Saturday, November 6, 2010

Annie: Beating my addiction to Coke

I have a Coke problem.

Not the kind usually found among aging Hollywood child stars - an addiction to Coca-Cola. (It's actually an addiction to cola in general - it could be Coke, Pepsi, Royal Crown... if it's a cold, brown, fizzy chemistry experiment of a beverage, I'm all over it.)

Not long before I began this year-long (and I plan, this time, life-long) journey, I was drinking at least a litre of Coke/Pepsi a day, between what I was drinking at work and then at supper and in the evening. Easily 8-10 points a day, right there. I wonder how many pounds I'd have lost in a year, having made no change other than having dropped the cola; probably quite a few.

Diet Coke? Diet Pepsi? Coke Zero? Of the three Coke Zero is by far the best (to my palate), and I've turned to it in many a fit of jonesing. But here's a problem just as dangerous as the weight:

Caffeine.

In the years since Child was born, I've juggled work and Child responsibilities, and have put just about everything before my health. That has meant:
  • sleeping way, way too little
  • using large volumes of soft, salty and/or sweet foods to soothe my time-crunch stress
  • not getting any exercise ("I don't have time")
  • drinking far, far too much tea and cola to keep myself moving. (I like the taste of mild coffee, but have pretty much always been a decaf drinker - so that hasn't been so bad.)
The result: a body that was overstressed, overfed, undernourished and exhausted.

As I took up this challenge with Mae, I made lots of plans to make changes to my lifestyle that would make me feel better (and, eventually, hopefully, look better). They were all about diet, and exercise, and getting more sleep, and prioritizing better, and learning when I have to say no (for example, I've recently resigned from a national Board I was on).

But I hadn't made a specific commitment about caffeine -- until, one day, I thought I was having a heart attack.

It was a couple of months ago, and my parents were visiting from out of town. I had ordered some delicious (caffeinated) coffee from Zabar's, and we were drinking it after breakfast and supper -- and in between, I was drinking my regular litre-ish of Coke a day.

One morning, I suddenly started to feel my heart pounding in my chest; I could hear every beat in my ears, and the beats were all over the place. Completely irregular -- there was no pattern at all to the irregularity. I asked my Mum, a nurse, to take my pulse, and she had a hard time counting it because the beats were so wild.

So I went to lie down for a while, and eventually, the feeling passed. (Though the terror didn't.) 

I suspected caffeine might be the culprit, so I stopped the coffee and the Coke for a day, and didn't have a recurrence. Over the next couple of weeks, though, while I stuck to decaf, I started drinking Coke/Coke Zero again -- and here and there, I'd get these flutterings in my chest... usually when I was sitting at my desk, or on the couch watching TV, or lying in bed trying to get to sleep (never when I was busy doing something or being active in any way).

So I went to see my family doctor, who listened to my heart and did an EKG just to be sure, and confirmed that my heartbeat was normal. Listening to my description of what and when my symptoms were, she said it was likely "extra beats" -- often the result of too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. I was only having symptoms when I had time to think about how much I had to do.

In short, exhaustion.

So I said goodbye to caffeine a month ago -- and I haven't really missed it yet. I am drinking litres of water, and not only sleep and feel better, my skin is clearer, too.

A clarification

Well, I've said goodbye to liquid caffeine.

I'm not ready to break up with chocolate quite yet... and may never be!


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