I QUIT CAFFEINE (Short Post)

Hey just this is gonna be a fairly quick read and small post but the past couple weeks I have been slowly decreasing my caffeine intake and yesterday was my first day in 4 years I went completely caffeine free and I wanted to share the results of day one.

I plan to continue to make updates as this is just a personal experiment on how my body reacts and the pros and cons of cutting it out.

I do however wanna source some material that I find interesting about caffeine and how it depletes certain minerals in our body including calcium, magnesium, and manganese and its effect on our bone mineral density and likelihood of fracturing. This is what sparked my interest in going caffeine free but do not fear if you can't live without it as this really only has an effect on people who do not consume enough of these minerals on daily basis. That being said the average person typically does not so it is totally up to your own discretion. I am terrible at explaining anything scientific so I am going to link the abstract for the study here and you are more than welcome to give it a look or not. Again this is just a personal experiment for myself but I at least wanted to bring it to your attention!

Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-021-05972-w

Now to get to the fun stuff. The side effects of quitting caffeine, day one. I still wanted something warm to drink in the morning so I opted for a cup of bone broth in place of my typical coffee. Bone broth especially when eating a diet like mine that consists of eating grass fed meat for my protein is super important as it has important amino acids that balance the amino acids in the meat itself. This also increases the amount of collagen I consume which most people do not consume enough on a typical diet and still even on a clean organic animal based diet is still hard to accomplish without bone broth. As much as I would have loved to make my own bone broth which typically farms will carry the bones needed for such, the farm I go to was out so I opted for store bought bone broth from my local co-op. Below I have linked a great article on why you should stay away from the top selling collagen powders and supplements in the U.S.

Link: https://cleanlabelproject.org/wp-content/uploads/Organic-Consumers-Assoc-White-Paper_Updated.pdf

Now let's get back to my day without caffeine! The first thing I noticed was when I went to the gym and locked eyes with the free coffee they carry the cravings set in. The whole time I was working out I was having an internal war with myself not to go grab a cup I wanted it so bad. It was like a forbidden love in a young adult novel. I was Bella from Twilight and coffee was a mysterious thousand year old vampire that shined in the sunlight and had an insatiable lust for my blood... at least that's what it felt like. I fought through it however and by the time I left the gym the cravings had subsided. Then came the slight migraine. I had an annoying slight migraine just about all day until I finally went to sleep. I drank a lot of water, I had fresh squeezed juices throughout the day, I used nicotine pouches (something I hope to quit as well) and nothing would help this migraine subside and I was determined not to take any medication for it.

While these negative side effects did occur and were somewhat annoying they weren't overbearing. Honestly the biggest upside to it was what kept me going. I was more alert all day, I didn't have any crashes throughout the day, I was awake and energized for my shift at work, and kept a consistent energy level all the way through. My sleep improved incredibly just from the one day as well so I am super excited to see how it improves over time. I slept completely through the night and honestly was the most comfortable I have ever been.

While this is a very short study on the side effects and I still have a long way to go to see the long term effects of quitting caffeine over all the experience so far has been positive and I look forward to doing a part two of this in about a week or two to update you guys on how its going.

Again, I can't stress this enough this is just personal experimentation that I am sharing with you and you are free to do with your body what you want but I do encourage just trying things out and experimenting with how your body reacts to the absence as well as the addition of different nutrition and see how it works for you.

As always, thank you for reading and I hope you found this post to be beneficial or at least interesting!

Side note: Hoping to get the first corresponding intro episode of the podcast up this weekend so keep an eye out!

My Story and how I lost 25lbs in 3 months (so far...)

At the time of writing this I am actually closer to have losing 35lbs. However back in February of 2024 weighing in at 270lbs I realized I needed to make a serious change as to how I thought about health and from February to about May I lost 25lbs.

Lets take things back though, and talk about how I got here.

For most of my life I had been on the heavier side and its not to say I had a terrible diet and living in a small town I was always able to maintain weight due to the constant walking and biking around town I did with friends. Honestly we would probably clock 5 or more miles a day almost going from one end of town to the other. Typically living off of Arizona Tea and Subway.

Most of the time this travel was from one skate spot to another whether it be on roller blades or skateboards. We lived fairly active lifestyles and even in the winter we might have hunkered down a little on weekdays and opted for video games but we always found ourselves outside baring the cold to walk from one friends house to another.

These were the good ole days. Meeting at the park and just hanging out, having fires in backyards, and going to the local theater with a group of 10 of us to see the newest movies.

I always played sports growing up as well So a lot of my weight control definitely came from constantly being a part of roller hockey leagues and lacrosse in the spring. At my peak athletic ability I even graduated as a record holder playing goalie in my high school having beaten the record for season save percentage. 10 years later however my record has now been broken... I like to think though for that 10 years I was the GOAT.

After high school I planned on playing lacrosse at Hilbert college but quit during the fall try outs. I was working full time and commuting to work and just couldn't find it in me to make the commitment to the team. This would inevitably be my downfall.

