I’m trying to cut down on soda intake. I’ve gone down from 1 bottle of coke per day down to maybe 3 cans per week. However, I do work night shifts at a bar so there’s the temptation to sneak a glass or two from the taps for the caffeine boost, to get me through the night.
Caffeine pills are more easily employed in a lot of situations.
For example, you can easily bring along a pill to random occasions where you think you might need a quick boost.
Or you can experiment with them: for a little while, I have been trying out on alternate days Anders Sandberg’s caffeine-pill-wakeup idea (where when I first groggily wake up, I take a caffeine pill I left on my bedside, and then go back to snoozing; in theory the caffeine will enforce wakefulness, rather than me hitting the alarm clock and going back to bed for another hour). It would be very difficult to do this if I had to get up, prepare a cup of green tea, drink it, and then go back to nap.
I take a caffeine pill I left on my bedside, and then go back to snoozing
I did this for a while, which pretty much forced me out of the habit of snoozing. Bright lamps timed to an hour or so before I wake up also helped. I wonder if light through the eyelids is enough for hormonal regulation.
Not as far as I can see. I’m not a fan of tea or coffee, so my only viable source of caffeine is either soda or pills. In this situation it’s obvious pills win out. If you enjoy green tea then stick with it.
Maybe buy some pills for the odd occasion when you need caffeine but don’t have any tea on hand?
Should also be better for your GI-tract than coffee at least.
It’s so easy to take pills I think tolerance develops easier than with other delivery methods. I’ve found that steps of about 25 mg per day are sufficient to reduce caffeine intake without much side effects for me. The pills can be cut to pieces.
I used to drink coke when I had headaches (migraine) because I had discovered that it did help. When I later learned that it is due to the coffeine I first switched to ASS and then to pure coffein pills (as that is what has the main effect). Interestingly the coffein pills don’t really make me jittery or unusually awake.
I’ve dropped soda entirely by substituting green tea. I bought a kilogram of it loose, and brew it with a microwave and two mason jars (put a pinch in a quart-sized jar, microwave for 3:30, pour through strainer into second jar).
I’ve quit caffeine outright two or three times beforehand, but relapsed for trivial reasons.
In general, I’ve had much more success at substituting good things than cutting out bad things. I tried and failed to stop drinking soda many times, but eventually succeeded without much difficulty after I’d installed the habit of drinking seltzer water.
I love drinking tea, white and green mostly, and I never crave coffee or soda. I cold brew white tea in a large diffusion jug I got off amazon overnight in the refrigerator and then I have a ton of tea for the next day or even a few days afterward. The cold brewed tea is so refreshing and delicious. I highly recommend trying it out.
I cut out most soda long ago, but one recent drink change I did manage—I like hot chocolate in winter, and I tend to like it syrupy, so it’s not exactly health food. I tried making a glass of hot water on a cold day instead, as an experiment when I noticed it was an option on the coffee machine at work. Surprisingly, I liked it almost as much—it has the nice warming effect, and it tastes much nicer than lukewarm water. I suspect that’ll save me a lot of calories over the average winter, plus it″ll let me consume way more hot drinks than I otherwise would on cold days.
I’ve noticed that at least for myself, things which are very warm/hot and things which are very cold (by the standards of food) taste better than lukewarm things, independent of flavor. I’m not sure whether this is a general principle, but suspect it is.
I am beginning to think so, yes. I have long noted that cold drinks taste more like coldness than like anything else(which is why so many people who dislike beer, myself included, prefer their beer icy cold), but I’ve always associated my preference for hot food/drink as a preference for freshness—you want to eat it before it goes stale and congeals and whatnot, not so much because of the actual flavours. Thinking about it, though, there’s not much difference between right out of the pan versus half an hour old, and yet I’ll take the former every time.
I now want to experiment to see what exactly I’m experiencing and thinking when I’m eating foods at different temperatures.
