#71 The one about Caffeine - Use or Abuse ?

Ever wonder why the 2pm slump hits even on “good” sleep? We pull apart the caffeine loop—from the adenosine blockade that masks true fatigue to the half-life math that keeps stray milligrams humming along when you’re trying to drift off. Larry and Daniel get honest about intake, tolerance, a hospital scare that prompted a rethink, and the simple shifts that return your edge without taxing your nervous system.

We break down smart protocols: how to time caffeine 30 to 90 minutes before training so the peak lands when you need it, why evening lifters should consider non-stim pre-workouts if they care about recovery, and how vasoconstriction can blunt the pump you’re chasing. You’ll hear practical tactics for reducing reliance—decaf that actually tastes good, half-caff as a bridge, and short deloads that lower resting heart rate, calm reactivity, and resensitise receptors so smaller doses work again. We also touch digestion, hunger blunting during a deficit, and the pitfalls of masking low fibre or hydration with another flat white.

For students and deep workers, we connect caffeine timing to memory consolidation and REM quality, showing how a casual afternoon coffee can quietly tax recall the next day. If jitters are your sticking point, we explain when a modest dose of L-theanine can help, and where it crosses into papering over a problem. Across the board, the theme stays clear: use caffeine as a tool, not a crutch. Know your cut-off, track your total from hidden sources like tea, chocolate, energy drinks, and pre-workouts, and match the dose to the job.

If this chat helps you rethink your ritual, share it with a mate who lives by the long black, hit follow for more practical health and training breakdowns, and leave a quick review to tell us your cut-off time.

Got questions? simply email or dm us with those questions

Larry IG https://www.instagram.com/larry_doyle_coaching
Daniel IG https://www.instagram.com/danieldalycoaching
Website https://www.larrydoylecoaching.ie
Coaching with us https://www.larrydoylecoaching.ie/1-1-premium/
Email : info@larrydoylecoaching.ie

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Big Topic

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, you're listening to the Gen Pop Podcast with me, your host, Larry Doyle. Each week, I'm gonna bring in friends, guests, and experts to help enhance your health, fitness, and wellness journeys. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversations. You are welcome back to another episode of the Gen Pop Podcast, where this week, co-host Daniel and I, we are gonna be talking about the good stuff. No, not cocaine, even more addictive, even more powerful. Caffeine. Daniel, on a scale of one to ten, how caffeinated are you right now?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Today is actually a moderate day. Like if I had to put it in milligrams, I probably would say about 300, which which to be honest is nearly pushy up towards the upper range of like what I would say is like normal, but like to me, that's kind of in the lower end of the range. Yeah. I think um I actually went back over before that. There was a period of time, definitely for uh a couple of months, six months at least, like more of my intake. Five days at least out of seven was upwards of a gram, like every single day. But like um I could I ended up in hospital about two years ago, which I think was suspected suspected from caffeine because I was having chest pains that I thought was I was having a heart attack. Um, and uh I kind of cut back after that.

Caffeine As Anti‑Fatigue, Not Energy

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Um so yeah, I think it is gonna be a few surprisingly, you will find that those who are like so addicted to caffeine, they will come up with any other excuse other than no, it cannot be the caffeine. Yeah, just uh it's it's stress, it's something else. It's just I pulled my peck in the gym the other day, that's why it's vibrating and flapping off my fucking skin now at the minute. Um, caffeine, when we look at it, it is the world's most abused psychoactive drug, like there is no other way around it. Um it is incredibly powerful. I think it's incredibly misunderstood and also uh misused to a large amount as well, too, right? And to the point where it's such a vicious circle and cycle that like you mistime your caffeine, so now your sleep ends up fucked up, so now you end up drinking more and consuming more caffeine the following day, which just fucks up your sleep even further. Um, let's look into it a little bit, let's give people a little bit of a better comprehension. Um, just a word of warning. I'm probably going to tell you to cut back on your caffeine consumption. Those who are listening a little bit, don't get offended. It's completely your choice as an adult to do what you want to do, but we'll give you a little bit of rationale behind why you should probably think about it a little bit more, maybe why it's disturbing uh your rest and recovery that a little bit more as well. Let's dive in, give a quick bit of an overview, kind of caffeine, what do we need to know about it?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Like, I think what people actually kind of get wrong with caffeine is they think that caffeine, especially because it it it's kind of being promoted as like an energy drug, that it's gonna give you energy, but it it's not really, it's more like an anti-fatigue drug, if anything. Like it's gonna just block the receptors or kind of make you feel tired. So it's not as if like you've have like a level of energy and they say it boosts it up or something, it's more like it's going to just push that tiredness to the back so that you kind of don't realize how tired you are, and then that's when it kind of feeds into the cycle of like people drink coffee in the morning because they're tired and then they wonder why they're waking up tired. It's like because you're actually just not realizing how tired you actually are, that if you actually stop drinking coffee for a day or two, you'd realise holy shit, I just need to get to bed a bit earlier, and I won't need to drink as much coffee or as much caffeine the following day. Um, I think alongside that, the other kind of situation we will see most people that we're kind of dealing with is use it again in in the gym. And again, we can kind of get into the whole timing of use it around your workouts and stuff, but I think people you'd use it for energy in the gym, but then people will kind of be looking for I guess like the pump and stuff, and it again it's not really useful for the pump because it's more of a visor cont uh contrictor constrictor. Um, so it's actually going to be limiting the amount of blood you can actually pump into the muscle. So um, again, I think it's just as you said, it's very misused uh and misunderstood for a lot of people. And as you said, I think actually most people would benefit from using less and getting more from it, but again, it's very hard for a lot of people to kind of like um because a lot of people just don't realize that they're addicted to it, that cutting back is going to be a lot harder than they realize.

