The Shintaro Higashi Show - Quitting Coffee

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

We're switching gears in this episode, and talking about something about personal lives. Shintaro, who is an avid coffee drinker, decided to quit coffee for a month! Shintaro and Peter talk about why Shintaro decided to quit coffee, how he did it, and what he learned through this month-long challenge. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

hello everyone welcome back to the shintaro higashi show with peter yu today is going to be a little bit of a different episode it's not going to be about judo but it's about something personal i decided to give up coffee for for one month right that was a big big thing yeah so that's what it's going to be about you i know that you're a big coffee drinker you i know like coffee remember when you used to wake up at 5 a.m you said like the first thing you put up coffee and you know all that yep i do like lots of these monthly challenges all the time like i get into it you know he's that theme of the month you know right those things used to be like uh you know pre-hunt vegetarian

post-hunt carnivore remember i did that right right so i would only eat vegetables through the day like i was foraging in the woods or something after i did judo judo was my hunt and then after judo i would eat you know meat that was like my thing that i did for a month and uh this month it was like all right i'm gonna challenge myself i'm gonna get off coffee for a month and uh yeah that's my thing now cool cool back on it by the way well you know along the way you you through this challenge you learn a few things here and there right and i did yeah yeah so well let's first start with the reason why you quit decided to quit well what happened you're like yeah what's wrong with coffee you know you know i felt like my uh coffee intake up creeping very very much so and it was like one cup cup of coffee in the morning second cup of coffee literally like

after i finished that first cup right i would ride that out till like noon have another cup of coffee and then in the afternoon i would have like a starbucks or something so dang you know if you were to quantify it it's easily you know four cups 500 milligrams of caffeine something crazy like this you know and uh every now and then i'll go yeah how much is a fight like how much is 500 milligrams of caffeine i think like a eight ounce cup of coffee is about like 100 to 200 milligrams uh-huh okay yeah so like a recommended a lot oh 500 i'm actually not a scientist or a nutritionist nor am i qualified in any way to talk about this stuff but it's just me anecdotally trying stuff and enjoying it and it's good fun so i thought maybe

people would enjoy it too you know okay so you're drinking a lot 500 milligrams per day yeah yeah and i feel like it's affecting my sleep you know like taking a little bit longer to fall asleep and right i'm like reliant on it it's like 2 p.m i was like i'll get myself a cup of coffee and then you know michael pollan is one of my favorite authors right like reading you know carnivore's dilemma or omnivore's dilemma food for whatever it was i can't remember what the books were but i read a bunch of his books and then he was on joe rogan podcast and he's like oh man i gave up coffee for three months and i was like all right you know i've actually done this before i've given up coffee before uh-huh and i was like man maybe i would need a little bit of a reset

i see yeah i started back up i see i see okay i'm just curious why did michael poland say about like why he did it well mostly for his book right because he was studying like plants and chemicals and drugs like that was his new thing he was like veering off from food into psychedelics right oh yeah part of the psychedelic research was exploring caffeine and then how these plants produce caffeine and things like this so i was like yeah i'm fascinated by that stuff oh interesting interesting okay well you give it up for three months and you know i was like all right let me let me try it out okay cool so like what how did you do did you slowly wean off or you know just when they call turkey or you know how what was the process i think wean off you know there's like theories of like once i did it before once and i did it like the proper way of like titrating

down and like half caps and you know for this amount and doing it over a course of a week to prevent myself from getting headaches but this time i was like you know what i gotta get off this thing for a little while so it wasn't cold turkey exactly but i went from just regular coffee consumption to half cap half cap so yeah like two cups three cups a day well half caps like if i go to starbucks it'll be like half regular coffee half decaf coffee oh i see i see yes i'll do like a half cap situation and then i cut out my afternoon coffee period so then you know i went from essentially drinking four servings or four cups of coffee to like two immediately and then cut out the afternoon coffee and the two cups I had in the morning were half-caffs.

