Link Dump

I was going to post about my workout today, but that would require that I actually work out.



Instead, I've just been hanging out with the family and eating insane amounts of meat while on vacation here in Cabo (and plugging along on some extracurricular homework for Nom Nom Paleo). I did, however, gather a bunch of interesting reads for you to chew on:

• This op-ed piece in The Atlantic's been making the rounds. Three longtime vegetarians and vegans discuss how they came to understand that eating meat and other animal products is not only healthful, but also ethically and environmentally sound. Read it here.

• According to the New York Times, coffee can boost your athletic performance by "enabl[ing] more forceful muscular contractions and delay[ing] fatigue.” CoffeeWOD, anyone?

• You should already be reading all of the sites featured in Outside Magazine's list of the blogosphere's top ten fitness blogs -- especially MobilityWOD, Conditioning Research, and RunBlogger.

• Is Bob Harper really going to be putting his "Biggest Loser" team on a CrossFit-focused training regimen next season? I might actually have to start watching the show again.

• Serious Eats recently posted Pat LaFrieda's video responses to readers' meat-related questions. Good stuff -- especially if you're interested in butchery.

• I enjoyed the crap out of this post on Lift Big Eat Big: "10 Excuses For Not Exercising & Why They Are Horsesh*t."

• Health Tip of the Day: Do not eat cocaine out of your brother's butt.

Bye for now.

Caffeinated Beef Jerky

Yes, please.

According to The Week, a U.S. Army lab is "infusing beef jerky with a coffee cup's worth of caffeine to give soldiers a jolt with their protein."

Why? To "make portable meals more appealing and nutritious" for soldiers.

And, I suppose, to keep 'em awake.

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Common Ground

We are all caffeine junkies.

I love you, coffee. (But only before noon.)

Bizarro Food of the Day

1. Butterfinger Buzz. "Crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery bar with caffeine!"

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2. Cheerwine-Filled Krispy Kreme Donuts. "[A] true celebration of two southern heritage icons doing something quite magical for loyal fans in the south." Fun fact: "Something quite magical" is code for "diabetes."

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3. S'mores Sliders. I can't decide whether I want to: (A) eat this, or (B) vomit.

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Time for lunch!

Check-In

I'm a Paleo stickler, and my food choices are fairly clean. My "cheats" are increasingly rare. But there'a always room for improvement.

After attending a Whole9 seminar in early March, I outlined 9 things I was going to do to modify my food choices. Two-and-a-half months later, how am I doing with these dietary tweaks? Let's run it down.

TWEAK NO. 1: Get more sleep -- especially the night before a 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto. (Whole9's rule: Didn't get at least 6 hours of sleep? THEN NO EXERCISE FOR YOU. Use that time instead to get more Z's or prep some food.)

STATUS: Miserable failure. I'm still staying up too late. Plus, I've violated the no-exercise-without-six-hours-of-sleep rule several times. (But I'm working on it. Really.)

TWEAK NO. 2: Stop pounding caffeine after noon. And if all goes well, I'll try to eliminate caffeine altogether from my diet.

STATUS: I cheated on this one for a while. Every day, I'd buy coffee right before the clock struck noon and then nurse my precious cup for another hour to prolong the caffeine intake. But over the past month or so, I've done a better job of keeping my caffeine intake restricted to the morning hours. I'm nowhere near ready to rid myself of coffee altogether, though.

TWEAK NO. 3: Reduce my intake of nuts and seeds -- and when I do indulge, I'm going to reach for macadamia nuts and hazelnuts over all others.

STATUS: I'm still struggling with this one. I love nuts, and Costco sells Mauna Loa mac nuts in bulk. Also: Oren's Kitchen sells some insanely good spiced nuts (and a couple of varieties contain only Paleo ingredients!), and I'm addicted to 'em. I have, however, cut back significantly on my nut intake -- and have even managed to go a few days without eating nuts at all. (I know: Shocking!)

TWEAK NO. 4: Cut the cheese. (HAR HAR! I meant cutting it from my diet.)

STATUS: Done. This one was surprisingly easy to do. I realize now that despite my love for the taste of certain cheeses, none of 'em are worth the gut irritation and other associated problems.

TWEAK NO. 5: Eat something starchy/carby (but no fruit or fat) immediately post-workout.

STATUS: I'm all over this one. Since the Whole9 seminar, I've made it a point to bring a baked sweet potato and/or a bag of peeled roasted chestnuts with me to class so that I can chow down s soon as the WOD's done. It's done wonders for my recovery time and energy levels. Plus, sweet potatoes and chestnuts are tasty as hell.

TWEAK NO. 6: Try to get over my aversion to olives, because they're awesome sources of fat (assuming no preservatives or other additives are in the mix).