Half‑Life, Stacking, And Sleep Debt

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, and like this the second you suggest it to people again, it's like you've asked them to give up a kidney or their first child or something like that, and you'll come back with all sorts of like you know, friction from people, you'll you'll suggest that they cut back to you know a decaf, and their one thing is like, oh, decaf doesn't taste the same. And it's like, no, you you you drink instant coffee, so you don't know, understand the flavor of coffee one way or the other. Uh, and as a complete coffee snob, you should be able to taste the differences between certain different brands. And if you brew a caffeine really well, or if you brew coffee really well, even a decaf can taste really nice, it can taste really fruity and whatever as well to you, right? Um, the big thing, and it like we'll actually talk about that, and it's like actually understanding caffeine and and the timing and what's going on around it because, like, again, like people just kind of think, Oh, I just have my coffee throughout the day and stuff happens and whatever. Um the the biggest thing, and it's like you noted there, it will block adenosine kind of flooding through the bloodstream, right? So, adenosine is what's gonna make you that little bit more fatigued and tired at times, and if that's like just trickling through at its normal rates, you're gonna find you're just fine throughout the day and the body is in a pretty even keel. When you consume your caffeine, that basically puts up that barrier. Your adenosine has still been uh produced behind that barrier, but now all of a sudden, when the caffeine wears off, you get this flood going through your system of all this adenosine that'll really like make you crash, fatigue, be super tired. That like that 2 p.m., 3 p.m. crash that you're feeling, that's your morning coffee after wearing off essentially. Uh the active half-life of caffeine, somewhere between six and eight hours, depending on how fast you metabolise, metabolize it. Some people much quicker, some people much slower. But around, let's say you have 300 milligrams of caffeine at 9 a.m., six to eight hours later, 150 milligrams of that is still going to be active within your system. And people again don't realize that, that it's wearing off by half by half. Another six to eight hours later, there's going to be 75 milligrams still active in your system. So at no point of your day, if you've had two or three coffees, are you ever without caffeine in your system? The following day, again, there's half, half, half as you go down those six to eight-hour windows, you're just topping up that system. And I'd love to actually know how many active milligrams of caffeine some people can have in their system on a day-to-day basis, because like let's say it depletes down to 100 milligrams and now you're topping it back up, and then it depletes down and topping it back up. Um, but it is something to be really uh cautious about understanding that again, like if you'd had a coffee at 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 midday, and then you're cutting off, you're gonna have the equivalent of like 1.5 shots of espresso in your system come 6 p.m. in that evening time. And you'll think like you've been a saint and you've cut back and you've had no caffeine since midday, but you still have that much active uh caffeine within your system. You would think someone would be nuts if they were gonna drink like a shot of espresso like 6.30. But that's what's active in your system all the time, pretty much as well, too. If you've had multiple caffeine or multiple caffeine servings throughout the day, so it's to be really mindful of that, the impact that that can have on your central nervous system. If you've already got quite a stressful day or you know, doing a lot of other stressful activities, that's just gonna be ramping up and heightening up that kind of response to a lot of those stressors as well, too, which is essentially like throwing caffeinated petrol on the fire, right? Um what other things? So caffeine can affect digestion in positive and uh negative ways as well, too. Let's discuss that a little bit first.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah, well, I guess caffeine can also be used because I think we're talking about like the energy side of it and um all of that, but I think it's can be useful from a dieting perspective if you're in a diet, in a deficit, and you're looking to blunt your hunger to a degree. You can do that uh with um caffeine, but again, you have to be kind of strategic with it. You don't want to be blunting your caffeine or blunting your hunger with like 4 pm by using caffeine because you're gonna affect your sleep, which then will boost up uh hunger the following day again or later in the evening. So uh there is that element, but but again, it's gonna help with actually just bowl movements as well, because it's going to loosen everything up, going to relax everything, so it'll actually be easier to pass the stool. But again, you can run into the situation where people are over consuming it and you're going to um have the issue where they're going too frequently that they're not just like having a bowl movement, that it could be like just very watery, running to the toilet every hour or whatever. So, again, a lot of people will actually rely on it that they find that if they don't have coffee or whatever in the morning, that it's just not regular. Um, and again, that's similar to people that are using caffeine to kind of mask over not sleeping enough, that a lot of people are using it to mask over like actually just not having enough fiber in their diet or not drinking enough water or whatever, that a lot of their water is coming through caffeinated sources. It's not until you actually stop using them that you realize that actually things aren't working the way they should be.

