Monday

I love coffee. I myself started drinking it at about age 15. I drink about two to four cups of coffee every day. But I don't think that I drink it only for energy. I genuinely enjoy coffee. Coffee is such a huge part of social culture around the world. I mean, think about it, when you go to meet up with a friend that you haven't seen in a while, where do you go? To get a cup of coffee!

There are so many proven benefits of coffee, but there are also some drawbacks. It can be dehydrating, it can disrupt sleep patterns, caffeine increases your stress hormone, and also, coffee tends to lead to unplanned trips to the bathroom (side note). So, I'm going off of it this week, and we'll see how my body responds.

I have a really bad headache, and I've had it all freaking day. It was almost as if the moment I started thinking this morning, my head started hurting. Happy Monday. Good night.

Hi. The sun hurts. Twenty-four hours with no coffee... I didn't think I needed coffee, but let me tell you, I was wrong. Yesterday's headache was just the tip of the iceberg. Today's is even worse. Yesterday I felt really disorganized. I had a couple of morning meetings that I just could not pull myself together, and papers were flying around my desk! People would come over to talk to me and I continuously forgot what I was about to say. Blame it on the fact that it was Monday or blame it on the lack of coffee—who knows.

But instead of just giving in and assuming I must be addicted to coffee, I decided to do some research about foods that naturally will energize my body and make me feel more alert and awake. So here's what I got: some fresh fruit for natural sugar, trail mix, dark chocolate, and in the fridge, I have coconut water and get this...raw sauerkraut. Let's do this. Ouch...

Wednesday

I made a mistake this morning. The point of this five days was to give up coffee, which naturally led to me giving up caffeine, considering coffee is my biggest source of caffeine. So I thought I was being so good and I poured myself a cup of tea instead of coffee. You know, I had another cup...and another cup. Later in the day, my co-producer asked me, "What are you drinking?" And I said, "Tea." She looked at me and asked, "Can I see the label for that?" As it turns out—and I'm so ashamed—I was drinking caffeinated black tea.

Since one cup of black tea has half of the caffeine content of a cup of coffee, and I had three cups of tea, I have today had 1.5 cups of coffee's worth of caffeine. Needless to say, my headaches are gone. If nothing else, this grand mistake of mine has taught me that the headaches and the irritability were from a lack of caffeine. Even still, without the headaches, and even with all the food I've been eating to keep my energy levels up, I still want coffee.

Today, I ran out in the rain, and I went to a coffee shop, and I just sat there and inhaled the fumes. Do you see how crazy this week is making me?

Thursday

My five days of no-coffee challenge has turned into a big, buzzing topic around the R29 office. Everyone's got a coffee story. This person drinks coffee for two weeks and then goes off of it so that they don't get addicted. This other person drank so much coffee that she became allergic to it. That is a true story.

My focus this week was to really dive deep and understand my personal relationship with that dark, steaming roast. As we saw, on Monday and Tuesday, I'm kind of addicted to caffeine. To be honest, even though the caffeine got rid of my headaches, caffeine alone doesn't cut it. That feeling for me of holding a cup of coffee and just inhaling and breathing deeply, taking that first sip—it's a mind, body, and soul experience. So, I'm not sure that I'm addicted as one would say, but I might be...in love. Interesting.

Friday

Happy Friday, guys! Wow, what a week! Am I right? Let's break down how the week went, shall we?

Cons: massive headaches, irritability, and the inability to form sentences. Pros: I was able to get to sleep a little bit easier than I am normally and, potentially, made fewer trips to the bathroom. So, where does that leave me? Clearly, some addictive personality traits that I didn't even know I had came shining through this week, so I really learned a lot about myself and my addiction. Nothing in my life can really replace a cup of coffee.

Now I wanna know what you could not give up for one entire week. Subscribe to Refinery29 on YouTube for some more challenges like this one. Drop us a line. Let me know what you wanna see me try.