Alice and Giacomo dive deep into the world’s favorite stimulant. They explore how it impacts training, recovery, hydration, and sleep, and share personal experiences with dependence, withdrawal, and mindful moderation.
You’ll learn how to use caffeine strategically for better workouts without burning out, the benefits of pairing it with L-theanine and L-tyrosine, and why switching to decaf or cycling off caffeine can improve long-term performance.
Whether you’re a vegan athlete, bodybuilder, or just trying to optimize your energy, this conversation offers practical tools to help you use caffeine smarter.
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Okay, well hello everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Protein’s Muscles by Brussels radio. My name is Alice.
[Giacomo]And I’m Giacomo. So what’s going on, Alice? We work together, we do the same thing, we’ve traveled all over the place and wouldn’t you know it, I have absolutely no clue what’s going on in your world.
How have you been?
[Alice]I have been good, but also just ground to dust. When was the last time I talked to you about… So, I have a new adventure happening and I’ve only told a couple of people about it, some clients and just a few people.
But my new adventure is I am starting to do strongwoman training.
[Giacomo]That’s right, you were saying that. Right around the same time that Danny started doing CrossFit, I don’t know what’s happening. We were all bodybuilders and now we have CrossFitters, strongman athlete, Corinne is cycling.
Like what is the world coming to? I’m so confused right now. I don’t even…
It’s like the world is like just turned upside down. I’m lost. I’m not…
She was like, why don’t you do CrossFit? I’m like, no. It’s been bodybuilding for how long now?
I’m not about to stop. Nope.
[Alice]Yeah, yeah. No, so bodybuilding isn’t going anywhere for me. But as most of you who are listening know and have been following my journey, I am in the middle of a very long and purposeful build because I, if possible, would rather not compete in bikini anymore.
I would like to compete if in an ideal world, I would love to compete in women’s physique. But I would also be happy with figure, right? I would also be happy with wellness.
I mean, wherever I land, I want to be in a bigger category. So I am trying to do a significant build. And this is probably like a much more significant build than most female bodybuilders go through, I would say, because I am about almost a year into it.
And I am planning on building for another year and maybe a quarter. So just very, very slow weight gain. I’m doing everything right as far as my training.
But it is very depressing. It’s super depressing that I’m not going to be able to compete again until, you know, late 2020.
[Giacomo]Alice, I’ve been doing this for 20-ish years. You get used to that sprint, I got to tell you. The last time I competed was like three years ago.
I feel like competing helps you stay fresh. I think part of it could be accountability. Like if you know you’re going to compete, you push a little harder.
But I think when you do that, it’s at the expense of you showing up better the next time, as opposed to the other athlete who’s going to take that two, three, five, seven plus years to build. Because what’s the point in stepping on stage if you’re not going to look better?
[Alice]Right. I agree. And I think that’s very normal for men to do that.
I don’t think it’s very normal for women to do a build. But for as long as I’m talking about doing it, I’ve never met or heard of another woman, you know, going this particular route. But I just need something to help me stay excited and something to keep me, I don’t know, like, I’ll tell you.
OK, so Brady is my coach. I reached out to Brady and I asked him, I was like, hey, do you actually coach people? Anyone who’s listening, Brady is the captain of the vegan strong plant built strongman team.
And I’m like, this guy has got to, he has got to coach because I know that he works at a gym and he does like strongman Saturdays. That’s not his main job. He has another job.
But he said yes. And so I hired him and I’ve got a program and I am a week and a half to the program. And Giacomo, I’m dead.
I’m completely like ground to dust.
[Giacomo]So Dani has bruises all over the place as she’s getting used to training with barbells in a much faster way. You’re picking up all kinds of random things. And I’m just standing my ground here, just picking the same heavy thing up and putting the same heavy thing down.
And I’m keeping myself sane by just decorating for Halloween. I pulled out all the decorations. Well, yours we didn’t have to put away because yours stays right at the right at our door year round.
Trick or treat. Always Halloween out here in New England. So that’s what I’ve been up to, friend.
Just having fun, doing my same boring old routine and trying to stay sane. But I applaud you for the strongman stuff. And I’ll preserve judgment until we see what happens.
[Alice]I don’t know how serious this is. I’m not signed up for. We have chosen two competitions for me for twenty twenty six for strong women.
Now I’m just going to be competing as novice so far as the plan. But hey, I am really excited to see where this goes. You know, you know, my biggest like motivator, the thing that really was like, oh, I want to do this.
