Sunday Morning Coffee

Coffee… The amazing aroma, the great taste & the pick up you need first thing in the day! Many of us can’t go a single morning without it.  Coffee is enjoyed by millions of people world-wide and has been for hundreds of years.  Yet there appears to be a stigma about it, the addiction.  Someone is always trying to kick the habit- but why?

Coffee contains caffeine, which is a mild stimulant, and in many people coffee drinking enhances alertness, concentration and mental and physical performance. Although it contains a wide variety of substances, it is generally accepted that caffeine is the ingredient responsible for many of coffee’s physiological effects.

So lets have a look at some facts, then you can make up your own mind about your coffee addiction!

Coffee & Antioxidants
Antioxidants fight cellular damage caused by free radicals in the body produced during daily life such as in stressful situations and via pollution. Antioxidants trap free radicals and therefore prevent a number of early steps involved in lifestyle diseases. When blood lipids like cholesterol are not oxidized this lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease. When DNA damage is prevented by free radicals, the risk of certain cancers is reduced. Antioxidants are also important for anti-aging and can have an anti-inflammatory action. 

Research is showing that coffee is a valuable source of disease-fighting antioxidants. In fact, it is the number one source in the American diet and provides more antioxidants than fruit due to frequency of consumption and the antioxidant content per serve. Epidemiological studies have found that coffee is associated with a reduction in glutamyl transpeptidase, a suggested biomarker for early oxidative stress. Great news for decaf lovers is that it appears to have similar antioxidant activity. Plus the addition of milk does not appear to affect the antioxidants in coffee. Surprisingly, research suggests that coffee is more powerful in scavenging peroxyl radicals than tea and is in fact endowed with a natural antioxidant capacity around 5-8 times higher than that of tea.

Coffee & Disease

Studies show that the risk for type 2 diabetes is lower among regular coffee drinkers than among those who don't drink it. Also, coffee may reduce the risk of developing gallstones, discourage the development of colon cancer, improve cognitive function, reduce the risk of liver damage in people at high risk for liver disease.

Coffee and exercise
Caffeine in coffee has three main effects on the body as it relates to exercise.
(1) as a stimulus to the central nervous system

(2) to decrease the contractile threshold of a muscle, allowing a smaller stimulus to elicit a muscle contraction

(3) to increase the mobilization of free fatty acids in the blood stream

Free fatty acids are the portion of fat that can be burned as fuel by the muscles, and as an energy resource they are of major importance to marathoners and other distance runners. Due to the increase of free fatty acids that occurs as a result of caffeine ingestion, caffeine was seen as beneficial to long distance runners. When you run, your muscles use both fat and glycogen as fuel. Theoretically, the body has an unlimited supply of fat for distance running purposes. However, the natural tendencies of our bodies are to use mostly muscle glycogen as fuel in the first 90 minutes of running.

Caffeine increases the use of fat as fuel thus sparing our bodies' limited supply of muscle glycogen. After about 90 minutes, the glycogen stores can become depleted, causing you to slow down as your body switches to fat as the primary fuel.

Coffee & Hormones

Coffee is a central nervous system stimulator that gives the adrenals a kick and causes production of the stress handling hormone adrenalin and the production of more cortisol resulting in short term benefits of heightened awareness / alertness and more energy, but long term may result in a crash after each consumption to lower levels of energy than previously thereby necessitating the need for more. Thus, it may be addictive and ultimately may result in adrenal exhaustion.

Sugar in your coffee
We all know about the dangers & addictive nature of sugar! (If you have time read our blog post) Sugar in your coffee is source of calories. Each serve of sugar contains 15 calories. Have one sugar per coffee per day and you'll be adding 105 calories to your week. If you regularly consume two coffees per day and have two sugars then it's 420 calories per week, which is the equivalent of running for 60mins!

So a very easy and obvious way to reduce the calories in your coffee is to reduce or stop having sugar. If this sounds too hard, try gradually reducing the amount of added sugar over a few weeks rather than going cold turkey!



So to me it seems simple – Enjoy in moderation & watch your sugar intake!

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