You should try some adaptogenic herbs to get you going in the morning they are non-stimulative, adrenal gland friendly/restorative and wont harm you like caffeine does.

Sure they wont give you the boost a CNS stimulant will like caffeine but they do help an awful lot.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]

Thankyou. I know I need to move to the next level. It's a vicious cycle because I suffer with such fatigue. What is an example of adaptogenic herb?

februarygirl

Ashwagandha, jiaogulan, siberian ginseng, schizandra berry(one of my favorites), maca root, licorice root(chinese licorice), suma root are all examples of non stimulative adaptogenics.

There are a few such as korean ginseng, rhodiola rosea and american licorice which have mild stimulative properties which you obviously don't want.

Adaptogenic herbs are great for normalizing all body functions and trying to achieve homeostasis. They increase the bodies resistance to stress whether physical ailment or emotional. Great class of herbs probably my favorite i think everyone is probably bored of hearing about them on here lol but for the newcomers i should probably copy and paste this so i don't have to write it out everytime.

They are great to use for there subtle energy boost(non CNS stimulant which is what we want and the restore proper adrenal gland/endocrine function) which is something caffeine and other CNS stimulants weaken. Im not an early morning person myself so when i am needing to get up early i mix a few of these powders and im ready to go, obviously not to the extent of buzzing like you would be on caffeine but you have energy, are alert and are not harming your adrenal glands.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]

I appreciate the info powerlifer. I may look into those herbs sometime in the near future if I continue to feel so weak and tired all the time. For now I am giving raw foods and regular exercise a chance to work its magic. I also might want to explore probiotic foods later on as I've had probably dozens of courses of antibiotics in the early years of my life, and have been suffering from a few fungal issues ever since.

Jonathan Barlow Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I appreciate the info powerlifer. I may look into
> those herbs sometime in the near future if I
> continue to feel so weak and tired all the time.
> For now I am giving raw foods and regular exercise
> a chance to work its magic. I also might want to
> explore probiotic foods later on as I've had
> probably dozens of courses of antibiotics in the
> early years of my life, and have been suffering
> from a few fungal issues ever since.

Glad its of some use Jonathan, i like yourself as a kid grew up with being given too much antibiotics even when the doctors knew the problem was not of bacterial origin such as the flu. Doctors are less likely to shell out antibiotics so willingly these days, but it left me with massive digestive/candida/bacterial overgrowth issues for years.

We do have a good fermented probiotic paste but the honest guy i am, if you can find water kefir grains or culture/ferment your own veggies it is the best way in my opinion and what i always recommend over shelving out money if possible, not only is it much cheaper but the above are very effective for repopulating gut flora.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]

Thanks I have some kefir starter I was planning to make with coconut milk.

Thanks. I've taken a couple of those herbs individually but never combined with the level of dietary cleanliness I have now. Are they available in a combo form. Maybe a bottle of all good herbs combined just for me???

februarygirl

I prefer the raw herbal powders, ive never found a capsuled herb to be as good as the raw powder form.

There are a few adrenal support formulas out there which are ok and don't use extracts, or you can blend your own powders.

[www.amlaberry.co.uk]

Wow. I never realized people had addictions that strong. My experience seems to be rather different from other people's.

My mother started me on coffee when I was 4 because she read that caffeine stunts your growth, so she thought it would help keep me shorter. No such luck.

To make a long story short, I quit at school age and I started drinking it again in the evenings in high school because it relaxed me in the evenings and helped me sleep. Later I found it was an excellent 'bitter' and really improved digestion after a heavy, greasy meal like pizza. Because of this and possibly coffee's messing with blood sugar, I also started wanting to drink it with ice cream. So, I can understand Omega's increased appetite for junk food with coffee.

I eventually quit a few years ago because I didn't like having stained teeth or bad breath and the coffee bean became vilified in health circles. I had no side effects-- no headaches, no shakes, no strong cravings. Nothing. I would break up months of total abstinence with a cup or two of coffee and not have any effect. And now, I don't drink it at all.