We were in Tampa at the best. And I was watching like everyone on our team, including like the smaller, you know, my say, you know, like the smaller people pulling trucks, you know, they were pulling that F-150. And I was like, I thought this was reserved for someone who just had like a lot of size, a lot of strength, you know.
And I was like, holy crap, can I potentially like do this? So that got me really, really excited. So that’s I told Brady, I’m like, I want to push, pull, lift, carry vehicles.
And he said, I can help you do that.
[Giacomo]Got it. OK, well, I am certainly cheering you on. I like to tease.
I only tease the people that I love. I consider you family, more or less. So that’s the only reason why I’m poking.
I’m actually very excited. And I’ve done it myself with powerlifting and bodybuilding, doing different stuff. Right.
So you, of course, are doing everything you can to improve as an athlete and you can focus on your training. And I feel like that’s the perfect segue to what we’re talking about today, which is not training per se, but how different things you can do, more specifically what you can do to optimize your performance. But when it comes to supplementation, caffeine specifically, which, gosh, well, I don’t know.
Well, I don’t even know where we begin with caffeine, but it’s the world’s most widely accepted substance slash drug of choice. And anyone who knows what it’s like to get a swift kick in the butt from caffeine says, OK, well, this is a no brainer. Why don’t I have this before I train and I’ll have a little I’ll have a better training session because I have more energy.
I’ll be more alert. I’ll be more awake, et cetera, et cetera. But there’s a much broader topic when it comes to caffeine.
So rather than steer in the conversation any particular way, what are your initial thoughts as far as caffeine usage and performance?
[Alice]Well, good question. I will say like right off the bat that I take a very OK, so I guess more of an unpopular opinion. Let’s just say unpopular opinion.
I am very hesitant to use caffeine. I’m not saying that I completely avoid it, but let me just give a little bit of background. During my last competition prep, I definitely went overboard on some caffeine, inappropriate amounts, and I saw consequences from it.
So let’s just say I have a very strong respect for caffeine because I think, you know, I definitely have PTSD. That’s for sure. But I think that people, I think a lot of people kind of abuse it.
And I think a lot of people think that it’s not a big deal. But the truth is, the truth is like this is a substance that you can get addicted to and have, you know, consequences by overdoing it. And I think that so many people just don’t respect it enough.
So I don’t want to say that there’s absolutely, absolutely some ways that we can utilize it to our advantage. But I don’t know, I guess I want to come a little bit at it from like the angle of, I don’t know, like how much is too much? Like what do you have to look out for?
I mean, how do you feel about caffeine, Dr. Mo?
[Giacomo]Well, when I was two months old, my dad made a shot of espresso and he put it in my baby bottle and he chugged that and he said, that’s how you’re going to get used to caffeine when you start you off young. So I’m a fan. I love it.
I think it’s great.
[Alice]I’ll say like my parents were not afraid for us to have to have coffee when we were kids. But I will say it was like, you know, this much coffee and that much milk and sugar. But no, it’s been around forever.
I mean, but, you know, OK, so it’s going to suppress your appetite. Right. Which is the number one thing that people use it for, for competition prep.
Right. It’s going to give you at least a temporary increase in energy. But it’s also going to have diminishing returns.
Right. I think they say the limit is that most people can handle what, up to 400. What is it?
Is it milliliters? Right.
[Giacomo]So if you’re doing the math, you’re looking at maybe four to six, five to six shots of espresso or say two to three, eight ounce cups of post-ship coffee or less.
[Alice]So, yeah, we we estimate, you know, that much like drip coffee, right. That much shots of espresso. But we don’t really know how much is in most coffee.
Most of the boxes are going to tell you like. Yeah, we say that and we guesstimate, but I think a lot of people are actually having way more than they think. And it’s just trickly.
It’s just tricky. There’s literally no way to know. Coffee doesn’t really disclose it.
Tea doesn’t really disclose it. Some decaf coffee might give you a rough estimate because I’ve been really into decaf coffee just for like for the ritual of the whole thing. Right.
Yeah, I think I think a lot of people like it’s a lot more strong than they believe in. They’re taking in more caffeine than they think. Can I also bring up that there’s a lot of people that think that they’re not affected by caffeine, like that they’re almost immune to its effects.
Right. And you’ve seen any of those studies or any of those claims?
[Giacomo]I make that claim all the time. I remember making that claim as a young college student. And I’m like, I could drink a cup of coffee and go to sleep for the night.