While in college I started gaining weight over a fairly long amount of time working in restaurants and just eating whatever food I could scrounge up during a shift, never really walking anymore as I commuted to school and between classes we always found ourselves eating fast food. When I started college I weighed about 210lbs and by the time I dropped out I was up to 235. Cut to my 21st birthday when alcohol became a more regular part of my diet. Working in the restaurant industry and working late nights there's really only one thing to do to relax after a shift and that's meet up with the rest of the crew for drinks either at the bar you work at or multiple bars in one night. My typical schedule was 10am to 10pm work, drink until about 2 or 3am and then right back to work. The restaurant industry is the last beacon of the rock star lifestyle, a bunch of mistfits working long nights and partying until the sun comes up.

It was about 4 years into my restaurant career that I had my first epiphany about health. With all the drinking and shitty food I finally realized I had gotten up to about 265lbs. I took a step back and decided to get back into the gym and give the paleo diet a try. I quit drinking for this entire period of time and I was able to lose about 50lbs in just 4 months. I got back down to 215lbs which was much closer to where I was during high school and was feeling amazing... then we had a company bottle exchange party.

After this bottle exchange party I was right back into it and the diet was gone.

Over the next few years I would have multiple stints like this gaining 30lbs then losing it, over and over again. I had such a hard time getting away from my addiction to food and an even harder time finding a diet that felt consistent and sustainable. Even while working in sports nutrition for 3 years having access to the best food in the world that I myself was cooking for professional athletes every day I found it hard to find a sustainable way of eating and I believe this comes from a lack of understanding of food and honestly a lack of understanding with what made my body feel the best.

Cut to February 2024 with my bands tour on the horizon in June, weighing 270lbs the heaviest I had ever gotten to. I knew I had to make a change. I had tried the carnivore diet a few times and seen some really great results in the past but honestly the first couple weeks are always the worst... (lots of diarrhea). However once past this embarrassing and gross part of the process I started to lose weight. During this time I would exercise regularly and only eat grass fed meats. Before the wolves come out and come at me about this I have changed my diet since. For the time being however this was working. After losing 25lbs we hit the road in june and had a wonderful tour. Some time during the process however I really F'd up my shoulder. Couldn't sleep on it, couldn't lift it very high and couldn't even do a single push up. This really broke me and I used it as the perfect excuse to not go to the gym and I was right back into eating shit food.

As time went on and I enjoyed over indulging in drinking and eating whatever food I wanted to I gained about 10lbs of the weight I lost back and started feeling terrible again. It wasn't until my wife and I went to a celtic fest drinking plenty of beer and eating from just about every food vendor at the festival things changed.

For the next 3 days after the festival my body fought hard against me. Stomach pains, the worst heartburn I had ever had, nausea, and just an overwhelming feeling of discomfort. Again I had an epiphany and knew I had to change but this time I had to find a way to make it more sustainable. Using the carnivore diet as a basis and as a cancellation diet I knew what I should probably cut out. However this was not my first step. I actually went with the typical chicken or fish with rice and vegetables route that a lot of nutrition experts would recommend and honestly how I typically fed pro athletes in the past. I was able to shed a couple pounds but something just didn't sit right with me about it. There were still some negative side effects to the way I was eating. So once again I got back on the carnivore diet. Knowing I needed some source of carbs however I kept on with the rice and would even have cheat meals every weekend. Again there were still some negative side effects so I decided to go full carnivore and allow cheat meals once a week. I noticed however for every couple of lbs I lost I would gain it back over the weekend with the cheat meals. After doing some research I realized that with the carbs I was eating on the weekend I would bloat and my inflammation would flair up. Knowing this I needed to find a new route in my approach to carbs. I can't stress this enough I am not a scientist all I know is to trust my body and do what it tells me. It was at this point that after doing some research I decided to supplement typical starchy carbs with organic fruit and see how things went.

After switching to grass fed beef, organic cheese, organic fruit diet I was able to finally shed the 10lbs I gained while also still having cheat meals. However, why stop there? In the past month or so I have cut out processed food entirely and when I was met with a plateau at 245lbs I changed up my work out program and while cutting cheat meals and processed food out entirely I have already lost another 10lbs breaking that plateau.

So this is where the Farmivore blog comes in. I am not an expert, I am not a scientist, I am not a nutritionist I just trust my body or as I like to say "I trust my gut" metaphorically and literally. In a pinch I will still hit the grocery store for meat and produce when needed and I will be doing videos and writing articles on how to do so while still getting sustainable nutritious food you would typically get at a farm but my main focus is to promote the support of your local farms for better nutrition and a better life while also bettering your community. In this journey I have met some really wonderful farmers in my community, health professionals, parents, mental health workers, etc. That all passionately work to provide better knowledge on food as well as provide it and I hope to bring those conversations to a larger audience.

If you are ready to take the step in saying "no" to processed food and working with your community to find a sustainable and healthier way of living this blog is for you. This is not just a "lose weight fast" scheme nor am I saying you have to eat just like me. My only goal with this is to better help others "trust their gut" and feel healthier physically and mentally.