STATUS: I still don't like olives. Sorry.

TWEAK NO. 7: Seriously cut back on fruit, and stop drinking juice altogether.

STATUS: Done. Sure, I'll still chomp on a couple of strawberries when M buys a flat at the Farmer's Market, and I'll occasionally have a nibble of whatever fruit I'm cutting up for the kids. But I've never had a sweet tooth, and now, even small bites of fruit taste overly sweet and cloying to me. I pretty much steer clear of the stuff.

TWEAK NO. 8: Never cook with olive oil again.

STATUS: Not a problem. To me, food tastes better when it's cooked in ghee or coconut oil anyway.

TWEAK NO. 9: Break open the vat of duck fat we have sitting in the freezer.

STATUS: Done. And it was good.

Popcorn & Sleep Deprivation Go Together Like Ponch & Jon

Don't you hate it when you fall asleep eating popcorn? I mean, there's still so much crap to ingest! The popcorn bowl's still full -- and those (obviously caffeine-free) Cokes are going to lose their fizz, dammit.

Thankfully, modern science has come up with the answer: BioFuel Caffeinated Popcorn.

Think sugary kettlecorn, only "loaded with caffeine." You know -- so you can stay up and eat more kettlecorn. And possibly some red velvet cake-battered onion rings, too.

The ingredients in BioFuel Caffeinated Popcorn? "Sugar, light brown sugar, caffeine, canola oil, and salt." And probably some corn, too.

I'm so glad our greater scientific understanding has created this altogether healthy, artistic, and culturally sensitive food product for all to enjoy. Because who needs sleep, anyway?

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Because.

Okay: I've got some explaining to do. Below, I listed (again) the dietary tweaks I intend to implement, along with my reasons. I may mangle some of this stuff up, as I'm just regurgitating what we heard yesterday at the Whole9 Foundations of Nutrition workshop.

THE TWEAK:

Get more sleep -- especially the night before a 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto. (Whole9's rule: Didn't get at least 6 hours of sleep? THEN NO EXERCISE FOR YOU. Use that time instead to get more Z's or prep some food.)

THE REASON:

This goes without saying, right? We all know by now that we ought to be getting at least nine -- yes, nine -- hours of sleep per night, or else risk all sorts of health issues, including obesity and diabetes. These and other disorders are all linked to chronic, systemic inflammation; your body's immune system is constantly pushed to work harder than it should to repair and maintain your body in response to the added stress you're placing on it.

Another point that hit home with me at yesterday's presentation: Sleep should take priority over training. Your body doesn't get fitter while you're training. Your body gets fitter when it's recovering and re-building itself. (Some -- including Robb Wolf -- say it's even more important than food.)

Plus, lack of sleep makes you look like crap. No need to crow about functioning on just four hours of sleep; after all, sleeplessness not a sign of virility. 

THE TWEAK:

Stop pounding caffeine after noon.

THE REASON:

I've wavered on this point before, and I sure love me a good cuppa coffee (the cold-brewed stuff is like crack to me). But in the end, I'm kinda-sorta coming around to the Whole9's way of thinking. Caffeine's a potent stressor, and promotes a stress response that I don't need. Plus, if I keep chugging it in the P.M., it's going to keep wreaking havoc on my sleep patterns. Not good.

So starting now: No more coffee after noon. (Read the Whole9's Coffee Manifesto here.)

THE TWEAK:

Reduce my intake of nuts and seeds -- and when I do indulge, I'm going to reach for macadamia nuts and hazelnuts over all others.

THE REASON:

Nuts and seeds are incredibly nutrient-dense foods, which makes 'em a great addition to any diet.

But the concern is that the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content in all nuts and seeds have a pro-inflammatory profile, with higher ratios of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids. By now, we all know why it's important to reduce the markers of systemic inflammation by maintaining a ratio closer to 2:1 or 1:1 than the standard American diet's ratio of upwards of 30:1, right? Besides, there's the whole Chris Masterjohn line of thought about the connection between PUFA degeneration and atherosclerosis.

Of course, some nuts have very low PUFA content (only 2% of the fats in mac nuts are PUFAs, for example), and in the end, they're a net nutritional plus. Others, though, are pretty damned high in PUFAs. (For instance, 72% of the fats in walnuts are pro-inflammatory PUFAs.) So going forward, I'm going to be a more discriminating nut eater -- and favor mac nuts in particular, which studies suggest offer a host of other health benefits as well.