Right? I see. I did that all in the first week. So immediately, I was pounding headache. Oh. Yeah. I was suffering from headaches for like five days. Yeah.

By day four, I was already completely drinking like half, straight up decaffeinated coffee. Oh, I see. Yeah. Decaffeinated coffee. Decaf has a little bit of caffeine. Tiny bit. It's like seven milligrams, five milligrams. I would say it's nothing.

Yeah. But how was the headache like? Brutal. Yeah. It's like, because you know, if you just take a cup of coffee, like it'll go away. Wow. So you, I mean, i've heard about this but yeah i get people who get dependent on it yeah and you can't focus right it's like you're so

reliant on taking coffee to be with all right sit down it's part of the ritual so there's no right now right right it was brutal it's like all over the place you know like scattered right did you in a daze well i guess you still drank decaf but well eventually you also gave up decaf too right yeah after the first five days uh or for the first week i was completely done did you try to substitute it with something else like you know how people do nicotine patch for smoking no nothing oh wow yeah so what did you you just didn't drink anything in the morning no are you still doing the one meal a day you're doing one meal a day i'm doing one meal a day still okay i've been on that i've been that i've been on it for a little bit over a month now

i see i see yeah lost 10 15 pounds nice i don't know if you guys could tell my face looking good man looking good so what else besides the withdrawal syndrome symptoms like you know headaches and whatnot anything else like that made it tough yeah man just i was slow you know it was constantly fatigued it's like when i was like oh man it's two o'clock like you know circadian rhythms or circadian rhythms i don't know how people say but like yeah that stuff is real you know in 2 p.m and you're like oh man and it's really nice to have a little bit of a pick-me-up you know and then food usually if i eat food it's like it kind of makes me tired too

so it's like coffee usually is the go-to thing you know right right right so i missed that you know immensely you think it was all mental that pick up that necessity for pick me up in the afternoon yeah probably you know it becomes ritualized too right it gives you a reason to break from whatever you're doing you know uh going to the gym having a cup of coffee like i like to make my iced coffee into my protein shake shake a bottle and dump it in there and then on the way to the gym i sip it like that's something that I enjoy doing. By the time I got there, it's like, all right, I'm getting ready. The caffeine is kicking in.

I'm ready to lift. Ready to run. There are benefits from taking caffeine before your workouts. So like I miss that. Ritual of like, hey, you want to go get a cup of coffee? Or a lot of the times students come in in the afternoon. They're like, hey, I got you a cup of coffee, right? Oh, I see. Yeah. So it's like that ritual like that richard's like hey we're doing this day we're gonna get you know awake now together like we're gonna get going you know we're gonna work on

something together sometimes it's like a video you know like a youtube video or something it's like all right we're gonna film some videos today george let's have a cup of coffee yeah you drink coffee just bullshitting you know that's like a thing so i missed that a little bit yeah how'd you how'd you deal with that like let's start with the you know your you know pre-workout drink basically you you just didn't drink and then it was fine like water water yeah just did you notice that your like performance dropped in the gym yeah but i was also intermittent fasting too so it's like right like oh man you can't I really want to get down to weight now it's time for me to get back to my pre baby weight mm-hmm which

is 195 190 that's a good way for me I say when I go far above 200 it's not that good for me I think and when i hit 220 i'm puffy okay puffy i'm fat i'm slow i'm heavy and i'm strong in the gym too it's not like i'm not lifting right i'm not sitting on the couch eating chips i mean i do eat chips but like right it's like i'm still lifting i'm still strong you know right but i'm noticeably fat also 220 so it's like 200 it's like people look at me like, okay, he's a big dude. 190, it's like he's pretty lean, right? I see.

