Speed-Weaning: How to End Your Caffeine Addiction in Just Three Days

I've been a daily coffee addict for the past 15 years, drinking up to 2-3 cups a day, and until recently the idea of weaning myself off coffee was simply inconceivable. Why suffer unnecessarily?

But my upcoming plans to do a seven day raw foods trial required me, at least temporarily, to face down the withdrawal symptoms and end my caffeine addiction. (Readers: tune in on Tuesday, November 10th for the first of my raw foods posts.)

As it turned out, kicking the caffeine habit was far easier than I expected. What follows is a three day, rapid-weaning schedule that can free you from coffee addiction with an absolute minimum of pain and suffering.

Photo credit: Ballistik Coffee Boy

Before we get started, three quick preliminary notes:
1) Supplies: to follow the Speed-Weaning schedule, you'll need to have a small supply of decaffeinated coffee and a small supply of your favorite caffeine-free tea.

2) I'll show the process in two parts: The first part simply contains the three day schedule with basic instructions on what to do each day. If you follow these steps, by Day 4 you should be entirely free of any physical addiction to coffee or caffeine. Below, I'll share more in-depth thoughts on my experiences while I went through the process. Your mileage may vary, obviously, but after reading both parts of this post you should have a clear sense of what to expect if you decide to try this yourself.

3) Optional, but recommended, step for Day T-minus 1: The day before you begin this schedule, try this extra step: make an extra strong, extra big pot of coffee--and then drink too much of it. Enjoy the pleasurable caffeine buzz, but also pay close attention to the scattered and nervous activity of your brain when under the influence of too much caffeine. This preliminary day of coffee overindulgence will help you with handle the psychological aspects of caffeine withdrawal. For me, it was similar to how a night with too much alcohol makes it easy to not drink the next day.

Okay, let's get started:
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The Three Day Speed-Weaning Schedule for Ending Caffeine Addiction
Day 1: For your first day of caffeine weaning, make a pot of 3/4 decaf and 1/4 regular coffee, and enjoy 1-2 cups over the course of the morning. After 12 noon, be sure to avoid all caffeine.

Day 2: On Day 2, make a pot of all-decaf coffee, and drink as much as you want. You will feel sleepy and foggy today, and you might experience a mild headache (optional: take one aspirin tablet shortly after waking up to address headache symptoms). Don't fight the fatigue: this is just your body adjusting to a new, non-caffeinated reality.

Day 3: Congratulations--you've made it through one full day with absolutely no caffeine! Now it's time to seal the deal and break the coffee habit once and for all. Today, when you wake up, you will drink only a cup of hot water or non-caffeinated herbal tea, and you will avoid caffeine the entire day. By tomorrow the physical symptoms of addiction will be entirely behind you.

Day 4: Welcome to the first day of your new life as a person entirely free of caffeine addiction. Enjoy it!
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My Experiences With The Three Day Speed-Weaning Schedule
I'll be the first to admit it: I was expecting a much more difficult process, with stronger and longer-lasting withdrawal symptoms. This is how each day went for me:

Day 1:
1) I had no caffeine withdrawal headache on Day 1, thanks to the small amount of caffeine in the 3/4 decaf coffee. However, I was quite sleepy during the bulk of the morning and I didn't really break out of that fatigue until noon. What was interesting, however, was how much better I could concentrate despite my tiredness. I did a substantial amount of writing during this day. It goes to show that although coffee often makes us feel more alert and alive, it can badly hurt our ability to focus on cognitively demanding work. If anything, that's a huge reason why it's worth considering going off caffeine from time to time.
2) The worst disappointment of this entire three-day process occurred during my mid-day run on Day 1. It was the worst run I've had in years. My arms felt like they had anvils attached to them, my breathing was shallow and out of rhythm, and my running form was absolutely terrible.
3) I recommend doing Day 1 of the Speed-Weaning schedule on a Friday, since it allows you to use the weekend to execute Days 2 and 3.