And I’m totally fine. And I doesn’t affect my age levels at all. And when I think about in hindsight, I’m like, yeah, you dope.
That’s why you don’t sleep at night. And that’s why you’re jittery and erratic all day long and you are fried and fatigued. But you don’t know any better and you don’t think things through.
But absolutely, it absolutely affects your mood, affects your stress levels. It drains your system of so many things. So and I think sleep is the biggest issue when it comes to caffeine.
Like if you’re if you’re getting in anything more than a low dose and even a low dose past, say, 2 p.m., you’re not giving a chance for half of the caffeine to metabolize in your system. It’s they say like 20 percent of your sleep is going to get disturbed at the minimum. And how sacred is sleep when you it’s hard enough to shut your brain down at night when you’re thinking about what you’re excited to do the next day, what you left on the table for the day.
Maybe you just don’t have an ideal sleeping pattern or good sleep hygiene. Sleep is hard to come by. So making it worse with caffeine is definitely a tradeoff if you’re a heavy caffeine user.
[Alice]Yeah. Now, I do believe that so many of us are using caffeine so much, drinking so much caffeine. It’s so integrated into our lives that, sure, if you are consuming a lot of caffeine on a regular basis, it’s not going to it’s going to have less of an impact than someone who is not used to having caffeine.
But no, anecdotally, you know, truly, I don’t believe that there are people out there that are just not going to be impacted by caffeine. You know, some people are like, oh, if you have ADHD, maybe it won’t. Right.
[Giacomo]They say that some people are slower metabolizers and some people are faster metabolizers. And you can actually get your genes tested, whether it’s partial genome or whole genome testing, like 23andMe or Function Health and figure out what gene you have for it. But to your point, yeah, it can’t.
You’re still going to be impacted by it. It’s just a matter for how long.
[Alice]Right. And let’s be real, like anyone that you talk to who is a coffee fan and is not willing to give up their coffee, they’re like, that’s me. I’m not impacted.
And it’s like, well, I’m not the best. I think I’m proud of myself listening to their body.
[Giacomo]Yes, they are. They are.
[Alice]They will ignore lots of basic things going on in our bodies, jitteriness, anxiety, stress, burnout. These are all like definite, like direct links to caffeine. Right.
But even things like being sleepy, being hungry, you know, hunger, fullness cues, both of those. And people will even sort of ignore, I’d say, low to mid levels of like pain that they experience. Like people will just ignore so many things going on in their body.
And I think when you love the ritual of caffeine, you love the taste of coffee. You know, you have it integrated into your life. Maybe you really lean on it for maybe like certain parts of your day.
Like, I think you’re a lot more likely to fall into that camp rather than admit like, maybe I should scale back on this a little bit. But I think people think that they can’t optimize without caffeine.
[Giacomo]You think that? I don’t believe that’s true. I do wrestle with that idea, though.
The last time, earlier this year, I actually cut my caffeine intake to zero milligrams a day. Like, no, I cut it all out for maybe four or five, six months, and I felt fine. And then at some point, I was like, you know what?
Let me cheat a little bit. Let me get a little energy. And then before, you know what?
I’m right back to 400 milligrams six months later. It’s crazy how that works. And I’m in the doctor’s office getting my physical last week.
And I’m proud of myself for saying this. She’s like, why are you getting in 400 milligrams of caffeine? I just looked her dead in the eyes like addiction.
And then she checked my hands, and she’s like, okay, well, you don’t have any tremors in a serious clinical way, because there are actual potential long-term consequences to doing something that artificially enhances your system. For example, so like you said, being honest with yourself, being truthful, and saying what your experience is, listening to your body, and not just acknowledging, but talking about what’s going on in your body can help you get better answers as far as assessing the risks, the pros, the cons, as opposed to just being like, well, I want to do this. I enjoy it.
So I’m just going to keep drinking, you know, keep getting my caffeine.
[Alice]Yeah. You talked about the tremors, you know, some other like physiological things that can be happening. You could have increased urination, right?
You can have actually a faster heartbeat. It is a stimulant, right? And mood stuff for sure, I’d say, right?
[Giacomo]Totally.
[Alice]But so, you know, it’s not without its benefits, for sure. There is a lot of good science that proves that it’s very helpful to athletes. I think we also have some pretty good science that shows it’s pretty good for building muscle as well, right?
As far as like, maybe there are some things that talk about how it can improve muscle contraction, since it has that, also, since it has that sort of pain reducing effect on people, it helps people push more through tougher workouts, right? So it can kind of reduce pain, right? There’s all kinds of wild claims, right?