Decently lean and he's strong, right? So that's where I'm trying to get back to. And I haven't hit 190 in four years, three years. You used to be 180. Yeah, yeah, 178. Yeah. That's like only for a very short amount of time so that so you did you notice a little bit of decrease but you can't really attribute it to

coffee because you're also tinkering with your diet too yeah i'm tinkering with my diet and then you know that's sort of the best right when you're not eating all day and you're eating once a day you know and 3 p.m comes around it's a nice way to curb your appetite you know do you drink a lot of coffee right now so i i never drank it until my wife recommended that at least one cup is apparently there's research out there she's a doctor so she keeps up with it i guess but also she loves coffee so i think when i moved to detroit yeah i started doing one cup a day yeah because i don't really recall you drinking coffee i never did um gateway drug you know i know i'm gonna be a full-blown junkie i know maybe i'll start getting withdrawals like uh but i don't drink too much i just drink one next stop meth yeah straight to math

yeah but i think they she says it's you know the benefits are from antioxidants or something by everything who knows but you know matcha is so much better for this in terms of like antioxidants i got into tea for a hot second too i want to get back into that we'll talk about that yeah yeah so the uh so you that's the gym side so how about the social situations you know like did you just well you know i don't really have much of a social life now because it's like you know if you guys don't already know it's like lara's in medical school and she's gone now right so it's like uh she's in medical school so it's like i'm full-time dadding and dojo and i really have no no time outside of that right so it's like you know going out for a social coffee thing or going out for

drinks you know with the guy like that i haven't been doing any of that zero of it so yeah no it didn't really affect my social life or lack of social i have no so this is my social life right now talking to you oh well i yeah i mean that i guess that kind of helped well do you your parents your family doesn't uh drink coffee yeah my mom drinks coffee my dad drinks coffee they didn't offer you they what do they say about your they just always forget like hey you want some coffee i'm like no i'm not drinking it do you miss the taste do you miss it do you miss coffee well i'm back on oh you're back on it right or did you miss it oh yeah definitely you are you're like a kind of a barista like you you try different beans and you different like i got into for a hot second because my cousin eugene oh yeah he's into always

trying this and these artisanal that and he grinds his own beans and yeah you know i had for a second when i was uh you know i had a lot more time on my hands maybe like five years ago you know getting the beans and all this is kenya going to blue bottle you know getting it grinding it pour over or french press and this and that and like kind of nerding out about that stuff i was into it you know yeah but like uh just the convenience of like uh you know i had my favorite spots and you know i don't mind starbucks coffee so like pretty good yeah yeah it's all right crazy you know i like the iced coffee yeah yeah i did miss the taste but you know there were a lot of benefits yeah so yeah so you overcame the challenges and you did it for you quit for a month what yeah what benefits have you i think i slept better i really

did you know this is anecdotal obviously and maybe it could be all in my head and maybe it could be not true at all but i had much more vivid dreams i feel like you know so i feel like i slept deeper but this is the thing it's like when you're drinking coffee may not sleep as deep but you wake up and you drink coffee and you're up and you're like all right you know you semi feel rested kind of mask the yeah masks like whether even if you had poor quality sleep right even without when you're not on coffee at all you sleep deeper i think but when you get up you don't have that pick me up right away so it's like that i really sleep deeply or are you felt like i could always sleep more did you did you drink uh close to your bedtime did you drink coffee i usually have a like a cut off of like 3 p.m oh god 3 p.m right right yeah but you know

it would be sometimes four i would never drink it after five or six i see i see you know i would always creep into like sometimes you know kid brings it in it's like 5 p.m i'm like all right take a couple sips cool yeah so yeah so better sleep better sleep i could get up and go i didn't have to like wait for a cup of coffee or anything like that i didn't make any pit stops it's like you know and it's really convenient when i was eating one meal a day because i could just get up go and just have my day without consuming anything right except water right i see oh it was like saving a lot of time to save tons of time you know and you know you go to starbucks