Day 2:
1) If I could only describe for you how I dreaded this day: a day where I'd have to drag myself out of bed and pour myself a flaccid cup of pansy-ass decaf coffee. But as it turned out, this day was actually easier than yesterday. Despite the fact that I compounded matters by dwelling and thinking about how bad I'd feel, I never really felt that bad. My advice: don't think about it so much. Don't get all wrapped around the axle on how bad you think you're going to feel, just let the experience come and see how it goes. It most likely won't be as bad as you think it's going to be.
2) Here's the key reason I suggest spending one day on decaf coffee rather than going cold turkey: a cup of decent decaf carries most of the smells, tastes and other sensory inputs that we addicts associate with coffee. This helped me manage the psychological as well as the physical aspects of caffeine withdrawal.
3) I took one aspirin immediately after getting out of bed. I still had a mild headache for part of the morning, but it was nothing serious. I also felt somewhat mentally foggy, but by afternoon the fog had totally passed.
4) One quick note about decaf coffee: many decaf coffee brands state on their labels that they are 99.7% caffeine-free, which means, mathematically, you could get the equivalent of one cup of regular coffee by drinking 333 cups of decaf. Do not attempt this.

Day 3:
1) I have never made a practice of discussing digestive functions here at Casual Kitchen, so let me address the following subject with oblique delicacy: If you are the type of person who depends on a morning cup of hot coffee to, uh, stimulate certain digestive processes, you will be surprised how you can achieve the same results with just a cup of hot water or herbal tea. Try it, and you'll see what I mean.
2) Once again, I was a bit tired and cognitively foggy in the morning, but even so I was still able to do quite a bit of focused writing. And by the time I finished my mid-day run, I felt perfectly normal.

Day 4 and beyond:
1) On Day 4 I experienced no physical withdrawal symptoms at all, and aside from an occasional desirous thought about coffee once or twice during the day, I experienced no psychological withdrawal symptoms either.
2) Over the next several days, I felt occasional passing thoughts (perhaps once or twice a day) about how nice it might be to have a cup of coffee. These passing thoughts turned out to be very easy to resist, and I never really had anything that I could describe as a craving at all.
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You Can Do it Too!
Until a few days ago, I was as addicted to coffee as I've ever been in my life. Now that I'm totally out of my prior profession as a Wall Street analyst (where the stress and excitement obviated the need for extra caffeine) and I spend most of my time at home writing, it's become beguilingly easy for me to drink cup after cup of joe all day long. Despite this, I was still able to shake off my coffee addiction in three short days. I was shocked at how easy and fast this Speed-Weaning process turned out to be.

With the caveat once again that your mileage may vary, the bottom line is this: if I can do it at a time in my life when I was deeply addicted to caffeine, you can do it too. Try it--you can kick the caffeine habit!

Readers: have you ever tried to break your caffeine addiction? What were your experiences, and did you succeed or fail?

Related Posts:
The Macchinetta: Stovetop Espresso Coffee
Seven Rules On the Value of an Experience
What Have You Given Up That You Don't Miss?
Countdown: The Top Ten Best No-Alcohol Drinks

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday November 6, 2009

Here's yet another selection of particularly interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: follow me on Twitter!

Finally, a quick editorial note to readers: in the next few days, I'm going to run a series of posts about my experiences testing out a 100% raw foods diet. I've decided to dip my toe, albeit temporarily, into the raw foods lifestyle. It will be a seven-day trial, and I'll share all the details with you. Look for the first post on Tuesday, November 10th!

And now, onto this week's links....
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Holiday gift ideas for friends and family who are watching their weight. (Examiner.com)

Nine ways you can embrace sloooowww foooood. (Zen Habits)

Deep frying: it's not for weenies anymore. Good tips and instructions here. (Cooking School Confidential)

I know it's a bit late for Halloween, but here's a creative and absolutely ghastly looking meatloaf that looks exactly like a zombie hand. (Not Martha)

My favorite non-food blog disembowels an alarmist study about food stamps. (The Last Psychiatrist)

Every food blogger could benefit from reading these 5 Dos and Don'ts About Blogging for Cookbook Authors. (Food Blog Alliance) Bonus post: Guest Bloggers: To Have or To Have Not.

