My new year’s resolution this year was basically to try and stop drinking caffeine and diet soda if at all possible. I used to drink probably close to 2L of diet pepsi a day in Vancouver, mostly because the office I worked at had a fountain pop machine that everyone could use for free. Whether or not diet soda is a health concern is still up for debate, but undoubtedly it has aspartame (even though it has a good safety record, it’s still a chemical) as well as caffeine (which has been linked to weight gain and elevated levels of adrenaline, and cortisol, the stress hormone). I figured while ...

So today is January 13th, which means I’ve been both caffeine and pop (soda for you Americans) free since the start of the year. I’ve given up caffeine at various times in my life, so that’s not amazingly impressive for me. But I can’t say that I’ve ever given up pop for more than a few days at a time before. I’ve had quite a few problems sleeping over the last few years, and I often have trouble both falling asleep and staying asleep. It seems even the smallest of noises will wake me up sometimes, or even something as small as a breeze blowing across some exposed skin. To be honest, ...

The tendency for a body at rest to stay at rest, and for a body in motion to stay in motion. Two important states, to be sure. For me, I find myself bouncing between those two states from time to time, often as a result of some cycle I’m trying to break. Most of the time, that cycle for me starts with lack of sleep, and progresses into this weird state of limbo where I’m constantly feeling unhealthy. The last time I felt I totally got away from it was back in May, back when I was going to the gym routinely and eating meals at home the majority of the time. I’m close to getting back there, ...

As we all know, the flux capacitor is what makes time travel possible. Blogathon, on the other hand, is made possibly by everyone’s favorite stimulant, caffeine. And so this post is dedicated to caffeine in various forms. I’m currently on my third coffee. I woke up and had a 7-11 coffee (because that’s all I could find at 5:30am), then pounded back some coffee here at Workspace, and just picked up a new coffee from a little Gastown coffee shop called Lunas. I imagine I’ll probably average a coffee every two hours or so, which would put me somewhere in the neighborhood of about 600 – ...

For whatever reason, I didn’t end up falling asleep until around 4am last night. Obviously waking up this morning after about four hours of sleep was pretty crappy. I’m out of cream at home so I meandered my way down to one of my two favorite coffee shops and set up shop. Unfortunately, I forgot my wallet and my cell phone at home (at least I’m hoping my wallet is at home). Thankfully I had a few bucks worth of change in my pocket so I could order a coffee. The problem with lack of sleep is that it typically forces me into a caffeine cycle. Basically I wake up tired, so I have lots of coffee, ...

Well, I imagine by now many of the early morning shift people are in full swing. It seems like so long ago I wrote my first entry, and here I am at number 28. It sure is getting difficult finding content on short notice, but I’m managing to stay ahead of the curve somehow. My Blogathon Setup Rebecca did a quick tally on her blog, and I think between all the participants we are up to around $500 so far. That number doesn’t include people who have gone directly to their charity’s website and donated directly, so ultimately the number will be a bit higher. In terms of people on this blog, ...

A big thanks to the following people who recently pledged support for the Union Gospel Mission - Cullen Jennings Wow. To say I am completely exhausted at this point would be an understatement. I’ve essentially been awake since yesterday at 9am. That means I’ve been awake for around 30 hours now. Blogathon ends for me at 10pm tonight, which means I still have nearly eight hours left to go. I’m really not entirely sure how I’m going to make it, but hopefully I get my third or fourth wind soon. This Is Me When I’m Tired I’ve been listening to music rather loudly in my living room, hoping ...

I’ve posted a few times on this subject, but this is a new paper that’s hot off the presses. Once thought to help with weight loss, caffeine has recently been cast in a new light as actually contributing to weight gain. Even caffeinated diet pop can lead to weight gain, due to increased insulin secretion in the body. A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover study with periods of 7 days and washouts of 5 days comparing caffeine with placebo capsules was conducted. Participants were 16 healthy adults aged 18 to 22 years with a history of caffeine consumption. Blood samples from ...

Sylvain sent me this link today that basically concluded that one or more cans of diet soda can lead to health risks such as the metabolic syndrome “We found that one or more sodas per day increases your risk of new-onset metabolic syndrome by about 45 per cent, and it did not seem to matter if it was regular or diet,” Dr. Ramachandran Vasan, senior investigator for the Framingham Heart Study, said Monday from Boston. .. The study included nearly 9,000 observations of middle-aged men and women over four years at three different times. The study looked at how many 355-millilitre cans of cola ...

Well, the time has come for me to give up caffeine once again. Why you might ask? Because I’m way too addicted to it, and I know how completely shitty it is for the body. Here are some reasons why caffeine sucks: It disrupts REM sleep, making you feel tired in the morning It increases cortisol, making you feel stressed out It distrupts the body’s glucose system, increasing insulin levels by as much as 50% It makes weight loss difficult since the body can’t burn fat with high levels of insulin in the blood The problem with working in a high tech industry is that there’s free pop. So, ...