Coffee dilemma: I'm on the fence help please

[Moke]

Great thread. Coffee is coffee. Some have more others less. I have never seen anyone drink a 20 oz expresso. But I see people drink 10 plus cups of drip a day. My worse was when I worked ER on the evening shift. Trauma after trauma came in and I missed dinner. Someone brought in a big blob of coffee beans covered with chocolate. Bet I ate almost a half of pound. as I was starving. Palpitations, wide awake for 20 hrs and a good knowledge of too much caffeine. I agree to the answer is one cup of good coffee a day or an expresso shot and a <10oz cup of drip a day is probably a great dose for not having side effects. I "like" coffee, but don't ever feel like I "need" coffee.

[ericpmoss]

Great thread. Coffee is coffee. Some have more others less. I have never seen anyone drink a 20 oz expresso. But I see people drink 10 plus cups of drip a day. My worse was when I worked ER on the evening shift. Trauma after trauma came in and I missed dinner. Someone brought in a big blob of coffee beans covered with chocolate. Bet I ate almost a half of pound. as I was starving. Palpitations, wide awake for 20 hrs and a good knowledge of too much caffeine. I agree to the answer is one cup of good coffee a day or an expresso shot and a <10oz cup of drip a day is probably a great dose for not having side effects. I "like" coffee, but don't ever feel like I "need" coffee.

Those chocolate covered beans are dangerous. I remember a test I was ready for, mostly, but I was exhausted and ate 6oz of them. I just sat there and shook through the exam. Bad call.

[sevencyclist]

Here is the summary from the recent Meta-Analysis publication in British Medical Journal.

Coffee consumption seems generally safe within usual levels of intake, with summary estimates indicating largest risk reduction for various health outcomes at three to four cups a day, and more likely to benefit health than harm. Robust randomised controlled trials are needed to understand whether the observed associations are causal. Importantly, outside of pregnancy, existing evidence suggests that coffee could be tested as an intervention without significant risk of causing harm. Women at increased risk of fracture should possibly be excluded.

[LarryA]

Helps if you can figure out how many grams of coffee you're consuming. When I started weighing what was coming out of the grinder, I discovered I'd been pulling triple espressos;-)

[froze]

I agree with others, you simply need to cut back to one cup a day. Because I cycle and on long trips I'll take a GU flask (4 ounces) full of black coffee instead of the expensive GU or some other brand of ride pick me up for long rides, but if you drink more then a 1/2 cup a day the effect of the caffeine on a bike ride is reduced significantly, so I only drink a 1/2 cup a day, on rare occasions I may have my morning 1/2 cup at home and end up someplace that I know has a good cup of coffee and order it, but the vast majority of the time it's just 1/2 cup of real strong brewed coffee. Any health benefit you get from coffee comes with the drinking of 1/2 cup to 1 cup, anything over that reduces the health benefit and will actually start reversing the benefit.

[froze]

It is quite possible you simply cannot tolerate coffee! What you could do first before giving up entirely is to only drink one shot of espresso a day instead of 2 you are currently doing. Then see what happens over time, if you still feel crappy try reducing by 1/2 the amount of coffee grounds you put in the portafilter (or if Moka pot fill the funnel tank by 1/2 way instead of full) and try that. If no success than you can't tolerate coffee, no shame in that, you simply can't drink something you really like but you can live without it.