Caffeine

I have been without caffeine for 9 weeks and counting.

For a long time I kept telling myself that I needed to stop drinking pop, but I could never bring myself to take  that leap into the unknown. Then one day I tried to take my wedding ring off, I couldn't get it off! For seven years I have been afraid of losing it because it has always been loose. I didn't even have to take it off during any of my pregnancies. That day was the day I said no more. Now, I can't say that I quit right that second, I had to finish the Pepsi I had already purchased, but the next day I quit cold turkey. I didn't ease into it, I just quit. NO MORE POP! To be completely honest, I have had a couple stomach bugs in the last few weeks and had Sprite, but that's it.

The first week was the hardest , because I was in the habit of dropping Noah off at Preschool and getting a LARGE Fountain Pepsi. Let me tell you, there is nothing like an ice cold glass of Pepsi. I had to tell myself every day "NO, you do not need a Pepsi, drink some water." Then sometime into my second week of no pop I realized that I hadn't thought about getting a Pepsi as soon as I woke up, YAY!

I FEEL BETTER NOW! I was almost to the point of making an appointment to get blood work done. I couldn't stay awake, I felt like crawling back into bed after just getting out of bed, I did the minimum that it took to function, it was horrible. I was having the same symptoms that I had while I was pregnant with Brianna and had a low thyroid. In my mind, all of signs were pointing to a low thyroid again.

I am SO glad I quit drinking pop when I did. I have more energy, I don't feel like I need to go back to bed within hours of getting up! I even have enough energy to start exercising (that's for another post), something I haven't done since I started having kids.

 Weeks have gone by and still no Pepsi! Do I still have cravings? Absolutely, but I have discovered other things to replace that oral fixation that I had with Pepsi. This may not be the solution for everyone, but it's what worked for me.

P.S. - If you are wondering why I didn't just switch to diet pop, the answer is been there, done that. The results were not good, I ended up with a severe bladder infection from the diet pop. I wasn't even drinking the caffeinated kind. I was drinking the no sodium, no sugar, no caffeine kind!

Note: I am not a medical professional, this has just been my personal experience.