It’s no secret, I love coffee, and I went through hell to get rid of my coffee addiction. It’s been over a year now. Looking back, it was one of the better decisions for my health to quit coffee now carnivore or not.
I started drinking coffee in the University when cramming for exams. From there, it became part of my regular morning routine, in fact my day wouldn’t start without coffee. My problems with autoimmunity forced me to take another look at coffee addiction.
You may be wondering why… here are my reasons for quitting coffee, carnivore or not.
COFFEE CAN RUIN YOUR STOMACH ACID SECRETION
Coffee is so acidic that, over time, it can make your stomach lazy and stop producing your own enzymes. This is precisely what happened to me. At some point, after drinking my morning coffee, I would have acid reflux followed with an urge to burp. Since my stomach was getting all the acidity from coffee it stopped producing its own. Esophagus, the muscle that sits on top your stomach, responds to the levels of acidity in your stomach. If you don’t have enough, esophagus will be relaxed allowing acid to come up. The day I quit coffee, I stopped having this issue.
These days, drinking of coffee on an empty stomach is almost synonymous with intermittent fasting. If you drink it black with no sugar, it effectively suppresses your hunger and makes fasting easier. I did this for many years. I now think that drinking coffee on an empty stomach for so many years, had a negative impact on my health. If you have a sensitive gut, coffee can ruin your stomach acid secretion.
Studies are about this linked here.
YOUR SLEEP WILL IMPROVE DRAMATICALLY
Some of us don’t produce enough liver enzyme (CYPYA2) that makes breaking down of caffeine fast and easy. Some people, like me, will drink coffee first thing in the morning and still have it in their system 12 hours later. It is often referred to as half-life of caffeine. For example, one person will reduce 400mg of caffeine in 3 hours, whereas I will in 8. To reduce amount of caffeine by another half, the first person will need another 3 hours and I will need another 8. No wonder I’d be up at 2AM if I have a strong coffee in the morning. Caffeine can interfere with REM sleep cycle, restfulness of sleep, and ability to fall asleep. I check off all three, so as soon as I quit coffee my sleep improved dramatically.
Check out my video version of quit coffee now carnivore or not here:
YOU WILL REDUCE ANXIETY
This took me by surprise. I used to get pain in my neck and shoulders, and I was always thinking it was stress at work. Only when I stopped drinking coffee, I discovered that these pains were anxiety induced by coffee. And since I stopped drinking coffee, I don’t get them anymore.
YOU WILL IMPROVE YOUR FERTILITY
You won’t hear much about coffee and fertility unless you start seeking fertility treatment. Most fertility professionals will ask you to limit your coffee consumption, if not, stop it out right.
The consensus is that if you consume more than 400 mg caffeine a day you increase your risk of early miscarriages.
It’s an anecdotal evidence, so take it for what is worth, but I do have a friend who spent years dealing with infertility. I am not exaggerating when I say she travelled the world to help the situation. She went from number of allopathic doctors, dietitians, Traditional Chinese Medicine, etc. Every single one of these specialists told her to stop drinking coffee.
If I were to give advice to my younger self about fertility, it would be don’t drink large amount of coffee if you planning to have kids.
CONCLUSION
So quit coffee now carnivore or not? I don’t think coffee is a poison that you must avoid at all costs. In fact, I think it is a nature’s phytochemical that you can use for medicinal purposes. Traditional medicines around the world think so. They use coffee to trigger movement, so when there is stagnation in the body, coffee may be used. But like with other herbal remedies, if you consume it every day, you are diminishing its healing powers.