I did try a number of coffee substitutes and I can say that although tea and herbal infusions are pleasant drinks in themselves, they are nothing like coffee. Like bananawho said, they lack the body of coffee. A better substitute (if you'd like to try one) is Cafix. It's roasted barley, chicory, and rye. They have a crystalized kind that tastes just like instant coffee. They also have a powdered kind with dried beets and dates or figs that doesn't taste as much like coffee, but has more body. I used to mix the two and get a pretty good substitute.

Eating a raw or close to raw diet helps, too. Without heavy foods there is less call for a 'bitter'. Without heavy and bready foods to sop up the coffee, it would probably feel more acid in the stomach and the negative effects would probably be felt more sharply.

Hey, I have Caffix or something of the sort. I am wondering about the other substitute you mentioned with the figs: Tecchicino or something? I remember you brew it like regular coffee and it came in a can. In any case, is the bitterness because coffee is an alkaloid? I remember David Wolfe saying that drugs contain alkaloids and that is why we crave them.

A book I recommend is called "Caffeine Blues." It really lays out all the problems with coffee, etc. and it is inspiring to those who want to quit. It's hard enough to quit without feeling like you are losing something. This tells you all the things you gain by quitting--things most people don't realize they've lost.

Veghunter! you may be ADD/ADHD then! is exactly the same with me, Stimulants effect those with ADD/ADHD differently than they do the average person, they calm us down, help us sleep, theres no real noticeable chemical addictiveness, no jittery-ness(unless lots of sugar is used with it, then that can have an effect) ^_^some nights its all that can help me get to sleep,lol.

Why the heck would a parent ever want to stunt their child's growth? You have to be kidding about that, that's too horrible to be true .

Addictions are not usually about the food or the substance itself, we are trying to escape a deeper problem or cause of stress in our lives, and the addiction will not stop until we confront the problem.

RawPracticalist Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Addictions are not usually about the food or the
> substance itself, we are trying to escape a deeper
> problem or cause of stress in our lives, and the
> addiction will not stop until we confront the
> problem.


I basically agree with your statement however I find caffeine to be very addictive. I think it's pretty hard to just have a cup of coffee once a while; the tendency is to get into a habit very quickly. I read that caffeine's structure is almost identical to cocaine's except for one molecule.

Certain substances are physiologically addictive, that's a fact. Certainly one's constitution and mind-set play a part in addictions and addictive behaviours but you can't discount the purely physical any more than you can discount the mind. Each plays a part.

Another way to treat the addiction is to create a healthier addiction onto something very healthy that you really like to eat and have that around when the bad addiction comes. Light against Darkness and the Light will win.
Ripe mangoes with young coconut smoothie will win for me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2011 08:27PM by RawPracticalist.

Bananawho, both of the drinks I mentioned are Cafix. They just have a couple of different forms. I tried Teeccino and it's probably pretty good if you were used to drinking coffee flavored drinks like lattes and cappuccinos, but I don't think it's good for the purist who likes their coffee straight up the way I did. Carob is usually the first ingredient of the Teccino products, so it's a sweeter, less coffee-like flavor.

Caffeine is a bitter alkaloid, so maybe that's what David Wolfe was talking about. I really don't know.

Curator, it's unlikely that I have attention deficit, but that's an interesting tidbit.

Coco, I'm not joking. My size was seen as a problem by doctors and school officials, especially as a female. I was let into kindergarten a year early because of my size and still a head taller and much heavier than any of the other kids. From 3rd grade on I was taller than my teachers. When you grow that quickly, the fear is that you will continue to grow at that pace indefinitely.

WTF is wrong with people? That's the most ridiculously idiotic thing I have ever, EVER heard! And then to give you COFFEE as medicine!
I'm shaking my head. And I want to give the little you a big hug and tell you how perfect you are just as you are. I hope you feel comfortable with yourself no matter what your size is now. Love to you hunter of veggies <3.

