decaf

For the last few days, I’ve made it through each day with only one coffee: that’s down from one full-caf coffee and one decaf coffee, down from two full coffees, down from over two coffees.

Why am I bothering with this? Suffice to say it’s health reasons, I’m tring to be healthier and fitter and to get better sleep. None of these things come easily to me, though.

A t-shirt I wore so often that it wore out said “death before decaf”; this takes me back to my uni days, where I was drinking over a litre of jolt cola each day. This was a necessary evil at the time (or so I thought), to keep me awake when I was working on various different projects.

Years later, I’m still trying to work on a great many things at the one time, but I need to balance all of these things with actually looking after myself. This goes beyond such concessions as – in the words of ze frank , to "walk to a more inconvenient deli… to buy cigarettes" – as a non-smoker, this isn’t an issue for me.

It’s not a permanent move (unless I somehow find that I’m not enjoying drinking coffee; something I doubt will happen), but it’s something I’m trying to be committed to.

What have you given up lately?

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5 Comments

  1. funny, at first a stack of things ran through my head, but that’s not really true, just some days it feels like we gave up loads to start our new life here in Qld. For instance, as we both crawled out of bed this morning, aching and sore I realised more than ever what i gave up when i left Commerce….. and we’ve inadvertently given up cold weather; i still can’t believe how hot it is here! But then we spend time working on the house (yes the construction of the deck has begun) and we spend time with family and it makes me realise what we have added to our lives by moving here. Sometimes it’s just hard to see the benefits when we are missing something so much.

    and strangely enough, one of the things i miss most is sitting around your coffee machine while you make us coffees 🙂 …. and, if you do one day decide to give up coffee, keep in mind that you will still need to bring your machine with you when you visit, or you could teach T the art and leave your machine here!

  2. Well, firstly I would like to say to dave, no matter how caffeinated you are or aren’t we still love you!

    What have I given up lately? Hmm… ankles, a kick-free tummy zone (don’t pull me up on the biology!) my caffeine addiction, soft cheese, alcohol (even the 1-2 beers a week (or lack there of) are taking their toll!)… What I will be giving up this year – EVERYTHING!!! What I will be gaining this year – a beautiful son/daughter!!! So will it be “uncle cafedave and cafekel”?

  3. Good luck with giving up the caffeine . . . if I’ve given up anything lately . . . hmm . . . actually, it’s scary, because I felt like I stopped giving things up six months ago. It might be time to give up more.

    I am reminded of the words of a hippy guy I met who cleans houses on Kangaroo Island. He was speaking with his neighbour, who had stopped smoking three days before because he couldn’t breathe in the morning. Hippy Cleaner: “Yeah, mate, I would give up smoking but I’m not a quitter.”

  4. How is the withdrawal going? I don’t like coming down from caffiene after exams but don’t like physical dependancy on anything.

    The biggest thing (in western terms) I’ve given up of late is toilet paper. I’ll undobtably return to my tree destroying ways on my return to Australia though.

  5. I actually made five coffees today: there was a meeting at work, so I just kept going… probably about half the speed of someone who works in a cafe, but that’s not too bad overall.

    My main symptoms have been a lot of tiredness in the afternoons: I’ve been told to keep hydrated, so I haven’t felt the usual headaches and such. The main thing I miss is just drinking coffee: it’s one of my favourite things to do.

    I don’t think it will be forever, just until I get my blood pressure down a bit more.

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