Digestive Effects And Hunger Blunting

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, and that's a huge one because again, like masking those issues or masking those potential um potential like positive, regular, frequent things that we should have in our day-to-day. You know, we should be okay with digestion uh with food, we should be okay with having frequent bowel movements, we shouldn't be trying to like suppress hunger massively, but if we're masking this and kind of putting a band-aid over it the whole time, you really don't know what's actually going on. Um, so again, from that front, it's it's pretty key to actually remove caffeine every now and then uh from your intake so you can actually assess what's going on at the baseline. Now, when we talk about actually removal of caffeine, I guess it's actually understanding how many different things caffeine are actually in, like it's not just your coffee, right? Uh it can be in your chocolate and your dark chocolate, it's gonna be in tea, it's gonna be in like decaffeinated uh products as well. Too. Um, the only like coffee pretty much that you're gonna have that's fully uh decaffeinated is like something that's like a Swiss process. Again, it's like it's a different um process within the the making of that coffee bean, whatnot as well, too, that it's gonna be like 99.9% removed. But for your regular decaf, it's still gonna have a bit in there that if you're having even like green tea, stuff like that, it's still gonna have like caffeine within. So within the goal of removing, yes, you might remove like hundreds of milligrams throughout your day, but you're not actually fully removing caffeine from your intake as well, too, and you're not removing that stimulus that is on your central nervous system, also. Um, so it's to be aware of different products where they can be um energy drinks, obviously, another huge one that will have a massive amount of caffeine that you mightn't be aware of of just how much because like when people see like 300 milligrams, 400, 500 milligrams, whatever it might be, they might be using a pre-workout, thinking that they're gonna get a good pump and just get like energy. But again, it's not like placebo juice. Essentially, you're you're having a shot of caffeine at night time before you go into the gym to kind of give you that energy. There's gotta be a lot of caffeine within those supplements as well, too, because that is one of those supplements that when you take it, you feel it instantly. It's like adding the beta alanine to your pre-workout that makes you tingle, it makes you get like that hot flush underneath your skin to make it feel like you're on something. A lot of the ingredients within um energy supplements, within uh pre-workouts, you don't actually feel them. And they need to put in something that you'll actually have you feel them buzzed up that little bit more, feel like you're on something, feel like you've got the power of He-Man or whatever it might be. And caffeine is one of those that's massively uh leveraged off within that. So, again, it's to be really mindful and aware of the amount of milligrams that you're actually taking throughout the day, instead of just saying I'm gonna pull back on my coffee, because there will be quite an amount throughout your system, throughout various different products throughout the various different foods and stuff like that, too. So, if we were to look at doing the mad thing and suggesting someone actually goes to assess their caffeine intake and actually reduce it and remove it for a while, what impacts will they actually see when you because like there's this all I couldn't possibly stand headaches? What's the headaches? What's happening there as someone actually pulls out caffeine out of their system?