Coco, it's all good. Thanks for the hug though. Nobody gets too many of those. *hugs*

Well, they give kids Ritalin to help them "focus" and that drug is actually amphetamine-like in structure and is sometimes used recreationally! So coffee as a med isn't so far-fetched in retrospect. I also hear that parents are using some growth stimulators in order for their child to become closer to "normal" height, disregarding the negative effects on health these drugs could have.

*joins the party* yaaaay hugs!!! *more hugs*

So just how tall are you as an adult? I was 5'10" at 12 yrs. old but, that's where I stopped. It was hard because peeps thought I was older and expected more of me. Also because I thought I was Fat. My daughter is running the same at 10 yes old and she is the most beautiful creature I know! She is proud to be tall too. If only I had known I looked like she does! Tall and lean!



Powerlifter, do you mix your powders in water? Why not herbal extracts??

februarygirl



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2011 07:16PM by Februarygirl.

David Wolfe still drinks organic coffee. Cant be to bad then can it.

Get more sleep.
Drink more water.
Eat 10g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per day.
Now you will actually have enough energy to get thru your day with no drugs.

Ive not had a cup of coffee since 1999. Tea since 2003.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2011 07:47AM by durianrider.

durianrider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> David Wolfe still drinks organic coffee. Cant be
> to bad then can it.
>
> Get more sleep.
> Drink more water.
> Eat 10g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per day.
> Now you will actually have enough energy to get
> thru your day with no drugs.
>
> Ive not had a cup of coffee since 1999. Tea since
> 2003.


LOL...

I am going to break my coffee addiction after reading a lot about how bad it is, and just FEELING bad from it... it's odd, but the more raw I get, the more over-stimulated I feel from it and not in a good way. I have one cup a morning now and it's still too much for me which is CRAZY because I used to drink 3 POTS a day... yes POTS... I'm a writer so I can really zone out at the computer and just down coffee but it's a horrible habit and I don't want to feel like I need that sort of false stimulation for my writing. With raw, I guess your body just gets much more sensitive to everything. I am going to switch to a mild green tea for now. I'm completely addicted physically to the caff... going cold turkey leaves me with such a bad headache I can't even manage to get out of bed.

Herbs are a scam, stimulants wreck your health eventually and NOTHING beats living and eating right.

High carb
Low fat
Calorie dense
Daily hydration
Early nights
Sunshine
Movement
Living with purpose (its easy to when your have enough glycogen, hydration and sleep!)

NEVER seen it not work. Read 80/10/10 by Doug Graham if you want 'the next level'. Hey if all these fancy products worked then DW and the crew would be fitter and healthier than us fit fruit bats...but we see otherwise.

"the more raw I get, the more over-stimulated I feel from it and not in a good way"

Right! The more you clear your consciousness the more you become aware of the negative effects of stimulants, including both caffeine and sugar.

Three pots of coffee a day is *unbelievable*! Your body will have a slow recovery process from that....
Relaxing herbs can be very helpful, I find.

P.S. And if it's true that David Wolfe drinks coffee- not surprising, since he advocates chocolate, another stimulant- completely de-legitimizes him to me.

omega-3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "the more raw I get, the more over-stimulated I
> feel from it and not in a good way"
>
> Right! The more you clear your consciousness the
> more you become aware of the negative effects of
> stimulants, including both caffeine and sugar.
>
> Three pots of coffee a day is *unbelievable*! Your
> body will have a slow recovery process from
> that....
> Relaxing herbs can be very helpful, I find.






Yeah, it's crazy right? I'm pretty sure 3 pots of coffee would kill me these days. I'll keep the chocolate in moderation, gotta have some treats. Plus I went without chocolate for two years and only recently discovered raw chocolate (*don't eat any mainstream chocolate because of the soy allergies), so I'll be hanging on to that habit. But I figure if I'm going to have one stimulating vice I might as well do away with the less tasty one.

I gave up regular coffee a while ago, but didn't start feeling better until I eliminated all sources of caffeine, including chocolate and decaf coffee.