I can't start my day without coffee. I will absolutely get a headache around 9 o'clock if I do not consume a cup. This addiction is so bad that my children have learned from a very early age that no matter what time they wake up no one is getting breakfast until I have had a caffeine boost. It's not, "Good Morning" in our house, instead it's "Mommy drink your coffee so we can eat!" I know that I should give it up, but if a tiny growing human in my belly could not persuade me to stop then I am a lost cause.
My habit started my Junior year of college when my new roommate set up her four cup coffee maker on top of our mini fridge. "Come on, just try some," she urged. It's not like she was offering me crack, so I tried it with plenty of cream and sugar. There was no turning back, I was hooked. We made coffee in all flavors all times of the day for the next two years. I sometimes feel the need to have an afternoon coffee in the Fall, perhaps I am feeling nostalgic, but midnight rolls around and I am wide awake and acutely aware that I am getting older.
My husband of 10 years is just as addicted to coffee as I am. We had to upgrade from a 12 cup to a 14 cup! I suppose I would have kept drinking it even if he didn't, but it is nice that when he goes to fill his cup up he takes mine too. He has done his best over the years to try and make it just the way I like it with a little sugar and a little cream. It's the "little" part he has trouble with and I never have the heart to tell him it's wrong. He would tell you that I did throw a kink in our system a couple of years ago when I switched to Splenda. A little goes a long way, and what man is good with that concept?
After my third baby I was looking for any way to cut calories and sugar in my diet. It was easy to switch from sugar to Splenda and make a big difference since I drink 3-4 cups a day. Two years have passed since I switched, and things were going good until a friend on facebook commented that she was trying to give it up. She is a pharmacist, so I though maybe I should google Splenda. Ignorance really is bliss.
I learned that Splenda was called Sucralose, a substance that was first intended to be an insecticide. Fabulous. Sucralose is made when sugar is treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriethlyammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide. Damn Google. It has ruined my morning coffee.
I have spent the past two months trying to give up Splenda. I have bought every kind of natural sweetener on the shelf in Whole Foods and have determined they do not sweeten anything. Truvia, Stevia, Agave Necter have all had their chance, but they have all fallen short. I can't go back to Splenda now that I know it's full of chlorine! I am guessing that even in small doses it's probably not something you should be ingesting every day. There have been no studies on the long term effects, and I don't care to be a participant.
So, I am back to sugar, but now I have all this guilt! Once you get to a certain age the sweet treats you once ate with reckless abandon seem to taunt you with every bite.
"Do you really need to eat me?"
"Do you realize how long you'll be on the elliptical if you put me in your mouth?"
"You know where I'm going to right? Straight to the old gulteus maximus!"
I've learned to be okay with the occasional splurge and the guilt that follows, the key word being occasional. I am fairly good at skipping the sweets, since my first snack choice is always something salty. I had a little set back when I purchased a container of Kirkland Signature Caramel Nut Clusters with Salted Caramel. If you want to compare something to crack then these babies fit the bill. Now that sugar has edged it's way back into my coffee I know I can't eat any more sweets the rest of the day. Trying to make a choice between my morning coffee and a piece of chocolate can really stress a girl out!
I'm not going to give up coffee. I can't drink coffee without cream and sugar, but I can't use sugar. I can't use Splenda because it is going to give me cancer. Google has ruined my life...where did I hide those nut clusters....
