Coach P's Coffee Article

TerryO

Coach P - I love you, man!  You and Rich are responsible for pretty much everything I have been successful at in this sport and I am your loyal follower.  A huge part of what makes this team work is the community discussion of topics and when I saw the posting on the dashboard, I thought this subject deserves it's own thread.  Why?  Because I kind of disagree with you.

Some people have already read the article and have seriously considered doing this based on the benefits you received by doing it.  I'm sure many others that have not posted to the blog or the dashboard are considering it as well.  But it's important for people to realize a few things before they decide that giving up caffeine is going to change their lives.

• The most important point I want to make is that you were drinking an inordinate amount of caffeine.  Far more than the vast majority of people drink.  And the majority of the problems you were having, while attributable to the caffeine, were not because of the caffeine itself but the amount you were ingesting.
• Caffeine is an apetite supressant, but unless used as such (by drinking coffee to suppress apetite or substitute for meals), it doesn't mean that's a bad thing.  If a cup of coffee in the morning means you eat a little less for breakfast or aren't hungry before lunch, isn't that OK?
• Caffeine is a diuretic, but it technically can't dehydrate you.  This has been studied extensively.  Caffeine is a diuretic, which means it will make you pee, but it won't make you pee any more than you otherwise would have, just earlier.  For example, if you drink 10 ounces of water vs. 10 ounces of coffee, you will pee out about 10 ounces of urine, you will just do it in say 30 minutes instead of 1 hour.  Real "diuretics" make you pee out more fluid than you take in and are given to people who retain ingested fluid because of abnormal heart or kidney function.
• Caffeine in moderation is not in and of itself a healthy or unhealty thing.  Stopping caffeine for most people will not make them more healthy just like people who don't consume caffeine won't become unhealthy if they start.
• It sounds like you have become much more productive and efficient since you quit, and I'm sure that not drinking so much caffeine is a big part of that because it is definitely a chemical which affects behavior.  But many things have changed in your life since the accident so it makes sense that the better diet, AM relaxing workouts, and better sleep patterns must also be contributing significantly to it.
• Finally, even though you state that this an n=1 experience, you still go on to say that you "recommend" to your readers that they do this to achieve their "personal and physical endurance best".   You say you can't "guarantee...the same benefits" but go on in the same sentence to say "but I can assure you that your life will certainly change for the better with no (or at least less!) coffee".  I do agree that for someone who consumes such an extremely large amount of caffeine on a daily basis and pushes themselves to the extremes that you did would definitely benefit from cutting back (or quitting) caffeine.  But without the other lifestyle changes like you made, they would not see the extent of the benefit you have.  And along those same lines, the casual caffeine user (1 or 2 cups of coffee or a couple diet cokes a day) would likely not see significant benefits like you describe just by stopping that morning Starbucks run.

Respectfully submitted for the team's consideration and discussion by a dedicated Team EN member and heart surgeon.

Terry

chris malone

They'll pry my one cup of pre dawn Peets from my cold dead hands.....

Interesting article here.

www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine...ent-t.html

Coach Patrick

Terry, thanks for the feedback. You are right in that I made a lot of assumptions about how other endurance athletes drink coffee. That said, I don't know many endurance athletes who drink one cup of coffee in the AM and then go on with their day...or at least (before you all reply) I don't ride/run/swim with any of you. It has been my personal experience that most endurance athletes use coffee to "cheat" -- to cheat on eating, to cheat on sleep, to cheat on recovery. And in true triathlon fashion if one cup makes me feel good, then 8 must make me feel awesome. It is to this group that I write, not to those of you who enjoy one cup responsibly and then continue on crushing your day.

And by no means did I intend to imply that giving up coffee was the _only_ thing you needed to do to achieve gains. If that were the case, I would have given up a lot longer ago!!!!

@Chris, I agree with the chart below...I too have had a great deal more focus without the magic bean!!!

TerryO

@ Chris - that was a very interesting read. Thanks.

@ P - totally agree about the cheating thing. It most certainly makes sense for them.