Hidden Sources And Pre‑Workout Traps

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Uh, like you you will see like things like headaches, nausea, fatigue. Um like you'll see their mood being affected as well, um, to a degree, but like a lot of it is just your body actually just doing what it's supposed to be doing, like as we kind of said, the coffee itself is like a vasoconstrictor, so like when you start to remove caffeine, it's gonna actually open up and let more blood flow through, so you actually will find that that can result at times then with you having the headaches and stuff. Um but like I think a lot of the time people freak out, and it's not because they and element of it is because they're actually like addicted to caffeine, but a lot of it is because they um it's part of their routine that like I actually find myself that I'm just gay up in the morning and having coffee because I just have coffee in the morning, it's just a habit. And it's not that I've before I drink a coffee that I'm asking myself, why am I drinking coffee? It's just coffee is part of my morning routine, so I just have coffee. Um I think that's actually one of the biggest struggles that people have is just trying to change that habit. I think if they just like again swapped it for something else, they won't even realize it. That I think it's when Sue actually just remove it, same as when people start dieting, that they automatically assume that they're going to feel hungry. That if you start removing caffeine and you start having all these effects, obviously there is going to be certain effects that we will likely see, but a lot of the time it's just it's become such of your your routine that you're when you're removing such a big thing that was a big component of your routine, you're going to start experiencing all these set effects to a higher degree.

Withdrawal, Habits, And Replacing Rituals

SPEAKER_00 13:52

And it's like that that that coffee in the morning is the the five minutes of peace and quiet that people actually get. It's the uh their meditation, it's their stillness, it's their whatever it might be, it's their uh five minutes that they get on the dart when they're on the way into town into work, it's whatever. And that's it's very valuable to people. And we don't want to let go remove that because that's obviously a major part of your day, and that allows you to have that bit of peace and quiet or calm or kind of comfort or whatever it might be, or the warm drink that makes you feel nice and warm and fuzzy on the way in, or whatever in a cold morning. So it's looking at where we can actually replace that as the biggest thing with any habit because it's part of that habit loop. You need to actually replace it as opposed to completely remove it because we don't like change and we don't like particularly something that we can be quite uh that we hold quite close to our heart, and it's because it is quite a comforting thing. Um now again, other people who are like super highly fatigued and they just like getting in to just get in so they can like get on with their day's work and kind of half survive it as well, too, right? It's a big part of that too. Um, but the removal of it, right, the things that you're gonna notice as a positive. The I actually think the the headaches are somewhat of a positive, not that I'm like a you know sadist and I like the pain, but we're actually getting more blood flow to the brain, right? That's gonna be an incredibly important thing. Uh we want that. Um while caffeine can be majorly leveraged off for increased focus, for intensive uh periods of demand on your mental clarity and all these things. Um, we still want the brain to be functioning in a good way. So I think it's actually quite a good thing to actually assess that from time to time to remove it. Um, again, to not mask hunger, uh, to actually assess, you know, what is my actual satiety like here, what I'm actually getting from my diet, etc. But the benefits that you'll actually see, you're far more calm and less reactive because again, like you're ramping up that nervous system to 12 all the time, particularly when we're, you know, I'm not gonna stand here on a pedestal. I smash the hell out of too much coffee, and I'm like, you know, I'm absolutely fine with that to agree and to nod that I've got a heavy addiction to the goddamn thing. But anyway, I could stop it, just mama didn't raise any quitters, so it's like looking at that and kind of thinking, okay, but what are the benefits? Okay, I'm gonna notice my sleep improve dramatically. I'm going to notice that I wake much less foggy in the morning. Like you shouldn't um if I was to suggest, okay, go down into your morning routine and just substitute a decaf coffee, and how would you actually feel throughout the rest of the day? And if you think that you're gonna feel like absolute shite, Naris, and you're gonna like not be able to function throughout the day, well, we probably need to assess your recovery, we probably need to assess your sleep quality. That if you feel you need that stimulant to actually get you going throughout the day, you know, we could look at your sleep, we could look at your sleep cycles and all these things. But if that's a really anchor part of your morning time that you have to have that to actually function, you know, we probably need to assess the overall consumption and look at pulling that back. After five to seven days of caffeine removal, is it does take enough time, like one day off is not really gonna have any uh clear benefits as well, too, right? So you're looking at kind of 14 days as a minimum, but like five to seven. If we can do that, it's gonna be awesome. You're actually gonna increase your sensitivity, so you'll actually get way more bang for your book. So, those who are addicted to that buzzy up feeling, you're actually gonna get way more from a single dose of caffeine than you might from five or six actually caffeinated beverages as well, too. So you're getting way more bang for your book, so you can actually get more um energy, if you want to call it that, from your actual serving. Uh, where again, that response diminishes over time, and the more frequency and exposure you have to more caffeine consumption, um, that it's uh like a diminishing impact and diminishing response to that all the time. So you're getting less and less and less buzzed up, you're having less actual impact, so you just need more and more and more all the time, which obviously it's not less impactful on your sleep, it's more impactful on your sleep as you have more caffeine there, too. So that resensitizing of the cell towards uh caffeine and caffeine usage, and actually the the benefits there are gonna be like really, really key. So, one, you're gonna be feeling fresher. Two, you're actually gonna get a lot more benefit and more bang for your book from the caffeine. Uh, you're gonna be less reactive and less responsive to uh maybe more stressful situations, someone cuts you off in car, you're gonna be like snapping. You're not gonna be as um reactive in those situations as well. So if you find yourself that you're kind of like really snappy, really reactive, uh sleep is poor, like stress response very poor, uh, ability to handle cognitive load, all these things, it's probably a good chance that you need to pull back on your caffeine as well, too, right? Um, personally, I will do it uh at a minimum twice a year for two weeks. And I don't personally get any of the headaches or any kind of negative responses. I tend to be quite well hydrated. Uh drink very good caffeine as well, too, when I am. So, like I probably don't see as much negative responses from that. Um, I do have upwards of 600 milligrams a day, so it's still quite a high dose. Um, but at the same point, uh I know the benefits that are there and like the positive impacts that are from that. Uh, what I generally see when I pull out caffeine for two weeks, uh my rest and heart rate will drop like five to six beats per minute, which is about 10 to 15 percent in my overall actual uh rest and heart rate, which is substantial, like nothing else has changed. Um so now my body is in a much less stressed state and it's much more even keel. Um I find that digestion can be impacted a little bit from time to time as I kind of start to go into the early phases of removal. Uh, but again, body normalizes and regulates itself too, and bowel movement certainly is a frequency and everything else, there's no real issues with that. Um what would you notice when was the last time you when was the last time you actually took a caffeine break? You're gonna be honest, meditations and heart attacks.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

