How I Gave Up Coffee In 30 Days

I decided recently to break and form twelve habits in as many months. I wanted to see how much fitter, wealthier and happier I could become in a year. Benjamin Franklin attempted something akin to this with his famous 13 Virtues. I'm currently a month in and the process has been working well. I've written this in an attempt to show others that it is possible to break habits, even if they have been built up over a lifetime.

Somebody once said that it takes 21 days to form a habit but only 7 to break it. There is also a lot of research (although I can't remember any citations off the top of my head!) that trying to break too many habits at once is incredibly stressful. Hence the monthly plan.

The first habit that I decided to break was to give up drinking coffee. My reasons were simple. It was costing me a lot of money, is rather fattening and made me feel incredibly tired once the caffeine effect wore off. In order to keep up motivation I needed some quantifiable rationale otherwise I would simply slip back into Costa-land.

How much does coffee cost?

Previously, I was purchasing an average of 1-2 Medium Caramel Lattes from Costa every day, which are £2.65 each. On top of that I often purchased some biscuits or a muffin - perhaps 3-4 a week. This works out as 1.5 * 365 * 2.65 = £1,446.90 per year. Muffins/biscuits are roughly £1.50, so 3.5 * 52 * 1.50 = £273. Thus I was spending (approximately) £1,720 per year on coffee and biscuits.

The financial cost is actually rather immense, but the calorie count is even more surprising. In each Medium Caramel Latte there are 181 calories, as reported on Costa's website. In the muffin/biscuits there are approximately 250. The coffee alone comes to 1.5 * 365 * 181 =~ 100,000 calories. Add in those from the muffin, 3.5 * 52 * 250 = 45,500. This makes a grand total of 145,500 calories per year. This is the equivalent (for me) of about 300 cardio sessions at the gym.

What are the current benefits?

The above two yearly figures are more than enough to keep me from wandering into a Costa. In my 30 days since starting the process I have managed to save around £140. Money that is better off in my savings account and not in Costa's sales ledger. I have also needed to perform 15 less sessions at the gym in terms of calories. I'm very happy with that!

What's next?

The next month I'm cycling into work to save money and increase my cardiovascular fitness. I'm imagine that forming a habit is vastly different from attempting to break one. With coffee it was simply a case of not going into Costa. With cycling there are new equipment purchases, bike maintenance, sorting out clothing the night before and the actual cycling to consider. However that will be the subject of the next post in this series.