I decided to start my “30 Days To Healthy Living” adventure after Labor Day weekend in the mountains, drinking Moscow mules with my fiance. I decided at the beginning of last week that I would ween myself off coffee so that it wasn’t a huge shock to cut it out completely. Instead I watched the to go mugs pile up in my car as I drank 2-3 cups a day. Going into this 30 days I feel that my body is a wreck. I am tired.

Day 1: There are no groceries in my house after being gone all weekend. Thank you Whole Foods for being open at 7:30 am before the work day starts. As I frantically rush around the store buying all the tasty foods for Mike, I can’t help but think to myself how desperately I want a rich, warm, dark roasted coffee. This is how I start every morning, and when I say it is hard for me to give it up, I mean it.

Coffee isn’t about the caffeine kick in the morning for me. Coffee is memories of sitting on my back porch in the morning at my parents house, or watching the news as my mom flipped through the paper. Coffee became a comfort traveling across the country and now as I’ve settled down in Philadelphia. It is a warm routine that Mike (who used to hate coffee) and I have fallen into in the morning. I have often talked to people about giving up foods, and I have successfully done so in the past. However, coffee is not something I anticipated having an emotional disconnect from.

When I spoke to my sister this morning about my new challenge with Arbonne, and about eliminating our beloved coffee, her response was “WTF is wrong with coffee?!” She is used to me trying new health trends and has always supported my decisions for a healthier me. But coffee? Coffee like any other consumable product has its pros and cons. A recent study containing 700,000 participants of varied genders and races concluded that coffee drinkers, decaf or regular, increased longevity (1).  In fact drinking coffee (black) is infinitely better than using energy drinks and sugary teas, with roughly 2.4 calories per serving  and can assist in decreasing gut inflammation as a natural anti-oxidant (2).

At this point you may be thinking, she’s making a pretty good case for coffee, why is she eliminating it. Let’s be clear, I don’t intend on cutting coffee out of my life indefinitely. I plan on it being the first thing I reintroduce into my morning routine. However, my first goal of the 30 days to Healthy Living is to reset my digestive system. 

I had a patient 2 weeks ago that I suspected was having bowel movement issues based off of her re-evaluation. When I asked her about her regularity she responded, “I’m regular, I drink coffee.” That is not regularity. If you have to add a chemical into your body in order for it to function, there is a disconnect between your brain and body. Though coffee is a more natural stimulant, it would be no different than relying on drugs every day for your colon to work.

I realized after this comment from my patient that my own digestion system was often relying on coffee for the assist. Excreting your waste is a fundamentally important function of the body. Without this system, you are full of s***. It is important that this process happens naturally. I knew it was vitally important that I re-balance my gut, and for my body to work as the well oiled machine it was designed to.

So began my research into Arboone, and my 30 Days to Healthy Living. Diets and healthy habits aren’t always about losing weight. There are moments in your life that you just need to shut everything down and start over. These challenges can be hard, but just remember, if I can cut out my love affair with coffee, so can you. I’m on Day 3 of no coffee (edit). Guess what? I’m still alive. The world didn’t come crashing down, and I still have those same memories.  The end goal is worth every bit of the hard work you put in over the next 30 Days.

“The relinquishing of the lesser is the gaining of the greater. Give up all, and you gain all” – Sri Nisragaddatta Maharaj