If I actually if I actually said when is the last time I took an actual prolonged break intentionally, it was genuinely about seven years ago. Um but there is like times when I would just do two days or whatever, that just because I'm just busy, I'm just like, oh, I never had coffee, and it's like I should feel alright. But again, that kind of feeds back into what I was saying that like a lot of the time when you remove something, it's the same when you give up any habit, it's like that's when you start to kind of focus more, and it's like, I'm not having coffee, I'm not having coffee, I'm not having coffee. This is usually the time I have coffee. Oh, I feel like shit. No, no, I feel tired, and you're you start panicky about it. Um I think like as I said, I haven't really removed it, but I have definitely reduced. It an awful lot, um, and I think like I think I am a kind of a person, and that's it's a good thing because I think I'd end up being a fucking crack addict that I kind of chase that high from things that I'm the kind of person that I need to feel something from it to know it's working, and like I couldn't never take like a pre-workout unless I felt something from it. If it had so much caffeine in it, I was like, that's not doing anything for me. I need to have something. That's why like that's when you start ending up buying fucking pre-workouts that have DMA and they start having like cold sweats in the corner, panicking. Um, because I need to feel something. So when I was actually pulled back on the amount I was having, I was getting the same benefits from less. So I think that's my way of kind of fooling myself to say, like, you don't have to take a break, like just have a small bit less and you can happens.

