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Notes -
I like to drink lots of coffee, and generally I can stomach it fairly well. When I notice that I'm overdoing it, I either cut back or water it down. Sometimes I cut it down to a single cup a day for a few weeks. Sometimes I quit entirely for a few months. If you notice health problems that might be related to coffee, quit coffee. At least for a while. It's just a drink, you can drink other things. And the withdrawal symptoms aren't that bad, in my experience - maybe a mild headache for a day or two; nothing modern medicine can't fix.
Decaf weirds me out. Just like non-alcoholic beer. It's wrong.
I don't think I will have any withdrawal symptoms if I quit; I never drink any on the weekends. But I think you're right. I'll try quitting for a while. It's really easy to get into the habit of making some every day and then desiring the allotted coffee that you clearly deserve. It's true, it's just a drink, but there's nothing like coffee, and I don't want soft drinks, so that pretty much leaves alcoholic beverages and milk for water alternatives, and those have calories.
I would absolutely drink non-alcoholic beer if old age robbed alcohol processing from me.
Seconding the advice of swapping to black tea, with the added suggestion that I've had great success replacing half my cups of coffee per day with cups of tea.
I feel more focused and less anxious/jittery with that combination (while also being able to painlessly step down my caffeine consumption).
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Why not drink water?
I do drink water. I like water.
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Never change SouthKraut, never change.
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I've tried changing out coffee for black tea. Even decaf black tea, because honestly I just need something with flavor. It's ok. Still just doesn't quite hit the same. Might work better for you.
I actually hadn't ever even heard of decaf tea. It squares with your acidity problems? I may have to try it. My experience with tea has been "meh", but I don't know if I've tried black tea specifically. The best iced tea I ever drank was some unsweetened iced green tea at the state fair when I was severely dehydrated, it's never tasted good otherwise.
Yeah, black tea doesn't bother my stomach one iota. Caffeinated lacks the raw punch of coffee, and caffeinated or not aren't really robust enough flavor wise to really satiate me. But, they are better than nothing, and closer than anything else. Especially if you are confining yourself to drinks without calories, which I am as well.
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