posted
I've been meaning to try and sort out a diet of some sort for a while and happened to come across a "detox" diet in a Sunday paper a few weeks ago. You have to give up one thing each week over a period of about 8 weeks.
Actually, the first week wasn't to give anything up but to start drinking litres of water, which I did anyway, having a drinking bottle on my desk which I constantly fill up from the cooler. So Week One was easy enough. I just drank even more water.
Week Two was sugar. I'm not particularly sweet toothed, but I do seem to have lapsed into a habit of eating a choccy bar at lunchtime, and the odd doughnut or cake at home, and sugar on my cereal in the morning etc etc. I got through that last week without any particular craving, just had to remind myself not to eat sugar basically.
Now it's Week Three: Caffeine. The article says this one is difficult to give up but I don't think I drink much coffee anyway. One mug when I get out of bed in the morning, a can of Diet Coke during the day and a couple of coffees in the evening. Easy. It's now lunchtime and my head is as thick as if I'd been up all night, and I've got a headache to go with it.
It's good to feel that I'm actually giving something up, but it surprised me that what I thought was a very low intake of caffeine is obvously enough to have been having a big effect on ma heed.
Next week is the more traditional diet standard of stop-eating-fat. Well, processed fat anyway. I don't think this will be a big problem, although I've probably forgotten some major fat factor in my life. And I can't remember what the other weeks are. Salt is one of them.
I'm quite enjoying it so far, but will have to see how bad the caffeine thing gets. It could be worse than giving up fags for me because that was mainly a matter of changing habits rather than having major physical symptoms. Caffeine is already having a physical effect though.
Anyone else gone for a detox option like this? I don't mean going on the wagon for three days after New Year, but giving up all sorts of things, forever... yeah, I wish.
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posted
I gave up alcohol 28 days ago, the first few days were tough, I really wanted a nice cold beer (I even found myself offering to go and buy some of my housemate just to get near them or something) but now I have no desire to drink alcohol what so ever.
I tried to give up sweet things and caffine, but haven't quite managed it yet, I got a bad craving for some M&M's the other day (even though eating them left me feeling a little sick and headachey) caffine, I've managed two or three days, but had an earl grey tea and a latte over the weekend (the latte was free, damn it, stupid nero free coffee cards). I've been slowly making the move to Green Chai latte's, as Chai latte's are just too good to give up, but only one or two places near me do them. I'm also loath to do de-caf coffee.
But yeah, I have found caffine very hard, physically, to give up, and I too am not a heavy user (one or two coffee's a day at most).
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scrawny
One Mojito, two Gin and Tonics, Three Bacardi Lime Sodas, and a couple of pints of Stella please.
posted
Dang, the caffeine thing lasts about 2 days, depending on how much you're used to. The only thing I can recommend to make it easier is to drink lots of herbal teas, for the following reasons:
- they're way good for you - They count as part of your water intake which normal tea etc. doesn't, and will ease the headache - There's something psychologically helpful about making yourself a mug of any kind of hot liquid - do it, it'll take your mind off the caffeine - You can buy a naturally energising variety. Won't work, like, but will be worth it for the placebo effect
Good luck kidda. You should get Ben to tell you about the Carol Vorderman detox diet.
-------------------- ...because that's the kind of guy you are. Posts: 2730
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posted
When I was a kid and we did mad stuff like jumping off high walls, or off bridges into rivers, I had this thing where I had to say, "Geronimo!" and once I'd said it I would have to jump. It was easier to make myself say a word than to think about what I had to do afterwards. Anyway, I did that with this detox thing so I won't give it up now.
I was thinking about the fruit/herbal tea thing. There's a couple of them here at work. Are they drinkable without sugar? Which flavour is best/least disgusting out of these three:
Blackcurrant and apple Lotus green tea Peppermint
Actually, I don't think Lotus green tea counts does it? And hot peppermint sounds vile. Hmmm.
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posted
I gave up caffeine 8 days ago, and it had far more of an effect on me than giving up alcohol did, which shocked me quite a lot.
When I was drinking caffeine, I'd be up about 7, have a cup of tea, many coffees at work, tea when I get home, then onto the booze. All fine really.
However, upon giving up caffeine, I was feeling absolutely exhausted by the afternoon and was actually having to have a nap when I got home from work which was all a bit strange.
I'm now at the stage where I guess I have no caffeine left in my blood, and I've been up at 6am each morning, and feeling really energetic all through the day. I'm drinking a lot of water as well, but I really believe that not having caffeine in my system is a huge improvement.
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posted
Good to know it's not just me then. I mean, not good that you've all suffered, but reassuring in a Blitz spirit sort of way.