Recipe Links:
A really easy and inexpensive Vegan Flatbread recipe. (No Meat Athlete)

Tasty and easy to make: Pork Medallions with Garlic Ginger Pomegranate Sauce. (The Buttery Blog)

Simple Spanish comfort food from a new favorite blog: Lentejas con Chorizo. (A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa)

Melissa demystifies how to make a basic and delicious Spanakopita. (Alosha's Kitchen)

Off-Topic Links:
Researchers claim the carbon footprint of a pet dog is twice that of a Land Cruiser driven 10,000 km a year. (New Zealand Dominion Post)

An extremely useful holiday tipping guide, including suggestions on showing appreciation when your finances don’t permit a monetary gift. (Bargaineering)

A thought-provoking post on what frugal living looks like. (Almost Frugal)

How one blogger sought out an ideal job by seeking the exact opposite of an old job from hell. (Breathing Prosperity)

Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

How to Write A Killer Links Post that Everyone Will Want to Read

This is an off-topic post based on a reader question.
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Links posts are a common staple of internet content, and a well-constructed collection of links can be a great way to provide extra value to your readers.

At the same time, however, it's disrespectful to your readers to post a me-too linkfest that shares substandard content or draws from the same sites and blogs they already follow. If you want to provide a real service to your readers, you've got to do better.

Here's a list of thirteen rules that I try to live by when I produce my own links posts:

1) Follow a minimum of 100 blogs in your niche.
You can't add value by mining the same content universe as your readers. You'll need to read more widely than your readers--much more widely. I draw from more nearly 300 food blogs to find material for my weekly links posts at Casual Kitchen, and I'm constantly adding more blogs and sites to my RSS reader. The more blogs you follow, the more interesting and thought-provoking material you'll find.*

2) Follow another 100 blogs (minimum) outside of your niche.
Choose a wide and eclectic mix of blogs outside your niche and you'll bring your readers thoughts and ideas from well beyond their typical sphere of information. The 150 or so non-food blogs I follow include subjects like anthropology, banking and credit analysis, economics, fiction, feminism, photography, psychiatry, psychic phenomena, running, stock market investing, tennis, travel, writing and wine.

3) Pay attention to where niches intersect.
Vegetarianism and environmentalism. Gender roles and cooking. Food branding and anthropology. Economic history and the Green Revolution. The best and most original articles tend to appear where niches intersect, and it's on these "frontiers" where you find material your readers won't know, but will want to know. That's the definition of how to add substantial value to your readers' lives, and it's yet another reason to read widely, both in and out of your niche.

* [At this point, if you're horrified by the reading required for making up good links posts, don't be discouraged! After just a week or two of wider-than-normal reading, you'll quickly become adept at deciding which content is worth a close read and which content you can skim or skip over. Furthermore, increasing the width and depth of your reading provides the enormous secondary benefit of helping you generate truly original and insightful blog posts of your own. Give it a sincere try for a few weeks and you'll see what I mean.]

4) Know what's obvious and already over-linked to.
A post filled with me-too links to articles everyone has already read is an utter waste of pixels. How can you know what's already widely read? Just follow the five to ten most widely-read blogs in your niche, paying particular attention to their links posts. Any articles you see there are highly likely to be a part of the collective obviousness.

5) Use Google Alerts to find off-the-beaten-path content.
If there are specific keywords that represent important content on your blog, select four or five terms and input them into Google Alerts. Use this technique to find new blogs in your niche, or to keep current on specific memes or concepts. I used a Google alert for "hummus" over a four month period to build a roundup of the internet's easiest hummus recipes, and it quickly became one of my most popular posts.

6) Don't be afraid to go back in time.
If you run a weekly links post like I do here at Casual Kitchen, don't feel compelled to use only current material. Only 0.00001% of the content on the internet was published in the past week--why select from such a tiny sample of what's out there? Choose the best articles without regard to how recent they are.

7) Don't bother linking to ultra high traffic blogs.
I see little point to linking to articles from sites like Dooce and Zen Habits which are already on the radar screens of most of your readers. Bring your readers original and different content, not content they've already seen.