I’m trying to cut down on soda intake. I’ve gone down from 1 bottle of coke per day down to maybe 3 cans per week. However, I do work night shifts at a bar so there’s the temptation to sneak a glass or two from the taps for the caffeine boost, to get me through the night.
If it is just the caffeine you want, why not get some caffeine pills? Virtually no calories & lightyears better for your teeth.
I think I’ll do that actually.
EDIT: Done.
As a green tea drinker, is there any benefits that I would be missing if I switched to just caffeine and theanine pills?
Caffeine pills are more easily employed in a lot of situations.
For example, you can easily bring along a pill to random occasions where you think you might need a quick boost.
Or you can experiment with them: for a little while, I have been trying out on alternate days Anders Sandberg’s caffeine-pill-wakeup idea (where when I first groggily wake up, I take a caffeine pill I left on my bedside, and then go back to snoozing; in theory the caffeine will enforce wakefulness, rather than me hitting the alarm clock and going back to bed for another hour). It would be very difficult to do this if I had to get up, prepare a cup of green tea, drink it, and then go back to nap.
I did this for a while, which pretty much forced me out of the habit of snoozing. Bright lamps timed to an hour or so before I wake up also helped. I wonder if light through the eyelids is enough for hormonal regulation.
Not as far as I can see. I’m not a fan of tea or coffee, so my only viable source of caffeine is either soda or pills. In this situation it’s obvious pills win out. If you enjoy green tea then stick with it.
Maybe buy some pills for the odd occasion when you need caffeine but don’t have any tea on hand?
Should also be better for your GI-tract than coffee at least.
It’s so easy to take pills I think tolerance develops easier than with other delivery methods. I’ve found that steps of about 25 mg per day are sufficient to reduce caffeine intake without much side effects for me. The pills can be cut to pieces.
I used to drink coke when I had headaches (migraine) because I had discovered that it did help. When I later learned that it is due to the coffeine I first switched to ASS and then to pure coffein pills (as that is what has the main effect). Interestingly the coffein pills don’t really make me jittery or unusually awake.
I’ve dropped soda entirely by substituting green tea. I bought a kilogram of it loose, and brew it with a microwave and two mason jars (put a pinch in a quart-sized jar, microwave for 3:30, pour through strainer into second jar).
I’ve quit caffeine outright two or three times beforehand, but relapsed for trivial reasons.
In general, I’ve had much more success at substituting good things than cutting out bad things. I tried and failed to stop drinking soda many times, but eventually succeeded without much difficulty after I’d installed the habit of drinking seltzer water.
I love drinking tea, white and green mostly, and I never crave coffee or soda. I cold brew white tea in a large diffusion jug I got off amazon overnight in the refrigerator and then I have a ton of tea for the next day or even a few days afterward. The cold brewed tea is so refreshing and delicious. I highly recommend trying it out.
I cut out most soda long ago, but one recent drink change I did manage—I like hot chocolate in winter, and I tend to like it syrupy, so it’s not exactly health food. I tried making a glass of hot water on a cold day instead, as an experiment when I noticed it was an option on the coffee machine at work. Surprisingly, I liked it almost as much—it has the nice warming effect, and it tastes much nicer than lukewarm water. I suspect that’ll save me a lot of calories over the average winter, plus it″ll let me consume way more hot drinks than I otherwise would on cold days.
I’ve noticed that at least for myself, things which are very warm/hot and things which are very cold (by the standards of food) taste better than lukewarm things, independent of flavor. I’m not sure whether this is a general principle, but suspect it is.
I am beginning to think so, yes. I have long noted that cold drinks taste more like coldness than like anything else(which is why so many people who dislike beer, myself included, prefer their beer icy cold), but I’ve always associated my preference for hot food/drink as a preference for freshness—you want to eat it before it goes stale and congeals and whatnot, not so much because of the actual flavours. Thinking about it, though, there’s not much difference between right out of the pan versus half an hour old, and yet I’ll take the former every time.
I now want to experiment to see what exactly I’m experiencing and thinking when I’m eating foods at different temperatures.