I don’t have any like the science actually pulled up in front of me, but, you know, I would like to, I wonder how old some of these claims are. I guess I really wanted, I should have done like a really deep dive on this, but there’s a part of me that sort of like has a little bit of a wall up on some of these claims, because probably, you know, what we just recently found out about like all the BS claims about wine and alcohol, like, oh, a little bit of alcohol is good for your health, right?
[Giacomo]Yeah, that was like me going to church and I was like, okay, I could drink a little bit of the wine and we can all drink a little bit of the wine, because it’s part of a ritual and a little bit of what, remember the priest being like, a little bit of wine is good for you. And I’m kind of like, well, if he said it was okay, then it’s fine. And then once you know it, it’s just because it’s socially acceptable to drink, or it’s a ritual or whatever, you turn around, it’s like, no, it’s purely toxic.
Not even, there’s no tiny amount of alcohol that’s actually good for you. Crazy how that works. Yeah.
Yeah.
[Alice]I don’t think it’s going to be that bad for caffeine, but I do wonder like how many of these claims are like, you know, the coffee industry. I don’t know. We’ll see.
I need to do a deeper dive. But for sure, it can absolutely improve your performance. I know for sure that probably one of the best ways that you can utilize it as an athlete, and this was from, I think it was from an Iron Culture podcast I was listening to maybe a couple months back, talking about how if you are trying to change from a late, like a, you know, maybe a mid-morning to an afternoon to an evening workout, up to say like an early morning routine, then caffeine can really, really be your friend during that transition time, right? Because a lot of us are just, you know, we wake up early, we’re not feeling capable of working out, not feeling capable of anything, and it can just give us that temporary boost just to get us used to that routine.
So that’s probably one of the most powerful ways that you could utilize it. But, you know, talking about things like pre-workout, how so many pre-workouts have caffeine in them, and there are people who use pre-workout and with caffeine as an ingredient, but they use it every single day in their workout, and the fact is it can have diminishing returns. And it can, it’s basically at that point, we think of it as like borrowed energy, right?
So you’re giving yourself this boost for your workout, but that means you’re going to be more tired later on the day. You know, that means that hopefully you’re not having it after 2 p.m. obviously, because that’s definitely going to impact your sleep. But it still, it still could impact people’s sleep.
And overall, big picture, it could be slowly taking away from like your ability to fully like optimally recover, right? Would you agree with that?
[Giacomo]Well, it’s masking how under recovered you are. So you don’t wind up taking steps to recover from the fatigue that you’re creating and then eventually are in a position where you’re chronically fatigued because it’s hard to listen to your system and your body because you’re constantly on high alert because you’re stimulated because you’re getting caffeine every day.
[Alice]Right.
[Giacomo]Yeah.
[Alice]I think that people in the fitness industry really worship caffeine. I think, I think it is becoming a lot, and I’m, I’m glad about this. I’m one of them for sure.
It’s become a lot more popular to like quit drinking. But I think a lot of people are just like sort of turned to caffeine as like sort of like a pick your poison kind of scenario. Like, well, now I have an excuse to have more caffeine.
And, you know, everyone sort of really, really hypes it up for what it can do for you for fitness. I don’t know. I am at a point where I drink very small amounts of coffee right now, personally.
I’m pretty much making flat whites for myself. And I didn’t even know what that was until recently. But it’s basically like mostly, you know, plant milk, in my case, obviously being vegan.
And then like, man, I’m going to have a coffee and that milk.
[Giacomo]So this is going to kind of seem counterintuitive. But the way that I’ve been wrapping my head around it lately is, well, when I start to get really hungry, when I start to get really tired, when I have to push through and do all these things, because I am pushing really hard for a body composition goal, for example, because that’s a big competition for bodybuilding. But anyway, really, I think of like the person who’s like, Okay, I want to reduce my calories, I want to be getting in more steps, and I want to do more cardio, and I want to push just as hard in the gym, I want to do all these things.
It’s like, and I’m a lot hungrier now, and I’m a lot more tired. So what would you do? Logically, you take the tool out of your chest that helps you get the energy and you use it.
And one of those tools are caffeine. So I’m trying to be a little counterintuitive here and think to myself, well, when I am in that kind of pressure cooker, I’m already pretty good at stimulating my fight or flight sensors, I’m already on high alert, I’m already pushing like crazy, because it’s my mindset, and I’ve just been adapted to it. So what I wind up doing is realizing that my cortisol levels get super high, and my adrenaline is already flowing.
