver was awesome. I cannot wait to go back with Mark. As you can imagine, my visit to a new city was punctuated by food. We ate out every night P.F. Changs, Trail Dust, Rock Bottom Brewery, and more.

The first highlight of the trip was my adventure to “LoDo,” Lower Downtown Denver with Kristy. On a spur of the moment decision, we hopped on the light rail determined to get pictures of mountains and see as much of Denver as we could. For this, my feet paid the price. However, we certainly were able to take lots of pictures, add to my pint glass collection, and even shop a bit. This city by storm tour of Denver left me wanting to see more. Have I said that I can’t wait to go back with Mark?

Here are some of the pictures I was able to get:

The next night I got to see BEKAH! Bekah and her roommate Ashley drove an incredible distance in rush hour just to see me. I was so thankful. It was a perfect evening of chatter. We went out to dinner and went shopping. Simple tasks so we could focus our attention on catching up. Ah…life is good. It was so great to have the opportunity to see Bekah. She is such a wonderful girl. We were even able to have a phone call with Amanda, pretending we were back at the mansion, lazily drifting in the heated pool as the days passed by. To the right is a photo of Me, Bekah, Ashley, and my co-worker Kristy back at the hotel.

So that basically sums up Denver. Go. I recommend it. (especially if you get to see Bekah!)

Gettysburg, PA

I had the “privilege” of driving to Gettysburg for work yesterday. In spite of the horrendous weather forecast, sleet, ice, and freezing temperatures, the event was still on and my co-worker Janet and I needed to make the trek. The weather set us behind in our start but Janet being the great person she is made us coffee for the road and we headed up 270. The windshield time granted us ample opportunity to catch up with one another and share our recent stories. Even with all that chatter, and the nasty road conditions, we actually made it to our location ahead of schedule. Out of coffee and needing more, we headed into the town center in search. Gettysburg is like a wheel with four main spokes. After our fourth attempt we thought all hope of coffee was lost and then we spotted it: The Ragged Edge Coffee House. And it had an OPEN sign. We were thrilled; we would get our warm boost of caffeine to carry us through the morning. The coffee and cakes were great and the day which followed turned out to be quite a success. So here is to Ragged Edge Coffee! Thank you for being open early on a wet winter day.

http://www.raggededgecoffeehs.com

Birthdays

I have seen quite a few extravagant birthday parties in my day. My family always went above and beyond…we were the kids that always had a moon bounce at our house and parties that never seemed to end. One birthday I even had an Olympic Swimmer come talk to me and my friends about goals. Yes, my family is a bit crazy, but this is not new news.

So the point is, with birthdays, we have seen it all. And yet, a few weekends ago I experienced something I could hardly fathom. My friend Kate – that is really all I have to say if you know her. She amazes me daily. Well, Kate and her roommate Elizabeth and their friends who all live and work in DC decided to have their birthday in New York. What an incredible idea! What amazes me about all of this is that Mark and I participated. We drove from DC to New York and back again, all for a birthday dinner.

The entire car ride up, (which is really not a bad trip) we kept saying, are we really doing this? The great part about it all is that it gave us a perfect reason to crash with Katie Mac and spend some quality girl + Mark time. Mark has a way of realizing when Katie and I need to see each other. I am working too hard and she is studying too hard and spending time together is rejuvenating. Mark understands this and caters to us accordingly. He has taken the two of us for a girls day at the spa, secretly brought Katie to Boston when I was super stressed, and this weekend, treated us like royalty as always.

Our weekend was filled with food and naps, and then more food. We had lunch on Saturday at a cute little place called Out of the Kitchen. It was soooo good! Then it was time for coffee at Grey Dog. Our drinks were delicious and Grey Dog was the perfect place to sit before we headed back to Katie’s apartment for a long afternoon nap.

Then it was time for Kate and Elizabeth’s birthday dinner! We ate at the Antique Garage in Soho. It was quite the scene and a great meal filled with laughs. As you can see by the picture, we had a blast. By the end of it Katie, Mark, and I were ready for bed and we said our goodbyes as the birthday girls and company went on to continue the evening. And that was that, the birthday celebration we drove hours for was over, but worth it!

Sunday morning we went to church with Katie and were able to hear Tim Keller preach. It was a wonderful sermon on suffering. After church, as we were wondering the streets for brunch we capped our trip by spotting the NEW Magnolia Bakery! It has just opened for business the day before on 401 Bleecker Street. Delicious cupcakes for the car ride home…