When I gave up drinking alcohol six years ago I became a bit of a tea buff. It became my new thing.
Instead of a wine collection in my cupboard I have an assortment of mainly herbal teas.
But over the last year or so I have be drinking lots more strong coffee and builders tea.
The addict in me enjoyed the high of caffeine, the buzz. I needed it to get through my day.
My caffeine tolerance went up and I needed more and more. My mornings were a struggle without the bump of a cuppa.
The extra caffeine was taking it’s toll on….
- my already frazzled adrenal glands
- my blood sugar levels
- my expanded waistline
- the quality of my sleep
- the load my liver has to deal with
But I LOVED it, the thought of giving it up brought me out in a cold tea sweat.
Uh oh….
So a few weeks ago I started to cut down my intake gradually.
I knew from past experience that if I just stopped I would have the mother of all headaches and feel lousy!
Back came the lemon and cayenne pepper first thing in the morning.
Then redbush replaced my regular black tea. I’m down to one cup of weak green tea per day.
The first few days were HARD, I really wanted caffeine in the afternoon because I felt sooooooo tired.
But I’ve persevered and I feel much better. I can feel my natural energy and I know my body is thanking me.
Why you should considering reducing or eliminating caffeine
- We can tolerate caffeine more in our youth but as we head into peri-menopause and post menopause our tolerance drops
- It taxes our already overloaded adrenal glands which are working hard to take up the slack from our waning ovaries.
- It can make us hold on to belly fat due to caffeine raising our stress hormone cortisol levels. High cortisol = belly fat
- It is a common trigger for hot flushes
- It affects our sleep, even if you don’t wake up it will affect the quality of your sleep. Deep sleep is needed for weight loss and cognitive health.
- It messes with our blood sugar levels. Caffeine pumps up our blood sugar levels and when they crash back down we either reach for the cookie tin or our body has to use adrenaline to push the levels back up. Worst case scenario is that this blood sugar imbalances lead to insulin resistance which equals belly fat.
- Caffeine reduces blood flow to your brain which won’t help our meno-fog symptoms
- It wires you out and can inhibit your body’s ability to be calm
You can do it!
So can you start to reduce or eliminate your caffeine consumption? It’s worth a try right? If you are a caffeine head then I would suggest cutting back slowly as stopping suddenly can make people feel really ill!
Start swapping teas and coffees for naturally decaf teas/coffees. See link to tea blog for ideas.http://wp.me/p5zNC2-fM
Regular decaf tea and coffee are not great as they contain many chemicals used to extract the caffeine.
Click here to read the benefits to menopause and hormonal balancing that different teas can bring. Tea is big business and there are so many to try.