And at that point in time, if I want to find a way to sleep better, if I want to find a way to realize how underrecovered I am, I don’t need caffeine. It’s just like a double whammy, it’s adding into the injury. If anything, I feel like that’s a good time to taper off caffeine, which is exactly what you did.
And there’s fear around that, right? Because it’s feeding the beast, it’s already inside you. But if you’re already like that, because of what you’re doing, because of your routine, if you pull the caffeine away, you could actually get through that without being neurotic and anxious and who knows what, right?
Putting your system on overdrive when it’s already on overdrive. And then when you’re not like that, and you want to boost because you want to train harder, and you’re in a safer place, your body’s in a safer place, then maybe you try your 100 milligram or 200 milligram hit before your training, if you’ve already had another hit in, say, the morning, for example. Trying to keep that upper limit in mind and trying not to top it, the 400 milligram.
And like you said earlier, if you’re reaching that upper limit and still the effect is not as powerful, well then try to find a way to give yourself a little bit of break, whether it’s going down to one cup or two instead of three, or maybe just stopping altogether. Give your body a chance to re-regulate itself.
[Alice]Or switch to decaf, guys. I mean, I really challenge a lot of people to try decaf because so many of us are so married to that morning ritual. And my gosh, just having that taste in the morning, having that hot beverage, you know, it’s part of our morning.
It’s hard to detach from that. We’re literally emotionally attached to that whole thing. Having decaf, decaf coffee is still going to have a little bit of caffeine in it, right?
It’s going to be more closer to like maybe having like a soda rather than like this huge big dose, right? Because it’s marginal percentage. And who knows?
You could figure out like, huh, I feel a lot better overall. And then by scaling back, you can, like you said, sort of choose when to utilize this caffeine as a weapon. Like, all right, I really need it, you know, such and such days, such and such times.
Like I know that I lean on caffeine when I’m working at the vegan strong booth, right? Because you have to be on. You have to be on all day.
You have to be talking to people. So like caffeine helps me then. But as soon as I get home, I’m right back to, you know, minimal caffeine.
Also, if you are thinking about doing decaf coffee, guys, I recommend finding Swiss water decaffeinated coffee so that you don’t have to. So most decaf coffee is actually decaffeinated with like a chemical solvent. So a lot of people are very hesitant to have decaf coffee, especially people in the vegan community, right?
So like, I don’t want that chemical, right? But if you can find Swiss water decaf, then it is, they don’t use the solvent. It’s just like a different process.
You add water to decaffeinate it. And it’s a little more, it’s a little more costly, but it’s becoming more and more common and easy to find. So we have been looking for Swiss water decaf coffee.
[Giacomo]Interesting. I didn’t realize that was a thing. I tried to make my own decaf back in the day, but I never got around to it.
Like a piece of cheese called, like really old school, like removing the chemicals from the process in the beans or just trying to make, yeah, something like that. I forgot. It was a long time ago.
But I will say we’re talking a lot about how to moderate caffeine and its potential effects and this and that. But what I would love to talk about also is how you can actually use caffeine to benefit, not just like the time, but so something, something that I do, right, is, and I actually have it right here in front of me, because I have it at my desk. I use tyrosine and I use theanine.
I, whenever I get in a cup of coffee, so as often as I can remember, see right there, tyrosine and theanine. So these things do to, and I’m going to refer to my notes here, so I don’t botch this. So.
[Alice]The theanine one more time. You just, it was so fast.
[Giacomo]Right there.
[Alice]See, you can see it. You got now sports, L-theanine. Okay.
Gotcha.
[Giacomo]So L-theanine is good for managing the jitteriness that comes with coffee. And the reason why is because when you get caffeine in, right, it blocks your adenosine receptors. It doesn’t lessen them.
It just blocks them. Right. So you have this feeling of alert and your alertness and your focus.
And in addition to that, though, it also, it also focuses, it also works on your, how do I say, neurotransmitters, your dopamine and your serotonin. Right. But it also deplete, you know, and they get depleted and they get overproduced.
With L-theanine, it modulates the production of dopamine and serotonin with GABA and dopamine, basically producing a calming effect without sedation. So in short, when you’re jittery and worked up from coffee, it has to do with your neurotransmitters and how caffeine stimulates them. So if you take L-theanine alongside caffeine, you’ll be less jittery essentially.
