Cuttin' back, day 3

[johnridley]

I decided a few days ago that I could probably do with less soda. I've been drinking 2x 16oz bottles of Mt Dew, minimum, per day for years. So I just didn't open #2 on Tuesday.

There was a blood drive on Wednesday morning at work, and I held off on the sugar+caffeine mix until after that. My BP has been typically about 135/78 when I donate, but on Wednesday it was 112/64, which I think is about where it was in the days when I wasn't slurping caffeine all day.

My pulse was still up close to 100 but it had been less than an hour since I got to work, and my pulse does take quite a while to recover. If I've been just sitting around for a couple of hours, it settles to between 60 and 70. I think it takes so long to recover because when I'm exercising, my "comfortable" range where I feel like I'm actually exerting myself puts my pulse around 180 which is a bit above the "predicted max" for my age, and well above the target zone. I've never paid much attention to numbers, I just ramp it up until I feel like I'm actually working.

I'm going to do 1 bottle a day for 3 or 4 weeks, then see if I can taper back from that. I've tried going faster than that in the past, and though I can get past the withdrawal OK, even if I stick with zero for a month or more, I still don't feel right. It may take me several months to go off it totally.

Don't bother suggesting diet soda. A) I really can't stand the taste, I have tried switching to it for a week or so and it just tastes like crap to me. B) it's the sugar as much as the caffeine that is hard for me to get off of, and when I've tried diet, I've wound up TOTALLY messed up, crazy tired but totally unable to sleep, messed up digestion, etc. C) I feel like if I decide something is bad for me, I should have the willpower to just stop consuming it rather than substituting something else.

Comments

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, my BP is around 100/70 WITH the caffeine. By this model, I would be dead without it. There was one memorable doctor's appointment, when I was pregnant and reducing caffeine intake, where my BP was 80/50, and the nurse was surprised I was upright.

You need to maintain the fluid intake, so be sure to switch to water or Gatorade or something. Tea maybe? We have fourteen bazillion flavors at Crazy Wisdom; it takes a while, but there *is* a blend for everyone. (Yeah, I'm working on it.)

I'm surprised your pulse is so high. My pulse is around 70 normally, and I feel like I'm dying if it gets above 140.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, if there's anything I really can't stand, it's tea. Well, that and coffee. And anything alcoholic. Maybe there's a tea for me, but given that every type I've tried so far makes me think I really should have a bucket next to me when I try, I'm not sure why I'd even try. It's not like I NEED another beverage to get hooked on.

I'm doing fine with water and fruit juice.

My pulse is NORMALLY around 65 or 70, resting. I've tried keeping my pulse down to the "recommended" 145 or so when I've been on treadmills and such at work, and it doesn't feel like I'm even accomplishing anything.

If I just get it up to where I like it, and it feels like I'm really working, and I can keep it there for an hour or more, it turns out that it's about 180. Even then it feels fine, it doesn't feel like I'm about to keel over or anything, I can still carry on a conversation, whatever.

It drops to 120 really fast when I stop, but then it takes about 20 minutes to drop to 100, then another hour to slowly creep down to 70. I think it's trying to flush fatigue poisons for a long time or something. It doesn't get down to 70 until I can't feel the fatigue in my legs anymore.

80/50 isn't crazy, I know several women who run that BP regularly.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Not Gatorade. It's all sugar and salt.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I intentionally consume some extra salt. I'll typically make my own recovery drink in the summer by diluting OJ 50/50 and then adding about a teaspoon or so of salt.

Before I started taking extra salt, I would REALLY get run down after a couple of days of cycling. As far as I can gather, I am sweating out a teaspoon or more of salt a day. When I started replacing the salt I started feeling a lot better.

I do drink Gatorade sometimes, but I buy the big ole' tub of powdered stuff, the bottled stuff is too expensive for me.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Well sure, there are times Gatoraid is the right thing, but I read Roxanne as suggesting you replace the Dew with it and that's not the right answer.

I think we've way over demonized salt though.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, I pretty much drink all my dew at work, and the 8 hours that I'm there is pretty much a long, slow recovery from riding in, drink-wise. I generally hammer down about 300ml of water as soon as I get in the door, then try to finish off another 1200 during the day, in addition to whatever soft drinks I have. If I do that, I generally have to dump a couple of packets of salt into my lunch to rebalance those.

Gatorade would just replace the water, soft drink and salt with one thing.

Gatorade is one thing in my arsenal, but I don't use it much.

[madtechie2718.livejournal.com]

Like you, I'd tried several times in the past to wean myself off caffeine and sugar, going the diet soda route; not very successful.

This time around (something like two years back) I did a very slow taper, took something like 4 months before i could honestly say it was done.

I still drink the occasional one or more - just not for more than a few days at a stretch.

These days, my resting heart rate is between 56 and 60.