Weight Loss After Quitting Starbucks

January 30, 2023 Ashley 0 Comments

Yes, you read that correctly.

I’m almost to the 30 day mark on my “No Starbucks” challenge.

And I feel… amazing.

See, this didn’t start as a weight loss challenge.

Twenty-nine days ago, it started as more of a budgetary diet than anything. (One I’d long been putting off, if we’re being honest.) Prior to January 1st, I’d been (to my shame) buying Starbucks every day. Each day, I’d say, “I’m gonna cut back – starting with right now.” Then, I’d enter this fugue state, and find myself in the mobile pickup line, waiting for my overpriced grande matcha latte not ten minutes later, while standing shoulder to shoulder with all the other sumatra crackheads awaiting their fix. This likening to a drug addict is not a new one for me. I’ve jokingly used it before. And I’ve tried to make “cute” my dependency on their products and my powerlessness over their siren song. But I realize now that it’s no coincidence that their mascot is an Odyssean mermaid. For every other bad habit I’ve broken, I’m usually sorted out within a week. But with Starbucks, it’s always been different. I never lasted. So, when my boyfriend asked me two weeks in if I was going the full 31 days (since January has more days than my typical 30 day challenge for any other month), I retorted with a defensive, “NOPE”. And that kept being my answer every day – right up until last Wednesday.

Yep, it took me 25 full days to kick my Starbucks addiction.

And here’s the crazy thing I should have seen, noticed, and been aware of – but didn’t and wasn’t: the drink I was ordering had so much sugar. All along, I’d maligned the mochas. I’d condemned the frapps. I’d mocked the syrups covered in whipped cream. I’d cried diabetes at all their confections like some orthorexic Karen. And all this time, I was over here with my “holier than thou” matcha which was just as bad. See, a while ago, they claimed they’d come out with a version of the matcha latte that had no added sugar. But here’s the thing. “No added” means no extra added – to what’s already in the mix. The mix had sugar already. And now that I know, I’d pretend to blame good old ‘bucks. But the truth is that we all know – any of us who’ve quit sugar before – when we’re drinking something sweetened. We know how it tastes. How it makes us feel. The long term effects. I knew better. Deep down, I knew what was going on. And once we know, we do one of two things: we either look up the nutritional facts to confirm it and then exorcise it from our lives… or we turn a blind eye and keep tapping that mobile order day… after day… after day.

For those who don’t know, you might be asking: how does it feel to be addicted to sugar?

Each day was awful. I’d get a brief high (probably more so from the sugar than the matcha itself; matcha on its own is great but any health benefit would be negated by aforementioned bad stuff) followed by a crash that would set in right around my return to work. From there, a litany of terrible things would transpire. First was the lethargy – just wanting to close my eyes. Second was the cognitive fog – unable to write coherent notes efficiently or communicate clearly with patients. And, third, came the hunger. After that blood sugar spike came the drop. Once that hit, no matter how well hydrated I was or what I’d eaten for lunch, I was starving. I’d come home and eat until I looked 10 months pregnant. But it didn’t end there. What I didn’t realize was that my sleep was also being affected too. Every morning I was tired because of the havoc this crap was wreaking on my flesh vessel.

Now, 29 days in, I can see this all clearly because I feel clear. I didn’t realize I could feel this good. Sometimes, when we’re so addicted to habit, we not only fail to look at the nutritional facts – but at the fact that what we’re doing to ourselves could be the cause of some ongoing problems we pass off as “just the way we are” or “because of stress”. I just realized last Wednesday that I don’t come home from work exhausted and unwilling to talk to anyone. I have energy for my second workout. I feel motivated to train, clean, or do what I need to. I use my lunch break to accomplish work (while sipping pure, sugar free matcha). I feel focused after lunch. I’m not starving within a couple hours of eating. I sleep better. I feel more energetic in the morning, heading to work. I’m not bloated. My skin is clearer. My joints feel better. And… seeing as we are a weight loss site… I’ve lost a few of those pesky pounds I couldn’t seem to explain for so long. And of course I did. After all, sugar makes you gain weight – both because of how it gets converted and stored and because of how it makes you crave more food.

So, now that I can be honest with myself, I’m spending my lunch break writing this (although I’ll probably actually publish it later) and looking up nutritional facts. And you wanna know what I found out? Of course you do. But let’s first backtrack and ask ourselves two things. The first is: how much sugar should you have in a day? And the second is: what does sugar do to your body? The first answer is 24 grams. The second answer: sugar raises blood pressure, turns off your appetite control, causes chronic inflammation (that pain all over your body you blame on “old age”), leads to heart disease and so on. On a more daily basis level, it absolutely is to blame for that brain fog I was talking about. And it can also can take the heat for that ongoing sentiment of malaise and depression I was getting out of nowhere. Oh, and according to NCBI, there’s also evidence based research showing that “poor sleep quality was significantly related to higher added sugar intake” in test subjects. It’s like every symptom I had that couldn’t possibly have been my precious emerald elixir… was caused by that exactly.

Okay, so now for your answer. Now we know just how bad any sugar is for you. And we also know how bad daily sugar would be for you even at the minimum amount of suggested grams. But the thing is – I wasn’t taking the minimum in. I wasn’t even taking the maximum… You see, in my lunchtime research efforts, I learned that my daily Starbucks matcha packed a whopping 32 grams of sugar. As we read before, the cap should be 24. That’s the most. Not the suggested. Not the best amount. It’s the most before you’re entering extreme unhealth. And I was having 8 more grams than that – every day. After reading and learning (and feeling) everything I have, I’m disgusted with myself. So, yes, on Wednesday – when I started finally realizing how good I was feeling – everything changed. And now, on January 31st, when my stevia-only boyfriend who hasn’t been judging me out loud but probably knew all along what an unaware hypocrite I was being asks, “So, have you decided to go the full 31 days for the challenge after all?”, I’ll still say no.

But that’s just because this isn’t a challenge anymore.

Now it’s about perma-kicking an addiction I was in total denial about all along.

(And it won’t hurt having some extra cash in my pocket either….)