And then the tyrosine has, it’s a like with like kind of effect. It’s synergistic. So that tyrosine, when the caffeine depletes your neurotransmitters because it’s revving them up, your L-tyrosine will go ahead and replace those neurotransmitters that are depleted by caffeine and the stress that it puts on your system.
So imagine this, you get your caffeine in, yeah, you get your caffeine in and you get it in with theanine and now you’re not jittery because it’s regulating your neurotransmitters. And that’s pretty cool because now you’re calmer, right? And then you take your L-tyrosine with it and those neurotransmitters that will be depleted eventually anyway, they’re getting replaced for a little bit of a period of time.
So now you have a prolonged effect without as much jitteriness. So it’s like if you’re going, and I’ve tried to strategize and been like, well, if this hit is better, look, if this hit is better, I’ll have getting less caffeine. And ladies and gents, it’s not true.
I’m still getting in plenty of caffeine. But if you’re going to get in caffeine, you might as well get it in the most useful way possible.
[Alice]Right. And have some tools to help diminish the negative effects. I love that.
I didn’t know, actually, I’m almost certain that Carson has talked to me about both of those things before, but it’s almost as if he just stepped in for a moment in this podcast. I was speaking through you. So I really appreciate that.
Thank you, Chuck.
[Giacomo]You’re welcome.
[Alice]Carson is definitely one of those people who is just like, he’s like caffeine is just like a lifesaver. It doesn’t have a single negative impact on me ever, ever.
[Giacomo]Gosh. And interesting enough, green tea has threonine naturally occurring in it and chocolate has tyrosine naturally occurring in it. So if you ever wonder why it’s like, wow, chocolate and caffeine and green tea tends to not be as, how do I say, it doesn’t work you up as much as, say, coffee.
Those are the reasons why.
[Alice]I have been a big fan of some matcha drinks as of late, but I don’t know if it’s because of those reasons. I think it’s just because they have something in them that I don’t have it fresh in my brain, something in them that’s just, you can’t really get the beneficial ingredient from almost anything else unless you just take it in pill form. So trying to occasionally have some matcha, I’m enjoying that.
But also speaking of tea, I have been like making a evening ritual of having chamomile tea, which thankfully is caffeine free. But I know that it sounds like BS, like chamomile tea couldn’t actually like relax me. No way.
But it actually does work very well for me. I have chamomile tea in the evening and it’s not long after that, but it does feel almost like a little bit of a drug effect where it’s just, oh man, I’ve got to go to bed now. You know, there are things that you can have that are hot beverages that you can swap out for that are going to have other benefits.
It doesn’t have to be coffee. It doesn’t have to be super, super high caffeinated drink, you know, and it can still be beneficial. So don’t get rid of all your hot beverages.
Just like start to rethink how you’re utilizing this caffeine, what you’re helping to take, like what you’re taking to help with it. And yeah, use it to your advantage because definitely, thankfully, caffeine is not a like banned, prohibited, limited substance for WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, for anyone who is a natural bodybuilder. So you can utilize caffeine and you can do it well and you can do it right.
[Giacomo]Yeah. And while you were sitting here talking about enjoying other hot beverages and having something nice in the morning, I’m already thinking to myself, well, does Alice know about caffeine naps? Well, I mean, the part of this episode also is to talk about the way that you can utilize caffeine to your advantage, right?
I’m obviously taking the opposite approach here, but in all reality, yeah. Are you familiar with that? Do you know how to work it?
You know what it’s all about?
[Alice]All I know is that some people say that they take a cup of coffee and it actually puts them to sleep. Is that what you’re referring to? Check this out.
[Giacomo]So your adenosine receptors, right? When they get triggered, that’s how you get sleepy. And then what do you do when you get triggered and you get sleepy?
You go to sleep. So when you go to sleep, what happens? The adenosine gets flushed out of your system.
So you take that and you couple it with getting in caffeine before you go to bed, right? And you get a double whammy because it takes about 20 minutes for caffeine to take effect in your system. Assuming that you’re the type that can fall asleep on the drop of a dime because not everyone can.
But if you can, but if you’re about to take a nap and you’re really tired, right? And you get in whatever, eight ounces of coffee or a shot of espresso or your favorite cup of green tea or what have you, or a piece of chocolate or soda, whatever. If you get that in and then you take a nap and you take a very short, like a cat nap, you know, say 20 minutes or so.
When you wake up, you’ll have less adenosine in your system and you’ll have blocked the receptors that still have adenosine in them. And you’ll wake up just twice as alert. And that’s a caffeine nap in a nutshell, which is pretty cool when you think about it.
