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In January of 2017, I reached the point where the only thing scarier than making a massive lifestyle change was continuing on with the same lifestyle that was making me feel sicker with each passing day. I had nothing left to lose and decided to quit all of my bad habits cold turkey. I was going to quit alcohol, nicotine, and coffee on top of completely overhauling my diet. So, I met a friend behind our old dorm for one last hurrah. Three tequila shots and two cigarettes later, I felt relieved more than anything that I wouldn’t be reliant on them anymore. By that point, they had ceased to bring me happiness and only served to mask how terrible I felt. Sayonara, suckers.
Unfortunately, the night before you decide to change your life isn’t the hard part. It’s actually one of the good parts because you feel full permission to enjoy your vices one last time, guilt-free and with reckless abandon. You feel victorious for taking such a responsible step and give yourself a large pat on the back. And then, even more, unfortunately, the morning after arrives and you must stand face to face with the harsh reality that you don’t feel well and there’s nothing left to cover it up. For me, the harshest reality was waking up to the fact that, as per my doctor’s orders, I could no longer enjoy my morning cup of coffee. Cigarettes and alcohol I could do. Coffee was another story altogether.
I started drinking coffee in 11th grade to survive the rigorous demands of AP US History and didn’t look back. Up until then it was just something that my parents drank every morning, and I hadn’t thought to try it myself. One cup was all I needed to be convinced – the caffeine high made me feel like superwoman, and its smooth, chocolatey goodness wrapped me in a warm embrace. I started referring to it as “the sun’s rays distilled into liquid form” and cherished anywhere between two and five cups a day. I never thought twice about it, because if I was going to have any vice, coffee was the healthiest one. Antioxidants, right? It got me through many nights of studying and 6 am alarms and, by the time I got to college, was a full-blown habit. A day without coffee was out of the question.
When I started seeing a functional medicine doctor at the end of 2016, she gave me a list of dietary guidelines for someone with digestive issues like mine. Phrases like ‘Leaky Gut’, ‘Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth’ and ‘Gut Dysbiosis’ were thrown around and she told me to stick to cooked green vegetables, healthy fats, and meat. That all sounded doable – I just had one question:
“What about coffee?”
I looked at her hopefully.
“No. No coffee.”
I visibly deflated. I had hoped that the health benefits outweighed the negatives, but if my doctor was telling me not to drink coffee, I couldn’t drink it. Lost and sick as I was, it wasn’t worth keeping anything in my diet that could make my condition worse. She suggested hot water with lemon as an alternative.
So, on that first morning after my last hurrah behind the dorm, I got out of bed, heated the kettle, and added a squeeze of lemon to my mug of warm water. I sipped it resentfully, desperately missing the rich, dark liquid that had motivated me to get out of bed every morning for the past five years. This habit ran deep, and giving it up wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. I spent many hours googling “coffee and leaky gut” to try and find selective information ok-ing a daily cup of joe. Nearly every reputable site said the same thing: coffee exacerbates leaky gut. Cut it out of your diet until you are completely healed.
Believing that after a few months of cooked vegetables, high-quality meat and hot lemon water I would be fully healed, I decided that it was not a big deal. But with each day, I had less energy, achier joints, lost more weight, and my bloated stomach expanded more and more. I tried all of the coffee substitutes: dandelion tea, licorice tea, green tea, any and every type of herbal tea, but it just wasn’t the same. So, with no impetus to get out of bed, I just didn’t. I had nothing to look forward to except for more pain. Being awake and being alive took too much energy, so, coffee-less and forlorn, I slept constantly.
Two months into my new diet, I had had enough. Obviously what I was doing wasn’t working, and the constant levels of discomfort were officially too much to take. Just the smell of coffee would send me reeling and the craving pangs hadn’t subsided in the least. I wanted, no, needed my coffee if I was going to get through this, and though the doctors and blogs and diet books told me that I couldn’t have it, I didn’t have the energy to care. I went to my favorite coffee shop, got a cup to-go, and brought it home. I made a ritual out of it – pour the steaming liquid into a porcelain mug, sit in a quiet spot, take three deep breaths, say a little prayer, and sip. And sip. And sip and sip and sip and sip and sip and chug chug chug chug chug! Pour the second half of the to-go cup and lap it up like a dog in heat! I animalistically devoured that cup of coffee, and, for the first time in months, felt happy. The happiness was mixed with plenty of guilt, but it was happiness nonetheless.
I started to drink coffee again regularly, with equal amounts of joy and shame. I would often drink it in secret, afraid that someone would see and call me out on my bad behavior. It made me feel weak that I couldn’t get by without it, but as my only source of comfort and only motivation to keep going, I had a cup a day and sometimes two. Only when I started seeing a new doctor a month later did the guilt start to dissolve. She told me that coffee was the least of my worries and I finally felt permission to enjoy it in the open and with gusto.
I’ve had one or more cups of coffee every day since then and have continued to heal. Sometimes coffee, or this certain drink, or that certain vegetable, or this specific fruit is bad for your condition but good for you. It’s not as simple as “I have leaky gut, therefore I can’t drink coffee.” What if your problems go deeper than leaky gut? What if you have to spend not months but years on a restricted diet? Do we really have to give up our daily source of joy for that entire time?
Maybe. But not always. We’re only human, and the little moments in our day that bring us peace are just as important to our health as the data-driven correlations behind any food or beverage and its effect on a condition that may or may not be the main issue. When it comes to something as fundamental to the human condition as food, the shame surrounding eating this or drinking that is often more powerful than any effect of the item itself. Sometimes the thing to do is let go of the deprivation mindset and give in. When your body is telling you that it wants something, maybe it’s not lying to you. This doesn’t always apply, of course (please don’t eat a loaf of bread if you are Celiac!), but it’s worth noting that vices have their place. I doubt I would have gotten as far as I have if I didn’t have coffee. Even on the most difficult and frustrating days, it gave me something to look forward to.
So, next time that voice tells you that you’re a quitter or a weakling for indulging, examine what it’s saying. Let yourself break the rules and recognize that changing long-held habits happens in stages and takes time. And, more importantly than anything else, whether or not you drink that cup of coffee, eat that piece of cake, or order that late night grub, be kind to yourself. No one else is going to do it for you. Rules were made to be broken, and sometimes the things we are depriving ourselves of are the very things that will heal us.
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