you drive every time and it's like not that big of a deal but it's still kind of annoying right yeah production of like going there getting it paying right you know it's always not like a pit stop quick like a few seconds you know there's a line in front of you you know when i first got into it right got back into it and i was like i'm gonna have my cup of coffee i go to starbucks i go through the drive-thru right because starbucks is like semi on the way to the dojo uh so i go i'm driving over there getting the thing the lady gives me the cup of coffee like hey yeah whatever whatever i put the coffee down and i'm like driving i'm like all right i'm gonna have this cup of coffee it's probably cooled down by now i pick it up and the freaking lid wasn't on properly oh gosh right because i mean it was on

but the lip of the coffee has been like deformed because the lady squeezed it or something uh so the seal wasn't perfect so it wasn't perfect and then i picked it up and then it just like collapsed and spilled coffee and i was like god damn it that's why i don't drink coffee that's it ruins the whole day yeah but i drank it oh you drank it okay and it felt amazing i was like up i was like wired uh uh-huh but you know i got into matcha before i got back into coffee also you kind of slowly substituted it in a way yeah and that was interesting to kind of go down the rabbit hole of that because i i took a little bit of

time researching it right so there's different types of green tea all these different teas come from one plant you know and it's all when it was harvest that determines how much oh really i did not know that yeah like black tea and everything yeah black tea right it's oxidized it's like cooked more oh matcha is like super early leaves like young leaves from that season young leaves and then they cover the thing so only like 30 of sunlight gets through right so the plant's like oh man we gotta find ways to gain more sunlight you know through photosynthesis obviously so we've got to increase chlorophyll production right so it gets darker and it gets greener and yeah you know levels of antioxidants and all this stuff increase they do

it for like two three weeks i see yeah and then they do a quick steam they can do a quick steam or a longer steam right and that kind of changes you know the quality of the the leaf of the tea actually itself and matcha is when you take that dry it out and then grind it right into a fine powder so you're actually drinking the the powder the dried up leaves yeah the powder that's matcha you don't filter it right they just you just put it in hot water all the powder but yeah then you have the little bamboo whisk that i've been kind of getting into oh i was kind of a yeah that was a nice ritual because i was only drinking matcha for like two weeks after i gave it up right right so then i would take this cup and then whisk it in the morning and it was kind of a little bit of a ritual now you know that i'm on coffee i'm not really drinking it as much but i enjoyed it highly

you know i see and it's a slow increasing sort of uh caffeination right right right there's something in it to stretch it out and then also you know supposedly there's l-theanine in it what's that it gives you it in it. What's that? It's like an amino acid that makes you feel good and relaxed. So it's like a focused, relaxed situation. Supposedly, you drink too much coffee, you get wired. You're like jittery, right? So matcha kind of doesn't do that for you.

Oh, I see. So you didn't do it. I was really into it. Just matcha? Like you didn't do, like proper matcha, not like tea bags? Proper matcha, yeah. No, yeah. And then tea bags, you know, green tea. You know, you can do green tea.

And even there, they have levels of it. So like similarly to matcha, you can take the early leaves and then shut out the sun for a couple of weeks. And then that's called gyokuro. G-Y-O-K-U-R-O. Gyokuro. And that's a special type of tea. It's a little bit more expensive because it's more labor intensive to create right right right you know and that's like sort of a little bit of a high-end

green tea and i was drinking that for a little bit too oh fancy yeah and then the tea bags they usually take like a later bloom uh you know and uh yeah so i was drinking like i got into like the high-end ceremonial matcha you know organic, organic, like from Japan, that kind of stuff. You know, I was kind of being a snob about it. Right. But now that I'm back on coffee, it's like, why bother? Right, right. Which is kind of funny how that is, you know?

