What Really Happens When You’re Quitting Caffeine?

I LOST 10 POUNDS IN 8 DAYS FROM QUITTING CAFFEINE

So here’s a quick backstory. I love coffee so quitting caffeine was not something I wanted to do. I love making coffee, especially iced coffee. Although I wasn’t a coffee addict, I did consume pretty strong Dark Roast coffee maybe once or twice a day. Most times I would make an iced coffee early in the morning either before getting to my desk to start work or right after leaving my morning gym sessions. My caffeine intake wasn’t always from drinking coffee. I would have Matcha and Chai throughout the week as well. As you could imagine, I was overloaded with caffeine without understanding what my body was trying to tell me.

I’m like most people that work from home and developed new habits since the start of the pandemic. My love for caffeine from coffee mostly increased along with my workload from running a business alone. So, I was full of liquids unknowingly skipping meals, and always trying to keep up with my productivity. It wasn’t until 2 weeks ago that my body start rejecting everything all at once. I didn’t know immediately that it was an intolerance to caffeine. So let me break down the timeline of what was happening to my body and why quitting caffeine was much needed.

That image is exactly what I felt like for the first 8 days. I felt like I was floating and couldn’t ground myself.

• Day 1: It actually started the night before after drinking iced coffee and I couldn’t finish the coffee because I had this weird gut feeling. You would think that was the alarm for me. I knew something was not right when I got in and my head felt heavy on one side but overall a loopy feeling. I tried to sleep it off and the next morning I wasn’t convinced it was the coffee so I made a small cup, and BOOM! The exact same loopy feeling start happening as I was drinking my cup of coffee. That feeling was very persistent and I kept crashing; falling asleep. I haven’t had caffeine since that day.
• Day 2: This is when things start getting interesting. I wasn’t having my regular unscheduled coffee or matcha and my body was going through a withdrawal. The headaches were unmatched. I’m used to getting migraines, but these withdrawal headaches were pretty annoying. On day 2, I truly could not focus on anything. It felt like I was moving in slow motion. I pretty much slept most of the day and I only drank water. Lots of water. However, on the night of day 2 when I was sleeping, I started to have night sweats. I was sweating all night, and I couldn’t stay asleep throughout the night.
• Day 3: This is when I tried to convince myself that I was stronger than my withdrawal symptoms. I had a burst of energy that afternoon and decided to go with my mom and sister to the mall. I still had the never-ending headache but I felt a weird energy and I needed fresh air. While I was at the mall, my body start crashing again. I was walking through the mall at a normal pace, and I was sweating like crazy. I start getting jitters but I was more concerned with how winded I was getting and the sweating from just walking. Now, the temperature in the mall was pretty warm, but normally it takes a workout for me to sweat. My face was sweating and wearing a mask didn’t help. I did, however, feel like the sweating was probably beneficial, kinda like seating ut a common cold.
• Day 4: This was probably the worst day of my symptoms. I woke up that morning with a harsh body ache. My back was in shambles. The good news was my headache was easing up just a bit. I didn’t feel loopy anymore but I still had no desire to get any work complete. Honestly, I didn’t get any work done for 6 days. On this day I pretty much just rest because I was so tired and my body was aching. I did notice that on this day my stomach start feeling weird. I ate like normal but my digestive system was completely thrown off.
• Day 5: Along with the body aches and headaches, I have now developed stomach pain. I do believe the stomach pain was due to not going to the bathroom regularly at his point. Caffeine is a stimulant so naturally, you’d be regular because of the caffeine push. Now that I’m not drinking caffeine, my digestive system slowed down and I was trying to figure out what the heck was happening. It took me five days to realize I was eating but not going to the bathroom. Oddly enough, I wasn’t bloated at all and I had dropped 5.5 pounds without trying.
• Day 6: After realizing my digestion was off, I made a plan to do 30-minute yoga stretches twice a day. Oh, my headaches were completely gone. It was the first day I woke up without a headache. I haven’t had a headache since day 6. Honestly, I still had slight back aches but overall this was the day things start changing for good.
• Day 7: Oh my goodness, this day was a sigh of relief. My digesting kick-started and I finally had a proper bowel movement a few times that day. I think my yoga stretches helped a lot with calming my body down. I also felt extremely light on day 7. I felt like my energy was trying to balance itself out. However, I noticed I was a lot more alert. However, I still wasn’t very motivated to be productive. I still felt like resting and taking naps. So I did.
• Day 8: I got up and immediately weighed myself because I felt light, lol! My pajamas felt too big. I realize in 3 days I dropped 5 pounds. Sounds crazy but I was down 10 pounds in 8 days. I quickly understood that my weight loss was because I wasn’t consuming caffeine, but more importantly, I wasn’t consuming as much sugar either. I eat pretty clean and I drink much more water now. My body doesn’t process sugar too well so naturally, I stay away from candies and things high in sugar because it gives me an upset stomach. Above all, the sugar was in my caffeine drinks. Quitting caffeine truly saved my body.