Coffee Archives - ANTIFRAGILE Fit

September 16, 2019November 24, 2020

How to Quit Caffeine (aka Caffeine Reset)

Today, caffeine is America’s most popular drug — touted as an energy-boosting, focus-enhancing wonder supplement without any downside. Many people feel like they need to consume greater and greater amounts of caffeine to feel any “buzz”— this is just caffeine tolerance building up.

Why Reset?

Many of caffeine’s effects, including fat burning, strength benefits, and euphoria, are subject to tolerance, and may not occur in people who have built up a tolerance to caffeine, no matter how large the dose is. Interesting article: 7 Surprising Signs You Might Want To Cut Back On Caffeine

The Caffeine Reset

Avoid caffeine for at least seven days, preferably 21 days. Decaf coffee and tea are fine (in fact, I recommend you pick up some high-quality decaf for the reset). This will desensitize your body to caffeine. Once you reintroduce regular coffee, the positive effects will be increased and you will require LESS coffee to maximize coffee’s benefits.

If going caffeine-free cold turkey is too drastic for you (caffeine withdrawal can be pretty brutal for some people), take the first 7-14 days to slowly cut back on your caffeine intake. This may be the least unpleasant way to do it. Replacing one or two cups of regular coffee with decaf every few days will do the trick. If you normally drink eight cups of coffee a day, for example, replace two to four cups with decaf for two or three days. Then reduce your intake of regular to two cups for a few days.

For the last 7-14 days, do zero caffeine, so your body can properly reset itself. It won’t be easy, —potentially headache-filled—but if you can get through all 3-4 weeks, your tolerance should be reset. When you go back to having caffeine, start off will small amounts.

How Caffeine Works

Continue reading “How to Quit Caffeine (aka Caffeine Reset)”

November 26, 2018May 20, 2020

BLACK COFFEE CHALLENGE: Lesson 6: Community

Study after study has shown that social connections – through family, friends or with companion animals – seem to pay off in terms of good health, longevity and even prolonged survival among patients with very serious diseases. In fact, a landmark study found that social support was a stronger predictor of survival than physical activity, body mass index, hypertension, air pollution, alcohol consumption, and even smoking fifteen cigarettes a day!

Some evidence linking good health from strong ties to family and friends includes:

The immune system’s natural killer cell activity is negatively affected by three “distress indicators” – one of which is lack of social support.
One study of 75 medical students found that those who were lonely had more sluggish natural killer cells, the ones that help destroy cells infected with viruses and cancer cells, than students who were social.
Research has shown that people who care for companion animals have less illness than people who do not. Companion animals’ owners also recover from serious illness faster.
Susceptibility to heart attacks appears to correlate with how often people use the words “I,” “me” and “mine” in casual speech.
Believe it or not, studies show that people who get out and spend more time with others during cold and flu season actually get fewer episodes of colds or flu than those who choose to be alone.

Your community also plays a role in the success you have with achieving your goals. A strong community and social connection holds you accountable to take the actions necessary to create the results you want. Having a sense of belonging can improve self-control which increases your likelihood of sticking to healthy habits. Plus, sharing victories make them a reality — it makes you more motivated to work harder and accomplish your goals.

The people we associate with determine our behaviors and habits so it’s important to surround yourself with people that have similar goals. Plus, everything’s easier and more fun with friends who share you interests!

How does coffee relate to community? What better way to catch up with an old friend or just get to know someone better than over a good cup of coffee.

Interestingly, hot coffee may actually put you in a more positive mindset in the morning. A study published in Science, the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, tested how participants viewed other people when holding a warm mug of coffee versus a cup of the cold stuff. In one trial, participants holding hot coffee judged a stranger they had just been introduced to as having a more generous, caring personality, whereas those holding a cup of iced coffee didn’t see the stranger quite as favorably.

So if you’re holding something warm, you tend to judge others as being emotionally warm.