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posted
Hmm...I only drink one or possibly 2 coffes during the week, and one or none at the weekend. I will not have any tommorow and see what happens...
And no fruit/herbal teas are nice, the best you can hope for is not horrible. Green tea may reduce heart disease and might be an appetite supressant so that is worth a go. Tastes like boiled cardboard though.
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posted
I've recently given up the weed, and now I'm trying to cut out the fags. Ditching the dope must have helped my sugar intake as I'm no longer a slave to the munchies.
Over the last year, I've also given up eating loads of prepackaged shit food in favour of cooking fresh stuff. I can admit to owning and actually using a steamer, for chrissakes!
9st 4lbs : total loss 3st
ETA: I've got some peppermint tea in my desk drawer, and I occasionally use it in the afternoon as a coffee replacement (as Scrawny suggested). It's not so bad, but there's no way I could cut out my morning fuel: two scoops of Nescafé and 250ml of hot water.
posted
I gave up on life a while ago. For the first few days - weeks, even - there was a tremendous feeling of freedom, like I was liberated from having to care. It didn't last though, it gradually was replaced by a sense of loss, shame and defeat and the end result was not the blissful zombie state of the uncaring, but a rising sense of resolve, more driven and more instense than it was before I gave up in the first place. I guess it's a side effect of giving something up all at once, rather than easing yourself off it in tiny increments.
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posted
Right, I've found one that works in the instant drink machine here, called Lemon Calm. It's a bit too hot still at the moment, but a couple of sips tells me it's not unpleasant - somewhat like Lemsip. I'm tempted to drop an aspirin in for the full effect, but I'm loathe to simply replace one drug with another in some sort of mildly vicious circle.
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posted
I'd advocate in favor of the added aspirin. It might help you get through the caffeine-withdrawal head, and I'm not aware of anyone ever suffering ill effects after stopping aspirin.
I really should cut back the caffeine intake - I typically have 2-3 large coffees during the course of a day. My one slight nod toward being not completely unhealthy comes in the form of my drinking the coffee black (no sugar - that's at least kind of good for me, right?). But from my feedble attempts, cutting the coffee is a painfully unpleasant experience. And I'm not sure what my body would think. And I'd rather not traumitize it, I don't think.
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posted
i'd agree with the sentiments expressed above regarding herbal teas etc. however, i'd recommend giving jasmine tea a go. not twinings though, it's awful. if you can find a chinese supermarket or something go and get some. you can get bags or leaves. leaves are better but you don't need a lot - half a teaspoon is plenty.
best of luck!
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posted
I'm partial to liquorice tea myself, and a camomile at the end of the day.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I've not found green tea bags anywhere that will replicate the pleasant flavour found in a Chinese restaurant; they all tend to taste of mouldy socks.
I often have the fruity teas to get me through the work day (if I don't have water - I sit in a large group of people so someone gets a round in every half an hour with the result that I'm usually bursting for a colourless pee), especially Cherry or Blackcurrant-based ones. In practice if you look at the ingredients a lot of the base flavour is generally apple and a lot of the rest is a synthetic add-on so one could wonder just how healthy an alternative they are?
I also remember drinking an apple-flavoured water from M&S a number of years back and the predominant ingredient being pear, with its applyness being delivered by some sort of E number.
I have one milky coffee (usually cappuccino) at work midmorning and don't have any other caffeine during the day - I've a serious Diet Coke habit during the evening so I have the caffeine-free ones now which are basically brown fizzy water. I wouldn't normally have said that this single coffee would have a large impact but by Christ it woke me up this morning when I was completely hanging.
posted
h1ppy - you need to find a chinese supermarket.
The biggest Chinese supermarket in Bristol - Wai Yee Hong - is in Station Road, (by Cheltenham Rd. Railway Bridge, the Cotham/St. Andrew's end of Gloucester Road).
apparently. make sure you ask for leaf tea, not bags.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I used to live 50 metres from that supermarket. OK that's a bit of an exaggeration: 100 metres. For 10 years. And never even went in there once :shame:
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posted
Dang, and fellow caffeine-withdrawers, I have found that Cape Roobios tea, found in Waitrose, is pretty neat. It actually tastes like tea, rather than ribena with all the flavour sucked out, but has no caffeine.
And Dang, on this detox, right, do you give up one thing each week so that in eight weeks' time you're eating nothing but raw alfafa sprouts and cuttings of Gillian McKeith's hair, or do you one week give up sugar, but keep with caffeine, booze, donuts, etc; the next week give up caffeine, but keep sugar, booze, donuts, etc. Option two doesn't sound very strenuous, but infinitely more pleasant.
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quote:Originally posted by omikin: The biggest Chinese supermarket in Bristol - Wai Yee Hong - is in Station Road, (by Cheltenham Rd. Railway Bridge, the Cotham/St. Andrew's end of Gloucester Road).
