The Coffee problem! Zane's reply

I've been agonising over this post for a couple of days. You see the problem is, I agree with a lot of the stuff that Bjorn says in his post. However, my own personal experience does not match up.  I guess the best way to tell this story is to talk a little about my history with coffee.

I have not always ben a coffee drinker. Both of my parents are regular coffee drinkers without being massive consumers. I used to have the odd coffee when I lived at home with them, but nothing serious. At the age of 16 I left home and went to boarding school. Being the rather social butterfly that I am, I would often spend a lot of study time chatting with my mates rather than working on assignments and projects. Then the night before they were due, I would stay up late and work until they were done. A lot of the other kids would drink coffee to help them stay awake, so I tried it. Unfortunately It didn't quite have the same reaction for me. While my mates were talking about the fact they were so wired from their numerous coffees they would never be able to sleep, I was still just as tired.

I wasn't a great coffee drinker through University (alcohol was my drink of choice then!!!!). However, during my time living in London I was drawn to the numerous coffee shops and became a regular drinker. At that stage I noticed some interesting bodily reactions to coffee. I would need to have a bowel movement after every coffee. My coffee of choice then was a cappuccino. However, there was still no buzz from the coffee.

Upon my return to Australia I stayed a coffee drinker. Now however, I had found the Paleo diet and the milk was gone from the coffee. Strangely so were the bowel movements. It appears that it was the warm milk that was doing me in rather than the lovely bean. So now I drank my coffee black and strong. And yet, still I had no buzz from the coffee. I could easily finish a meal with an espresso and then go straight to sleep.

Coffee became a 2 a day habit for me. I bought my own espresso machine for home and also put in with a group of collegues to buy one for work. I would have one coffee on the way to work and then have another one at lunch time. At no time in my coffee drinking did I ever suffer from an inability to sleep or feel anything like the buzz others described after they finished their coffee.

Then Bjorn challenged me to go without my coffee.

At first I was reluctant but I gave it a go. Now, here is where Bjorn's experince and mine differ. I stoped drinking coffee for 14 days straight. I experienced no withdrawal symptons at all. No headaches, no mood swings, no improved sleep (in fact sleep got worse but there may have been other mitigating factors for that). Basically there was no noticeable affect. Did my performance improve? Well during my coffee free period I certainly made performance gains, but I was already making gains from cleaning up my food intake. How much of a role did coffee play? I missed the taste of coffee, but I didn't crave it. I could comfortably sit with others while they had a coffee and was never tempted to get one myself.

I analysed all of this and decided that there was only one thing I could do to see if coffee really affected me. I decided to have a coffee. Now there was some logic to this. I had spoken with others who had given up coffee for a period of time and they told me that their first coffee back nearly blew their head off. They got a massive caffeine hit. Surely I would experience this too.

I fired up my espresso machine and got to work putting the coffee into the little handle thing (that is the technical term). I thought about some cocaine addicts I have known who always talked about the theatre of cutting up the coke and rolling up the note. Of the enjoyment they took in the preparation for the hit. Was that what I was feeling as I prepared to turn on my machine, or were the butterflys in my stomach more from a fear that Bjorn was going to jump out from behind my fridge and demand to know what I was doing to myself. I made my coffee and then hopped into my car for the drive to work.

I took my first sip. The taste was delicious. But no great rush of caffeine. As I slowly continued to sip away at my coffee, I kept waiting for the almighty rush that must be coming. Then all of a sudden I was at the end of my cup and .....NOTHING. No rush, no shakes, no wired eyes. Nothing. I felt absolutely no different. I had another coffee later in the day (4:30pm) and still nothing. That night I slept like a baby.

And that's where I sit today. I am back on the coffee. Drinking it purely for the taste as it appears I get nothing out of it. But here is where I have a problem. I can already hear all of you coffee lovers screaming,

"See, there is nothing wrong with coffee!".

But that is not the point of this post. I went into detail about my history with coffee so you could see that I have never been a responder to caffeine. Perhaps I am lucky to be that 1 in 100 that is a non responder. I drink my coffee simply because I like the taste. But I have conducted an experiment to see that for myself. I have gone without coffee for a reasonable period of time so I can be sure of my body's response. You don't get to say you're just like me unless you to are willing to test this for yourself. You can't be critical of Bjorn and agree with me unless you can provide me with evidence. If, like me, you want Bjorn to be wrong, prove it in the only way possible. Give up coffee and see how you look feel and perform. Only then can you make a sound judgement. The bad news is, the statistics say your experience is probably going to be closer to Bjorn's than it is to mine. Don't believe them? Prove them wrong.

Post thoughts to comments:

PS: I have been thinking long and hard about a way of truly testing coffee's affect on my performance. I plan to give up coffee again when my body has totally adapted to my diet. In that way I will have a greater ability to recognise if the changes in performance are due to diet or coffee consumption.