Nice. Yeah, I gave up coffee for a little while. Now I'm full blown back into it, you know? Right. But you are not drinking as much right this is my second cup already oh so you're back in so like i'm back in i'm back in but you know i'm trying not to did you like just yeah start drinking you did you go back to your original routine right away or did you try something else other than matcha to

try to like slowly substitute everything with coffee i'm trying to do right now two cups of coffee and a green tea okay like a matcha that's like what i'm trying to do and i'm going to try to cap it at that i see yeah like the time between my first and second cup is just getting shorter and shorter and shorter especially the more i have to do the more i rely on it you know right but it was nice to kind of take a little break from it you know just to know that i can do it obviously and then uh you know to appreciate it more i appreciate so much more now that i'm on it you know off it i was off it and then i'm back on it so it's a powerful thing you know and it's so easy to take for granted and right all this stuff so yeah that's pretty much me giving up

coffee for a month that was that's the whole story hopefully it's interesting so as i'm talking about i'm like man this is not interesting at all it's like oh shoot no i think it's like a uh you know a lot of people may be thinking about that but it's good to hear a perspective from someone who's actually done it. Do you recommend it? I do recommend it. It's a nice way to refresh and reset your caffeine situation. They have like adenosine receptors that sort of build up as you build tolerance to the coffee, right? And then you start creating more of those things. And then once you get off of it like you know your brain

kind of doesn't right with it and it is sort of a stress situation right like your body's stress when you're drinking coffee like you know increasing right right right so it's like it is uh you know it's nice to take a little break from it i'm telling you it's like it's good to try to do it you know i do recommend it i like these kinds of little challenges yeah so do you do you appreciate it appreciate it seems like it sounds like you like coffee better that's why you're like you don't need as much to like as much coffee to like you know get you get you going and maybe you like the taste better yeah after a month break yeah no no well anyway we started a patreon right peter yeah yeah that's right podcast episodes is sponsored by us well sponsored by you like so we we got some yeah some updates on this uh on this uh so you know, we've gotten some messages that people would like to sponsor us to, you know,

we do this, you know, on our spare time. But, you know, if you'd like to support us, well, we're going to drop the link to Patreon in the description. So support us that, you know, it's like a monthly thing. We'll probably just start with that simple. Yeah. We'll see how it goes. It'll be like, you know you know special videos it's a little bit more personal right if you guys want to get to know us a little bit better we'll open up a chat live so if you guys could ask questions

we'll see judo related right right who wants to hear about me having a cup of coffee in the morning not nobody so like we're you know i'm a judo expert expert i guess right yeah so it was weird to say that you know in crass but like you know expert judo so if you have any questions about judo you could join the chat and then it'll be a whole thing that it'll be a little bit more interactive i know i've been electing that front on all my social you know yeah so what it'll be yeah full-blown service situation yeah you guys can join us that'll be great yeah it'll be fun so that's that's there's that and then there's another thing you have going yeah i'm trying this teachable thing yeah and i made this video about

the russian tie it's a two-on-one judo position uh great for grappling period so i did that let's link that in there too yeah we'll put that in the search shintaro.teachable.com yeah you know you could get to it uh it's a paid mini course i'm just trying something new you know judo fanatics has been very good to me yeah but i'm like you know what i kind of want to try out some of these different avenues you know uh an experiment so yeah it's my new thing cool and then you'll you'll be releasing more courses i guess if you know people like it yeah i'm gonna go to the dojo today and do uh inside position right side versus left oh nice inside because sometimes like here's

what you do on the inside here's what you do on the outside and i kind of ramble but it's gonna be very specific right gaining the inside position keeping the inside position and then doing all your judo from the inside position that way i have that clean and then i have another one that's like all right outside position prefer the outside position. How do we get to it? Blah, blah, blah. All that stuff. More focus and more structure.

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Cool. That's the idea. All right. So, yeah, that's about it for this episode. Anything else we forgot? Nope.

Hope it was interesting. Yeah. Talking about coffee. Hope we don't lose all our listeners. It's like, hey, guys, what's up? We're going to talk about coffee today lot of coffee listeners it's like uh hey guys what's up we're talking about coffee today like it's it's a little different because you know we're trying to mix it up a little but anyway thanks for listening guys and then uh stay tuned for the next episode