8) Ignore mass circulation magazine and newspaper sites.
Links to these sources are pointless on two levels. First, just as with the top high-traffic blogs, you run the risk of bringing your readers content they've seen already. Second, any incremental traffic you might bring to these sites is unlikely to be noticed, appreciated or reciprocated.

9) Link to blogs that will notice and care.
When you link to great content at a new or undiscovered blog, you accomplish two things: You help your readers find a new source of useful information, and you help that blogger interact with a new audience. And believe me--that new blogger will remember. Early in Casual Kitchen's life, two well-established blogs, Cheap Healthy Good and The Simple Dollar, linked to me and helped put me in front of thousands of new readers. With that simple gesture, those two bloggers earned my undying gratitude. You can make a huge difference in the future of a new, high-quality blog by doing the same.

10) Keep your links to 10-15 max.
Run too many links and your post will seem so daunting that nobody will read it. Run too few and you don't make sufficient use of your readers' attention.

11) Kill the worst 20% of your links.
Once you've finished your links roundup, go over it one last time and ruthlessly cut out the least interesting 20% of the links. Do this even if you find that you are deleting truly good links. This step will dramatically improve the overall quality of your post. (For more on the 120% solution, see my writing tips blog.)

12) Don't ramble on about each link.
Links posts are about the links, not about you. Keep your descriptions short, compelling, and never repeat content that the reader will see again in the article. If you can't come up with a snappy and enticing one- or two-sentence summary, consider scrapping that link.

13) Give credit.
If you learned about an exceptional article from another blog, include a separate link citing your source. It's good karma, and it spreads even more link love. Thanks to XYZ blog for the link, via XYZ blog and H/T to XYZ blog are common notations.

Readers, which of these rules do you disagree with? What would you add to the discussion? And when are you starting up your killer links posts?

Related Posts:
On Writing for Casual Kitchen
On Writing for Casual Kitchen, Part 2: Keeping Track
Recommended Reading for A Good Wine Education
Keyword Gawking

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Overpriced and Overengineered: Kitchen Gadgets for the Non-Frugal

Today's post is about avoiding overpriced and over-engineered kitchen products. Too often, the housewares industry sells us products we don't really need at prices we shouldn't pay.

Here's a textbook example: a fancy vegetable peeler that could cost as much as $12 in a high-end department store:


You can see that it has an added design improvement which supposedly justifies the high price tag--a metal safety shield covering the business end of the peeler. Unfortunately, this metal shield is actually a design unimprovement that completely blocks the user's view of what he's doing.

It might look really nice in a department store display case, but in reality this vegetable peeler is essentially optimized for blind people.


Why am I talking about this? Because these types of products fool people into thinking it's too expensive to cook at home. It's just too easy to get separated from your money when you think you need to fill your kitchen with overdesigned stuff like this.

Nearly every kitchen tool is available in a high-end version, with stacked costs in the form of celebrity chef branding, higher advertising costs, costly materials or idiosyncratic design features. The only reason products like this even exist is because there are millions of consumers out there who confuse price with value and thus assume that because something has a high price tag it must be worth it.

However, in most cases, the highest-end kitchen gear provides little to no incremental value over standard equipment. And in some instances, like with today's overengineered vegetable peeler, the high-end product is actually worse than the standard model.

I'm not saying you should fill your kitchen with the cheapest stuff you can find. I just want you to be mindful of, and avoid paying, extraneous costs that will have no bearing on the quality of the food you prepare.


Related Posts:
Mastering Kitchen Setup Costs
How to Apply the 80/20 Rule to Cooking
How to Tell if a Recipe is Worth Cooking With Five Easy Questions
Ten Rules for the Modern Restaurant-Goer
How to Be a Satisficer

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

How to Get the Benefits of Organic Foods--Without Paying Organic Prices

A quick update to readers: I've written a guest post for the Tech Savvy Mama blog on organic food.

Casual Kitchen readers know from prior posts here that I'm not a fan of mindlessly looking for a magic sticker on your food. Instead, I believe you can capture most of the benefits of organic foods by concentrating on buying locally, and by making just a few minor changes in how you purchase and handle the produce you already buy.

Stop by Tech Savvy Mama's site and have a look!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!