Energy Drink Help Please

Nothing wrong with energy drinks, you can switch to the diet versions if you're worried about the calories.

The main (if not only) active ingredient in them is caffeine, so tea or coffee would probably work just as well if you want to stop drinking them.

trishk56 wrote: »

Just make sure that the energy drink you are drinking is HEALTHY and not full of dyes, sugar and preservative. I know healthy energy drinks are hard to find but they are out there I drink one almost everyday

What's not healthy about sugar?

But seriously OP, if you're worried about calories, look for sugar free ones. Otherwise as stated above, coffee and tea can work just as well!

Rockstar and Monster both make 0 calorie / 0 sugar versions. They are usually very high in sodium (240mg+ per can). Monster has one with only 60mg per can. It's called "Ultra Sunrise". Not the greatest tasting (orange?) but good enough if you want to keep your sodium count down.

I love the Monster Energy Zero Ultra...it's 0 calories and it keeps me going for hours and curbs my appetite. When I need energy and don't want coffee, that is my go to drink.
I used to drink 0 calorie Rockstar but noticed I crashed really hard afterwards, I don't crash with Monster.

I had a massive caffeine addiction before I was diagnosed with my many anxiety and panic disorders. I try to get by without medication as much as possible and that meant cutting down caffeine. That gave me the willpower to stop energy drinks cold turkey. Holy hell my anxiety is so much more in control when I don't have the energy drinks. Just feeling better helped to keep me off them. Maybe that mentality won't help you, but I'm just saying as a fellow sufferer of depression and anxiety, it sure was enough to get me to stop. I know saying "just stop if you want to" is stupid because addictions are freaky things. Replacements to calorie free versions, cutting down the quantity, or changing to coffee or tea or even soda (All have less caffeine) can also make a different. For what it's worth.

Five or six a day is a lot. I used to have two or three most days when I bartended, and honestly, I had to switch to coffee for a while once I got a day job (like six cups a day of black coffee) but as my sleep schedule adjusted and I started going to bed early and getting up early, I now only drink a couple cups a day max, and not even every day.

I have a lot more energy in general when I am diligent about my nutrition and get the appropriate amount of fat and protein in my diet, and I'm also on doctor-recommended vitamin b-complex, which is meant to help with energy as well (and is one of the ingredients in most energy drinks.) Vitamin D helps me too, especially in the winter, because it boosts my mood and makes it easier to get moving in the morning. But honestly, when I'm well-fed (lots of vegetables, enough fat, enough protein) and am aiming for 8 hrs of sleep a night, the vitamins and stuff are just insurance.

So yeah...coffee if you must (and black coffee is not actually a bad thing to be drinking unless you've got a health condition adversely affected by it), lots of sleep, good nutrition with the right macro and micro nutrients. Moderate exercise if you can manage it.

I got off caffeine pills cold turkey, which was hard because I got a real slump in energy at work and felt I needed it, but in the end you feel a lot better mood-wise, and I just make sure that I get to bed earlier so I feel better/less tired. Studies have shown that caffeine is actually not so great for those of us with anxiety and depression, as can be sugar/poor diet in general. I have both, and found that it has benefited me to both walk for an hour 5x a week, reduce my intake of caffeine, and feed back more balance into my diet...not quitting everything you like, just evening things out a little bit. I think energy drinks would be fine as a part of your balanced diet, but that as I said, caffeine dependency and the sugar/sweeteners in your diet might make you feel worse and as a result, hinder your weight loss.

So, I think the approach I'd take in your situation, given you are having quite high intake, is to gradually decrease by maybe half a can or a can of your daily intake until you're feeling okay without. Don't go cold turkey, because the withdrawals might be too much for you to handle all at once and would decrease your mood among other possible symptoms such as headaches.