Coffee Coattails

Today's post hangs onto the coattails of yesterday's early morning post, for in my pursuit of getting rid of coffee forever, yesterday, I experienced everything I did prior, but WORSE! That achy feeling that affected my back and legs came into focus not too long after that post was written. And it accompanied me throughout the day.

I tried to get up and move to shake it. Still there. I stretched and downed water. Still there. I just lay in bed and covered up 'cause...it was still there. Just felt awful.

In my misery, I watched this video by carnivore Steak and Butter Gal:

YouTube Link

In my own cold turkey break, I have not experienced a headache much less an onslaught of migraines as she did. She drank just one shot of espresso a day. Leading up to my departure, at the minimum, I drank 24 oz of coffee, but regularly had 36+ for—I do not know—a VERY long time. Usually, I tap out at 72 oz., or 9 cups.

And other times, when I would go a day without coffee, just like her, I immediately got slapped upside the head. I would return to that dark delight.

I would fathom my lack of migraines has to do with my high-fat carnivore approach, unlike her higher protein approach. But these aches, do I have them at 5:25 AM? I see the horde out on the horizon.

Curiously, it was late in the day when, in my disgust of popping anything—I do not do medicine—I took a couple of ibuprofen. I downed it with some bacon drippings I had frozen. It worked! I could THINK again. I did not just exist with the singular thought of pain.

In addition to just starting to creep up my legs at 5:48 AM, I am finding a lack of appetite today—at least with my morning ghee. It is funny because at 3:30 AM, I felt like a hundred bucks! My mind was clear and as I stretched, I did not feel an ache. Only when I did not get that morning joe, did my body complain...now as I write this sentence, my back is whining.

INTJBill.com: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023... and now 2024

With my domain renewal coming up, I flirted with the idea of going offline. OK, so I more than flirted; I was in a serious relationship with the idea! But having my little corner of the web reminds me of what the web once was: a place that was not brand-heavy, identity-soaking and thought-conforming. It was not a TV.

This is what a blog should be. This web log is what the Internet was. Not this nonsense about food blog or whatever—those are websites running a blog-centric content management system because of ease of entry. But, that is neither here nor there.

So, I have signed up for another year at this address. Immediately, my thoughts are on the road ahead. A year from now when I look back at me, what do I see? How have I changed? Did I hit my targets?

When I taught in 2012, I told my students that they ought to try out a service that will send an email that they wrote to their future self. On FutureMe.com, I recognized this as the very thing that happens when one has a blog on the Net:

FutureMe letters are great for...

• Reliving memories in vivid detail
• Acknowledging growth & achievements
• Setting goals for the future
• Decluttering your mind to find some headspace

This is EXACTLY why I write.

The Future

With this new year, I would like to organize this site more effectively. I have shied away from categorizing the posts because—well, it is a MASSIVE endeavor revisiting 673 posts to come up with a category, especially as some posts were never cleanly defined. Nevertheless, there is value to me in having the ability to quickly find a post. I have also toyed around with adding a snappy search engine, but the results thus far have not been promising.

I dislike that once I write something, it slips into the digital ether never to be seen again. I can be Sisyphus, rolling this boulder up a hill. Once I get to the top, that thing rolls all the way down again. I am gonna break that routine.

Though his body says stop
His spirit cries, never
Deep in our soul
A quiet ember
Knows it's you against you
It's the paradox
That drives us on
It's a battle of wills

-Survivor, Burning Heart

I always thought a coffee detox was a cute phrase—a couple of headaches and baba bing, bada boom...you're done. Yesterday, I found how it is apt to consider the word detoxification. Leaving this pesticide totally wrecked me.

Again, I encountered that morning wave of extreme drowsiness. I was watching another installment of Nicolet Bay by City Planner Plays with the kiddos when an unscheduled shutdown sequence occurred; I was out. And all of this was in the context of already a 7 AM drive through Bartlett past our new place. I even did my weekday Bible study on a Saturday. I got my morning rolling.

As the day progressed, I just felt increasingly achy. In the evening, I just wrapped up with a comforter. My quads, hamstrings, calves, glutes, lats and sometimes triceps had this achy, uncomfortable irritation. I knew it was not the flu—I had no fever—but it sure felt like it. I wish I planned for daylight savings by going to bed early, but it just worked out that way...sorta. That massage gun was burning up from the mileage it had to cover. Finally, just to see solace, I applied Biofreeze all over. At least, I no longer had to pose for the massage gun like I got hit by a truck.

I woke up at the new 3:30 AM this morning, not compromised by the 2:30 AM it once was. I find that the coffee is not necessary to create sunshine of alertness. You're doing something wrong if you need it to get up.

And yet, as I get set for the day, all of those irritations return. It is like that feeling of sitting down too long, but you cannot shake it. And some folks at Starbucks might say, "Hey, feel better again—take this one shot of espresso."

No, this is the path I take toward being "to be the best man, the best man that I can."

I just hope I do not linger too long to take in the scenery.

Try to be best
'Cause you're only a man
And a man's gotta learn to take it

Try to believe
Though the going gets rough
That you gotta hang tough to make it
...
You're the best around
Nothing's gonna ever keep you down

-Joe Esposito, You're the Best

This approach of becoming the best version of me has got me exhausted! My leaving of my coffee addiction—and make no mistake, that is what it is—that last vestige of the fat life I left behind, imparts one last shot at me. In past attempts in suffering through withdrawal from that drug, I had monster headaches. This time, while they were out on the horizon, these 200 grams of fat must have mitigated their approach. HOWEVER, what I cannot shake in these two days is insurmountable drowsiness in my mornings. Sure, at my standard 3:30-6:30 AM, I was rockin'. But 9 AM might as well have been 1 AM. Come to think of it, it is WORSE—I woke up on my own at 12:45 AM and was ready to start my day.

One of the other symptoms of my withdrawal is lower back tightness/discomfort—I did not even know that was a thing from coffee! It is reminiscent of the times I would fast for an extended period of time. I did not feel it the first day, but the second...boy howdy. Just a general achy feeling all around.

It is hard for I understand the emotional history I have had with coffee since that spring weekend of '99. It is not just another beverage. If it was not coffee, it was loose-leaf tea. Harder still, is to know that I will not be going back. And as I write, this well-time Kalax song plays:

YouTube Link

I am evolving...no, I am restoring. While others approach 45 as wisps of vigor float away, this carnivore blazes like a roaring fire against the night.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

(It's easy folks: Eat our species-specific diet and quit gnawing on that 2x4.)