They actually sell supplements where you can, it’s such slow release that you can take some sort of caffeine supplement before you go to bed. And it’s timed in such a way where it starts to release in the morning. So you wake up like that.
Isn’t that interesting?
[Alice]That’s really interesting.
[Giacomo]Yeah. Yeah. But, but I will tell you what, instead of just being a little punk over here and talking about how caffeines go where you’re like, Hey, let’s, I’m enabling people to just overdo it, which is not, not, I don’t want to put that message out there.
You definitely want to moderate and get it in moderation and even consider stopping your use altogether for a period of time indefinitely, if that’s for you. I do take periods of time. I call them deloads, caffeine deloads, where I slow down or I stop altogether.
And when I take my, I’m calling it my sabbatical. It’s an annual thing where I take like a full week off from everything. I don’t want to know anybody.
I don’t want to see anything, stop work, recharge my battery. I’m going to try my best. I’m trying to keep myself accountable here because I don’t know if I could do it, but I’m gonna try my best to use that period of time to drop the down because I could focus on getting it down to say a cup of coffee or less.
So I do, I, I do that as well. And I used to do that to help caffeine become more effective in my system. But I’ve since realized that’s just the addictive nature and addictive person inside of me talking reality.
When you stop using caffeine and you start realizing how you can function well without it, then you realize, Oh, okay, maybe I don’t really need this.
[Alice]What do you experience when you have those like caffeine D lids? Like how, how many side effects do you experience personally?
[Giacomo]What I want. So the very first thing that I do, because I don’t like pain, which is funny. Sometimes I lean into pain and I tough it out.
Other times I make things as comfortable as possible for myself. So when I cut my caffeine down to like say zero milligrams, I start taking a little bit of like an, what do you call it? Like an aspirin or something just to help me.
I know that’s kind of weird, but that’s what I do. Whether it’s an aspirin, ibuprofen or something like that, just a little bit, just to like help me deal with the pain and the stress of the withdrawals. So I do that for like a day or two, maybe three tops a couple of times a day.
And then I stop. And then it’s a little bit of a smoother transition. I also try to do it during periods of time where I can not just manage my stress, but take some stress off of my plate or just accept the fact that like the house might be on fire, but I need to recharge my battery because I’ve been pouring from an empty cup for too long.
And I’ll put out the fires later, even if more fires are flaring up around me and I’m becoming, at some point you have to recharge. You have to. It’s, you’re worth it.
Otherwise you’re just going to burn your canoe at both ends and you could do that, but what, at the expense of your health? So I don’t, I need to answer your question, Alice. I, I don’t like the withdrawals.
I get pretty nasty headaches. My sleeping isn’t, my sleep cycle is affected. I wrestle with the idea of why I’m doing what I’m doing and how little caffeine I should get in or, and I think about what I should do after the fact as far as how much more caffeine I should introduce into my system.
That’s usually my mindset and what happens to me. How about you?
[Alice]Yeah, I’m very, very sensitive. I, I’m one of, I consider myself very good at listening to my body. And so some people say that I’m just sensitive to different substances, but I feel like I’m just really got, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at listening to these things.
But yeah, if I can’t even drink a Starbucks beverage now because there’s just so much that it hits, it just hits me and I almost immediately get a headache. So I have to be really careful, you know, not to accidentally consume too much and coming off of caffeine is definitely lots of headaches, lots of mood disturbances. Right now, I’ve been really, really careful just to make sure that I’m not overdoing it day in and day out.
I feel like I’m thriving more. I feel like I have a better grasp on like my ability to focus like consistently throughout the day. Right.
But then again, you know, I do like to save it for times when I need it, whether it’s at the booth or whether it’s if I’ve got, uh, if I have to do some kind of presentation, if I just have to, if there’s anything, anything that I just really want to be on, be talkative, be energetic, have my mind sharp, that’s when I’ll, that’s when I’ll utilize caffeine. And at this point, I feel because of that, I could just have, you know, the equivalent caffeine to like a soda, which is a lot less than relying on an entire cup of coffee to really feel the benefits. And I like that.
I like that I can sort of microdose and control in that way. It makes me feel, makes me feel good, makes me feel like, I don’t know, it’s one less thing that I’m addicted to.
[Giacomo]You didn’t mention one thing about caffeine in training though for you. Is that not really a thing?
