Well, mostly. And not entirely on purpose, which is opening my eyes to a new understanding of change and growth.

You see, a few weeks ago, on a Thursday morning, I woke up to no coffee in the house. 

Typically, making coffee is the first thing I do in the morning. At least, after going to the bathroom. And then I’ll sometimes stretch or do yoga, sometimes I’ll meditate, or sometimes I’ll just get right into getting ready for the day.

My day didn’t really start, until I had some coffee.

I actually had enough time that morning to run to get coffee after dropping Ollie off at daycare before my first patient of the day. However, I didn’t go to the coffee shop. I was a bit tired, but I wasn’t exactly struggling. So I went to work, with a few cups of green tea in my system.

Usually on days like these, Tim picks up a bag of coffee on his way to work. Yet, this Thursday, he got called into work early and didn’t have time to stop at Heine Bros (Louisville Coffee Shop) and so again, Friday, we didn’t have any coffee.

Friday was a little tighter of a schedule, and I figured if I went one day without coffee, I could probably go another. So no coffee on Friday, I simply stuck with the green tea.

Truth be told, Friday was a little bit harder. I was a little less energetic, optimistic, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I had a headache, not terrible, but annoying.

We went on vacation the next week, and I was a little more irritable, and I also occasionally had a little bit of coffee. But I noticed a trend. If I drank a “normal” cup of coffee for me, I actually felt like crap. But if I either drank just a little bit, like ⅓ of a normal cup, I felt fine. So some days, I had a little bit of coffee and other days, I only drank green tea.

I’m about 2.5 weeks into this journey, and again I had about ½ cup of coffee yesterday, but had no interest in it today. And a surprising thing came from this unexpected experiment away from coffee. My digestion has dramatically improved. 

Now, prior to this unexpected coffee separation, I was noticing I was drinking all of my coffee and I was not always feeling well afterwards. But because sometimes habits are, well, habitual, I simply continued to drink it until life intervened.

But here is the critical part, I was open to the change and wasn’t holding on to the idea that I must need coffee to start my day. And as such, I can start most of my days without coffee and be okay…and in some ways better than before! 

As my digestion improvement demonstrates.

The other interesting thing about all of this, is that coffee is one of those things that has so much research and science done about it.  There is research to show the benefits AND the negative effects, but many research studies suggest that coffee is good for your microbiome and intestinal motility. 

However, it seems like it wasn’t good for me!

And that’s the tricky thing about holding nutrition and food research up too highly. Just because something is generally good or bad, doesn’t mean the same is true for you.

Want to be able to find your own best path to health?