My challenge to you — invite someone to coffee this week and get to know them better. And opt for a warm cup of coffee. 🙂

To purchase my favorite coffee, both regular and decaf, I recommend Purity Organic Coffee. It’s the healthiest coffee on the planet…no GI issues, jitters or toxins. Just pure, clean energy. Use code EVOLVEDNS for 10% off. http://troydelaney.com/coffee

Disclosure: The above link is an affiliate link so I do earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Thanks in advance if you do choose to go through the link above! If you have any questions about this product, let me know and I would be happy to answer them for you.

November 26, 2018May 20, 2020

BLACK COFFEE CHALLENGE: Lesson 5 – Stress

Stop.

Take a deep 4 second inhale. Hold it for 4 seconds.

Now exhale for 8 seconds. Repeat 2 more times.

This simple breathing technique can calm stress and anxiety, down regulate your nervous system and put you into a “rest & digest” state – useful particularly during the hectic holidays.

Yes, a simple breathing technique can do. In fact, including breath work into your daily routine can not only lower stress; it can also improve overall health.

Stress in a part of everyone’s life. It’s actually important for us to grow, adapt and become stronger. When you exercise, you stress your muscles. Then, when you give them time to recover, they come back stronger.

But the kind of stress we experience and HOW we experience it is what determines if it helps us grow or hurts us.

We are one of the astute organisms on the planet when it comes to adaptation. In fact, our entire genetic code is built upon becoming optimized when faced with stress. And yet as a society we’re sicker than we’ve ever been.

I believe a major reason for this is that we have massively restricted the natural stressors we used to encounter on a daily basis. Technology, climate control, increasingly sedentary workplaces, and the ability to have everything at our fingertips without leaving the house remove the stressors we would typically encounter in life.

This means our bodies are actually screaming for us to induce a little more stress – such as that induced by physical activity, exposure to hot and cold and the introduction of new challenges – but more on this in a later post.

For now, here are a few tips based around coffee and stress —

If you suffer from issues with sleep, stress, adrenal fatigue, a chronic illness or if you’re overtrained, you may only be able to handle a very small dose of caffeine (if any) or fasting. If you do suffer from any of these, eliminate coffee 8 hours before bedtime (or earlier if you are caffeine sensitive) or switch to a good-quality decaf.
Don’t consume caffeinated coffee post-workout. It may raise cortisol, which negates all the good things you did for your body by exercising. Stick with decaf.
Don’t mask fatigue and overtraining with caffeine. Make sure to get good sleep and cut off the caffeine at the appropriate time. And if needed, do a caffeine reset.
Use coffee in your daily routine to trigger a healthy habit. For instance, once you finish your first cup of coffee, do some type of movement practice such as a walk or 10 minutes of yoga.
Use coffee as a meditative practice. Coffee can be made in so many ways, some of which can be very meditative. One of the most relaxing is called the pour-over technique. Enjoy the process and be truly present.
Take a minute in the morning to give gratitude for the delicious cup of coffee you’re about to consume and all the health benefits it’s about to provide you. Do this for two weeks and see if you notice anything cool happening. Then, report back.
Don’t forget to focus on your breath throughout the day and use the above breath technique when you’re feeling stressed — 4 in, 4 hold, 8 out.

November 25, 2018May 20, 2020

BLACK COFFEE CHALLENGE: Lesson 4 – Sleep

You’ll sleep when you’re dead, right?

Not so fast.

You can survive for a long time without food and a shorter period without water. Although it’s unclear exactly how long humans can survive without sleep, it isn’t long before the effects of sleep deprivation start to show. Even one bad night can do damage.

Sleep is the deal breaker of all deal breakers.

If you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re not the best version of yourself the next morning — it literally effects every part of your body and mind.

So how can you make coffee and fasting work in your favor when it comes to sleep?

Caffeine curfew
Caffeine naps (say what???)
Fast earlier
Enjoy morning sun

Have a caffeine curfew. Caffeine is a powerful nervous system stimulant and has a long half life of five to six hours (the amount of time it will take for your body to burn through half of the caffeine dosage you ingest). If your nervous system is lit up, you can forget about getting high quality sleep. Set an unbreakable curfew stop time to make sure that your body has time to remove it from your system. For most people, it’s generally going to be before 2 p.m. But if you’re really sensitive to caffeine, then you might want to make your curfew even earlier, or possibly avoid caffeine altogether. You could always switch to decaf or tea after 2 p.m.