[Alice]No, I don’t utilize it for my training. I mean, for right now, starting up with the, the Strong Woman, Strong Woman training, everything hurts. Of course, I have been on a almost entirely machine program.
I mean, I have free weights, like cables and dumbbells, but I have not been utilizing barbells in my training. And here we go, start up Strong Woman. And there’s at least one, usually more than one in my program each day.
And so my nervous system is just really, really shot right now. Doms are bad. I’m really, really focusing on my ability to recover and I’m really focusing on my hydration actually.
And I know that caffeine can kind of sabotage your hydration goals. So no, I don’t want to utilize it for my training because I just want to make sure that I am optimizing my recovery strategy at the moment. I’m sure that I will adjust after a month or so to the difficulties of the training.
And I’m sure my, you know, even my nervous system will adjust to some degree. But no, I’m just so focused in on this build as far as like doing everything right, doing everything right in my training, doing everything right in my nutrition that, I don’t know, I’m just so, so focused in. I don’t know.
Does that make sense?
[Giacomo]Yeah, I’m thinking about my clients too when I try to propose the idea. Sometimes I get straight up ignored. They don’t even respond to the suggestion.
[Alice]Cutting back on caffeine, can I tell you, there’s a lot of people that, I’ll get a new client and, you know, they talk to me about their sleep challenges. And you look through, because obviously our intake form has so many awesome detailed questions. And one of the first things, a lot of times I talk about people is like, sounds like you’re drinking a lot of caffeine, you know, that’s one of the big things.
I’m like, I’m not telling you to quit, but I’m telling you to just be aware of it and reduce.
[Giacomo]Yeah. Yeah. It’s tough, right?
Because you’re getting people to question what they’re doing and you’re encouraging a change in their way of life and with their process. It’s sometimes you can be subtle sometime and it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes you can be very direct and blunt and it works and it doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t. But I do find that caffeine is a harder subject to broach with clients, right?
Someone might be like, well, I’m just going to sleep less because that’s the way it is. Or I’m just going to have a lot of stress because that’s the way it is. Alcohol is a little easier if you talk about it because it’s a duh, but caffeine is one of those sneaky, sneaky things where you have a conversation about it and you don’t even get pushback.
You just, it doesn’t register. But it is something to work on. And like you said, even knowing when to use it, how to use it and the potential consequences, side effects, and how to work caffeine consumption to your advantage as well, rather than saying it’s all good or it’s all bad.
[Alice]Yeah. Yeah. Can I also tell you, so a side topic, for the first time ever, I’ve actually ordered Ultima and I’m using Ultima as part of my hydration strategy.
A little plug.
[Giacomo]Love it.
[Alice]I’ve always loved the taste of it and I’ve always had some, you know, when we’re at the booth, but now I feel like, hey, I actually might need it for this more intense training. That and I’m literally one of those, I’m turning into one of those gym bros that has like the giant gallon of water and I’m bringing like my potassium salts to my workouts. So I’m drinking the Ultima like in the morning, but then when I go to my workouts, I’m having like the potassium salts in my water and trying to time that.
And I’m telling you, this is the best hydrated I have ever been, Giacomo. So I’m feeling pretty proud of that.
[Giacomo]Cool. Cool beans.
[Alice]But you know, I think people might be interested in that because, you know, so often we think of how we can utilize caffeine to give us maybe a more powerful workout, but you know, it is also something that dehydrates us and there, you know, there might be something different to try, you guys, other than just relying on caffeine, thinking about your hydration strategy.
[Giacomo]Yep, for sure. And assess how you feel with less or no caffeine versus how you feel with, and then you’ll know what works for you or what you want to work on. So I do feel like we’ve covered pretty much everything here.
So I’m going to wrap it up as long as that’s with you. And I really enjoyed this one, Alice. It’s been a minute since we got a chance to record and this was fun.
I hope you all find this topic and this subject useful and have some good tips and some good things to think about with something that is usually just so commonplace in your life that you just don’t even bother. It’s like whatever, it’s caffeine. Anyways, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio.
Stay in touch with us on all the socials, at Vegan Proteins and at Muscles by Brussels. Hit the contact button at veganproteins.com to submit a one-on-one coaching inquiry and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. You got five coaches here and we would love to help you.
And there’s a wealth of information and community and audience here to share with you to make sure you get the best results, you can get in the best shape of your life with us. Once again, my name is Jacques Amol.
[Alice]I’m Alice.
[Giacomo]Talk to you soon.
[Alice]Bye.