Benefits Of Deloads And Sensitivity

SPEAKER_00 20:49

It's like yeah, it's like anything with training volume or whatever, it's managing the actual load and not staying at like level 12 all the time. Um, so something that I do, um, I would rarely have like caffeine-free days. If that's something that people can manage, uh, doing like one to two caffeine-free days per week, it'd be absolutely awesome as well, too, right? That that's a way of keeping on top of like remaining some level of sensitivity there that you kind of don't have to be like absolutely hammering yourself all the time to get like some kind of a response from it, too. Um going into like now at the moment, I like to have first thing in the morning, do like a coffee. Uh, I'll have it out of the brewer at home. Um, generally quite a strong coffee, cool. I'll have 18 to 20 grams, snake that back throughout the morning in a couple of cups, deadly. Then I'll go to like a half calf, and this is something that actually got a lot of interest off my stories. I've got a 3FE uh what's the name on it? It's half calf. I think they have a name on something, kind of a name on it. I don't I can't think of it. Um, but it's it's half decaf, half full caffeinated. So again, this is where some smart asses are kind of thinking, like, well, I can drink twice as much. That's not the goal, right? It's not the goal. The goal is to reduce the overall caffeine intake. So again, kind of going to a half calf can work really, really well, or even go into like a full decaf or something like a Swiss process thereafter. Um, provided that you brew it well and you can actually have a nice taste in cup of coffee and actually, you know, do the thing. Um, those who kind of just neck back shots of espresso, I don't think they really get the flavour of it as well, too. I think they're just like really fueling a habit. So if you can get that time to like have your coffee and actually sit and be with it and have a nice bit of peace and quiet, that for many people is like their practice of meditation or mindfulness as well, too, right? So they're just taking a few minutes for themselves. Um, but for me, managing my caffeine, I will still have the breaks uh from time to time. I had one probably five months ago for two weeks, so probably due another one now at some point. I generally like in January because it's nice just to relax and kick back over the Christmas period and like have some nice coffees in-house and whatever. Um, in January, probably do a little bit of a detox if you want to call it that, pull out caffeine for a while. But my demands are going to be much higher in January then, as well, too, where I need to be like cognitively pretty sharp. So you can kind of periodise it to a degree as well, too, where you know you want to have better mental uh focus and performance and clarity and actually put in strategic removal of the caffeine around that time as well, too, where you can actually get more from yourself without needing to rely on that or without impacting your sleep negatively as well, too. So, again, like even if you look at those who are like into like really heavy periods of like study, when you start to like consume a lot of caffeine for those maybe students or those doing uh whatever it might be, um without their with their their further studies and research and whatever as well, too. It's like looking at that, the better quality your sleep is, the better quality your REM part of your actual sleep is, the more you're going to upload those um pieces of study, that piece of information, you're gonna back that up to your own little cloud, your own little server within your brain. If your sleep is impaired, you're not gonna be backing that up at all. So, again, like being mindful around like your caffeine consumption in heavier cognitive load times when you're actually wanting to get more memory performance too can be like really, really key. Um, something that can be utilized then alongside for those who are kind of tend to be a little bit sensitive to caffeine if they find that they're really jittery, but they want to have like the boost in energy or they kind of want to have the performance enhancing element of it as well, too. Um, something that you can utilize, and I'm really cautious around saying this because again, those who are like mega addicts will start to like bump up a line or two of like theanine and start to like you know feed the habit even more. So taking L-tenine alongside, you know, 100 grams of L-Thenine a day alongside your caffeine can minimize the effects of the jitters, the shakes, the rattles, the anxiousness, the nervousness that comes with it. But again, as a caveat, if you're trying to mask all those massively negative impacts from it to get through the day and like really lean into it, you need to look at your uh usage of caffeine as well, too. But if you've got something that uh involves a lot of coordination or a lot of like still hands, maybe you want to have some caffeine before you give a talk and you don't want to be like jittery, shaky, whatever it might be in front of some public speaking, some teenine can be very useful outside of all that as well, too. Um, further notes on this, uh, because I want to keep this quite light and I don't want to be like coming across to people saying like you need to give up caffeine and like give up your whole life and all the thing as well, too. But like what other insights would you like to run through, Daniel, on this with caffeine use?