Take caffeine naps. If you’re feeling sleepy and want to wake yourself up — and have 20 minutes or so to spare before you need to be fully alert — give this a try. It’s more effective than drinking a cup of coffee or taking a quick nap. It’s drinking a cup of coffee and then taking a quick nap. If you caffeinate immediately before napping and sleep for 20 minutes or less (this is important), you can exploit a quirk in the way both sleep and caffeine affect your brain to maximize alertness.

You need to drink the coffee quickly, to give yourself a decently long window of time to sleep as it’s going through your gastrointestinal tract and entering your bloodstream. If it’s tough for you to drink a lot of hot coffee quickly, good options might be iced coffee or espresso.

Fast early. Try to eat dinner and start your fast three hours before bed. This will not only improve your sleep it will also improve your health. Insulin is high after a meal and you don’t want it to be high when you’re sleeping. Additionally, you want your body to focus it’s energy on repairing your body and mind while you sleep, not on digesting food.

Enjoy morning sun. If at all possible, enjoy your morning cup of coffee outside or at least near a window so the natural light can reset your internal clock. Getting direct sunlight outdoors on your skin for at least half an hour has been shown to produce the most benefit. But even taking in the natural light through your eyes can help. This sun exposure during the day can help you sleep at night by signaling your your body to “wake up.” in the morning which will trigger the proper hormones at night to help you fall asleep.

November 25, 2018May 20, 2020

BLACK COFFEE CHALLENGE: Lesson 2 – Exercise

Today we’re sticking to the theme from previous emails: coffee and fasting. But I want to throw exercise into the mix to maximize the benefits of these two.

Fasting + Exercise
Moderate exercise such as walking of jogging in a fasted state allows your body to tap into stored body fat as fuel. Incorporating weight or resistance training into your exercise can increase fat loss even more. A 2008 study showed that cardio plus resistance during a single workout significantly improves fat loss. The cardio plus resistance group not only burned fat and built muscle at the same time, but the amount of fat they burned was a tenfold increase over the amount burned by the groups that did cardio or resistance training only. Adding the exercise to your morning can also jumpstart your metabolism, and working out on an empty stomach can help you burn up to 20 percent more body fat, which is more likely to be achieved in the a.m.

According to a recent study, after eating, adipose (fat) tissue “is busy responding to the meal and a bout of exercise at this time will not stimulate the same [beneficial] changes in adipose tissue. This means that exercise in a fasted state might provoke more favorable changes in adipose tissue, and this could be beneficial for health in the long term.

Click here to get a Fat Loss Accelerator workout.

Coffee + Exercise
With regards to fat loss, having caffeine specifically RIGHT BEFORE YOU WORKOUT is shown to increase your body’s rate of fat loss by up to 29%, according to research published in the American Journal of Physiology.

But it’s also a potent performance enhancer — caffeine is a powerful stimulant, and it can be used to improve physical strength and endurance.

Caffeine is one of the best-tested ergogenic aids (substances that enhance an individual’s energy use) and is known to help athletes train harder and longer. Caffeine stimulates the brain and contributes to clearer thinking and greater concentration.

There are more than 74 good studies on the use of caffeine for both endurance exercise and short-term, higher intensity exercise. The vast majority of the studies conclude that caffeine does indeed enhance performance and makes the effort seem easier.

The average improvement in performance is about 12 percent, with more benefits noticed during endurance exercise than with shorter exercise (eight to 20 minutes) and a negligible amount for sprinters. More benefits are also noticed in athletes who rarely drink coffee, hence are not tolerant to its stimulant effect (which is one reason why I recommend the caffeine reset).

If you’re looking to hit the gym when your caffeine boost is at its most powerful, you’re going to want to down a cup roughly 45 minutes before working out. Studies show that maximum caffeine concentration hits at about 45 minutes post consumption. Additionally, drinking caffeinated coffee (3 cups) pre-workout can reduce muscle soreness (DOMS) from intense training.