This is about my journey and the steps I took to taking something as addicting as coffee out of my diet for good!

Let me first start by stating that I wasn’t one of those people who would drink a cup here or there and then say they quit drinking coffee like it was super easy! I come from a European background and if you’re European you know that means- coffee, coffee and more coffee!

Where the love for coffee began…
I remember at a young age going over to my grandparent’s house every Saturday and looking forward to my usual cup of instant Nescafe coffee with milk and sugar… It was heavenly. I don’t even think my mom knew about my weekly caffeine fix at this point yet.

Eventually as I grew up I was having a cup of Joe first thing in the morning on a regular basis. I really just enjoyed the taste at this point and wasn’t drinking it to help me wake up or anything. Later Throughout High school I started to crave that cup of coffee as soon as I woke up! Even if I didn’t eat breakfast, having that cup of delicious coffee in my hands was a necessity. This addition stuck with me into the “working world.” It was not even a question of what I did the minute I woke up. I even thought, “wow wouldn’t it be great if I could have a coffee maker on my night side table and have it set on a timer to brew a fresh cup right when I woke up, without even getting out of bed!” Crazy, right?

As the years went by I began noticing more and more research about coffee, both the pros and cons. It always seemed that for every con there was a bunch of pros! And yes I’m not going to argue the fact that there can be benefits to drinking coffee. But I would have to say the cons out weight the good. Let me also state that the journey of quitting coffee is not really for those who drink a cup here or there as a treat or social experience, but more for those who rely on it and couldn’t live without.

As I educated myself more and more on the effects of drinking coffee, I soon came to realize I may have a “slight” dependency.

I remember one day just for my own experiment, I skipped my morning coffee… Insane, I know! How did I function? I began noticing an awful headache approaching and I felt so tired and unmotivated to do anything. This may sound exaggerated but you really should not feel tired and have a headache first thing in the morning. Your body has just had (hopefully) its 7-8 hours of rest and should feel rejuvenated and awake. Well let me tell you I didn’t feel like I was refreshed or rejuvenated until I would drink my cup of coffee and even then I still would feel slightly sluggish and drag myself to work in the morning. Not a fun morning experience at all!

First thought to quitting coffee..
The first time I thought about quitting coffee was when I was planning my 1-year backpacking (turned into 2, but who’s counting!) trip to Australia and Asia. I started to think “what if I can’t get that cup of coffee in the morning while travelling.” How would I feel? Would I have awful headaches again? Would I have the amount of energy and motivating I need to do all the activities I wanted to do? Let me just say that these are common addiction questions. Worrying ahead of time if you will be able to make sure you still get your coffee or “cigarette for some people”. It then hit me that I didn’t want to be confined or controlled by this coffee addiction. And that is when the journey of How I quit coffee began!

Click here to read my step-by-step guide to how I quit drinking coffee completely!