Cutting Back Tactics: Half‑Caff And Decaf

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I think we've kind of covered the vast majority of things. Um, I think the only thing that we didn't touch on hugely was the people using it for workouts. Um, because like obviously from when I was running a gym, it kind of it's gonna sound strange, but like we're selling monsters in the gym, but I also would be saying it's you're wasting your time drinking a monster in the gym because you're not getting any benefits from the caffeine in it. Um, so just kind of touch on the timing of caffeine. Realistically, you'd want to be kind of consume it 30 to 90 minutes before your session, depending on like your sensitivity and stuff as well. Um, because that's when it will actually peak in the blood if you're drinking a kind of monster throughout your session, like you're not actually going to be no, it's not gonna be peaking your blood until probably warming down or like leaving the actual gym. So um make sure that you actually have it before going to the gym, and I think that actually again, that's for some people, it's the same as having your morning coffee, it's like a pre-workout ritual that you might sit in the car before going in, drinking your pre-workout or whatever it is, isn't there some music, watching videos, whatever it is. But I think that's the most important thing is just to make sure you're actually timing it and not just misusing it for the sake of it. Because if you're going into the gym in the evening time or whatever, again, you don't want to be relying on something like caffeine that you can use something that's like a pump formula, something that's gonna have no caffeine in it. And as I said, like caffeine isn't gonna be the best in terms of like blood flow or the pump, whereas like using a non-caffeinated pre-workout is gonna be more beneficial in that sense. So that's what I would be opting for if you're going for like evening sessions. Um, that was again one of the reasons why I loved walking out in the morning because it was like you just drink as much as you can want, just start taking caffeine, yeah, just caffeine tablets alongside your pre-workout and everything, just take as much as you want. But again, that's where you just encounter the other side of it where like you can't do your session because like you're so hyped up, or like your heart rate is going so high, you're sweating. So, again, you're always better off at using the least amount of possible. So if you are looking to use it, I think like you can kind of go off rough two to four hundred milligrams kind of like covers all bases for most people. So I wouldn't really be looking to go above that um a day here and there is grand, but like I wouldn't be looking to do it long term, really.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

No. So again, like looking at that, the time it again is like the really, really key thing to one get the most out of it, but two, to actually get the value from it and not have yourself like feeling superposed up as you're only leaving the gym. So if you're one of those who like walks into the gym next back to a pre-workout shot with the caffeine in, waiting for the energy, 60 to 75 minutes later, that's going to be peaking. And that's exactly when you're walking out of the gym. So you're gonna feel incredibly shit. Um, so again, it's looking at the likes of that. Um, something that caffeine can have an impact on also is like blood sugar levels. So, again, being quite if you're if you're ramping up your nervous system quite a bit, you can notice you get that little bit low, cold, sweaty, shaky kind of feeling at time. That can be blood sugars dropping off. So, again, be mindful of that. Um, again, looking at the timing, knowing that it's a six to eight hour half-life, but understand your own sensitivities. If you're going to use something as powerful as caffeine, and again, like it is a very incredibly powerful drug that can be harnessed for a lot of good, but then also can have a lot of negative outcomes. Just understand how you and your actual response is to it, uh, whether you're a fast metabolizer, whether you're a slow metabolizer, how your actual heart rate responds to it, how your sleep responds to it, all these things. Um, because again, you're in control you're in charge and in control of your body, so it's it's understanding the actual impacts of these uh very, very powerful supplements and the impact they can have, but then you can get way more from it as well, too, and actually benefit way more too. Um cool. I think we've covered a lot on caffeine. Like, there's a lot of like really fun stuff you can look up about caffeine, and like you can make it like a really like joyous experience, but actually learning how to brew it and enjoy it as well, too, or just leveraging off, being like super geeked out and super hyped up for your sessions as well, too. Whatever way you enjoy it, I hope you're having a good one. Uh, hopefully you're not listening to this too late in the day and you want to go like get buzzed out of your mind as well, too. Daniel, anything to sign off on?

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah, I think I feel like a fraud at the same time when it comes to coffee because like I'm not I'm not a coffee snob at all. I like coffee, but I'm also not willing to invest the time into it. So, like my coffee is literally like 3.50 instant coffee from Tesco's that probably isn't 90% like art. Um, but again, it looks like I have to just like fill half the cup with like coffee just to actually get something from it. Um so I I wouldn't say I'm like qualified in terms of like taste, but I think I am qualified in terms of like dosage.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, I'm gonna have to bring you up and do like a proper cupping experience here where we can get out the the V60 dripper and we can compare that to the Kemex and we can have the little gooseneck kettle and we can do all the snobby shit. Um the reality of it is I just like to look like I know what I'm doing with stuff as well, too, and I'm probably just faking it till I make it with the cafe thing. Uh, hopefully you guys got a lot of value from this. Again, leveraging off it. If you've you've got questions, if you've got experiences you want to share with us, if you want to shoot us a DM, just fire those across. We're always here. We can have a little virtual coffee and shoot the breeze over it as well, too. So hopefully, you guys have got a lot of value from this. You'll be able to learn and able to leverage off this going forward on how you can actually use and implement and improve your experience with caffeine as well. Until the next one. Get buzzed. Enjoy your coffee responsibly.