They have rows and rows and rows of freezers full of scary fossily looking things in unlabelled bags. I think they are meant to be 'fish' but I wouldn't bet on them being known to science.
Hippy, you could try Teoh's shop on Lower Ashley Road, it is more pale westerner all look the same friendly. Also, I used to live on St Andrew's Road - is that where you lived?
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
No I lived in a flat right on Cheltenham Road, opposite and down from the taxi office. In one of the Victorian redbricks with sash windows - the one on the right with the (if they haven't removed it) overgrown buddleia over the steps up to the main door.
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posted
Feeling ok this morning, but I went to bed at about 10:30 last night, completely grogged like I'd not slept for three days.
quote:Originally posted by herbs: And Dang, on this detox, right, do you give up one thing each week so that in eight weeks' time you're eating nothing but raw alfafa sprouts and cuttings of Gillian McKeith's hair, or do you one week give up sugar, but keep with caffeine, booze, donuts, etc; the next week give up caffeine, but keep sugar, booze, donuts, etc.
It's an accumulator, the first option. Except it's one of these sensible ones where you do actually get to keep eating food, just that you get rid of the synthetic or unnecessary stuff and introduce more sensible stuff. I'm kind of hoping that a side effect will be to lose a bit of weight too. One lives in hope.
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posted
I've been trying out the low Gi diet, which seems to be pretty much the same as Atkins. It's pretty damn good in that I just had sausages, bacon, poached eggs and tomatos for breakfast, and will probably have a roast chicken for lunch and I'm losing weight. It's like the most phenomenal thing ever.
Of course, this could be the lack of alcohol more than the diet, but meh.
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posted
Nah, but i've only been on it for about 10 days. And I'm only going to be on it for about another 7 days, so I think I should be ok. I'm combining it with swimming, squash and jogging to get my waistline back to where it was when I was 22 as soon as possible.
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posted
I dumped three bags of clothes from my Bloater Years at a local charity shop yesterday. It'd got to the point where a pair of 34"s was so loose on me that they would literally fall down as if i were a fucking clown or something.
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posted
I gave up giving stuff up when I read that forty-eight hours is all the human body needs to detoxify itself. Apparently our livers and kidneys are actually quite efficient.
'Course that's different from giving stuff up to lose weight.
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posted
Hmm, yes. There may be some limited excuses – I’m sure we weren’t all raised by the perfect parents and some of us may have issues beyond the scope of this discussion. But what the heck happened here?
quote:Herbes: I have found that Cape Roobios tea, found in Waitrose, is pretty neat
Pretty neat? This is a drink picked by people so poor they can’t even cry on cue, which makes them useless to Bono Corp. They’ve had to raise money the only way they know how – by grating their young into foilpacks for freshness. By the way, apply for Bono’s make poverty history credit card before August 14 and you can enjoy 15% cashback on all the records Richard Curtis plays at his fabulous dinner parties. Do you remember? When we all drank the tea made from young people?
quote:Dung: …will have to see how bad the caffeine thing gets. It could be worse than giving up fags for me because that was mainly a matter of changing habits rather than having major physical symptoms.
You what? Major physical symptoms? A headache. God rush you to the hospital love. “I’ve done it, you know,” said Dang, trying to strengthen his limp wrist with a stiff cock and adjusting the brown handkerchief in the back pocket of his leather strides. “I’ve given up the coffee. But ooo what it did to my head for a whole afternoon.”
quote:Silvagina: I gave up caffeine 8 days ago, and it had far more of an effect on me than giving up alcohol did, which shocked me quite a lot.
I’ll bet it did poppet. I’ll bet it did. What you need to get there is some sort of backbone. A spine if you like. Then you want to work on stiffening your upper lip. And not by sucking off every boy at squash again.
quote:Scrawny: The whole flat is a Victorian conversion with nice oaky floorboards.
Go beige buy toweling robes fuck mechanically you orgasm he orgasm you orgasm until endearing habit of scratching balls afterwards becomes issue and you try self obsession but everyone else really is doing better and you don’t notice your partner drinking until your mother points it out so of course you have child and wonder what happened to nice sofa cry over matted toweling robes heavy with milksick go out where someone is nice to you but get drunk get maudlin dance to old music ironically at first then tearfully and miss out on the nice person because they are gone and what would have happened anyway and o god you were going to so what sort of a person are you and go home to hate oaky floorboards.
quote:New Way of Display: I love the autumnal colours as well: oranges and browns.
This is because you are incredibly stupid.
quote:Chippyhick: …if you have wallspace then you could go for a wallhanging on a pole - a rug or batik or something similar
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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