Yes, there's some debate over this stuff (isn't there always?), but even beyond the whole systemic inflammation argument, I've found that it's just way too easy for me to mindlessly binge on nuts. Nuts are super dense in calories. (Just one cup of macadamia nuts, for example, contain almost 1,000 calories.) I'm not a calorie counter at all, but I'm addicted to nuts. If left unchecked, my nut consumption would grow to the point that weight maintenance would surely become an issue. And while nuts are certainly "Paleo" (excepting those "nuts" that aren't actually nuts at all, like peanuts) 'cause cavepeople could eat 'em, that doesn't mean they're the optimal source of dietary fat for modern humans. I think I'm going to try to mindlessly binge on eggs and avocados instead.

THE TWEAK:

Cut the cheese. (HAR HAR! I meant cutting it from my diet.)

THE REASON:

I've already cut most dairy out of my diet, save pastured butter/ghee, the cheese on my burgers/in my salads, and a little Greek yogurt when it's cooked in a few of the dishes that M makes. But after listening to the Whole9 folks lay out their case against dairy, I'm considering eliminating cheese from my diet entirely. In particular, cheeses have an acidifying effect on the body, and an "acid-producing diet promotes bone de-mineralization (i.e. osteopenia and osteoporosis), and also contributes to the following maladies and illnesses: kidney stones, age-related muscle wasting, hypertension, stroke and asthma." Yeesh.

Plus, the beta-casomorphins that are created in the cheese-making process are literally addictive. That's right: When milk is turned into cheese, it becomes dairy crack. And crack is wack.

THE TWEAK:

Eat something starchy/carby immediately post-workout.

THE REASON: 

I'm still doing the intermittent fasting gig (and am enjoying its benefits), so this will require some re-jiggering of my early-morning fasted training routine.

It won't hurt me if I fail to refuel my muscles with some carbs and protein after a long, intense metcon. But the body's uptake of nutrients is most efficient in the half-hour after intense exercise. During this short window, our muscles are particularly insulin-sensitive, so we take advantage of a mechanism called “non-insulin mediated glucose transport” to shove some nutritious carbs into our systems. Protein can also help with refilling our glycogen stores and decreasing the inflammation caused by intense exercise. In other words, we recover faster.

So I'm now considering downing some sweet potato, beets, parsnips, chestnuts or winter squash after hard WODs. (But I'm also considering staying the course and not eating anything, per my current practice and Mat Lalonde's words of wisdom.) [UPDATE: See notes by The Lazy Caveman and The Nutty Kitchen below -- I am now officially off the fence!]

By the way, the Whole9 warns against eating fat or fruit as part of the post-workout meal -- fat'll slow down the body's ability to replenish your muscle glycogen, and the fructose in fruit will prioritize the replenishment of your liver glycogen -- not your muscle glycogen.

THE TWEAK:

Try to get over my aversion to olives, because they're awesome sources of fat (assuming no preservatives or other additives are in the mix).

THE REASON:

The best monounsaturated fats recommended by the Whole9 are avocados, avocado oil, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, olives and olive oil. I already eat copious amounts of everything on the list except olives. And I am nothing if not a completist.

THE TWEAK:

Seriously cut back on fruit, and stop drinking juice altogether.

THE REASON: 

Honestly, I stopped drinking juice eons ago, and I don't go crazy with fruit. I just stuck this one in here just for those of you who still haven't gotten the memo that eating fruit is fine -- but in moderation. (We're talking one to two servings a day.) I get the feeling there are those of you out there who think that going Paleo is a license to go to town on smoothies, juice, and berries in everything. If you're out there, here's why you should watch your fruit intake:

Fruit is not as nutritionally dense as most vegetables. The top ten vegetables on the ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) scale range from kale (score: 1000 -- perfect!) to arugula (559). But the most nutrient-dense fruit -- strawberries -- gets a score of just 212.

Fruit is too often used as a crutch by perfectly well-meaning Paleo adherents who rely on fruit to satisfy their lingering sugar cravings. Do you find yourself piling your plate high with fruit for breakfast? Snacking on bananas and grapes all day? Constantly adding fruit to meals just to add some (totally unnecessary) sweetness? Juicing fruit -- thereby removing all the good stuff in order to concentrate the liquid sugar into drinkable form? STOP IT. 

THE TWEAK: 

Never cook with olive oil again.

THE REASON:

"Never" is probably too strong a word. And I should have qualified that statement further by saying "high-heat cooking." Still:

From what we learned yesterday, olive oil -- while mostly comprised of good monounsaturated fat -- still contains proportionally greater amounts of unstable PUFAs than other cooking fats that are available to us (like coconut oil, ghee, etc.)

PUFAs happen to have a low smoke point (the temperature at which the fat begins to smoke and break down chemically). And they're also the most susceptible to oxidation. And oxidation is bad news.

As Inhuman Experiment put it:

What about olive oil then? Even though everyone seems to love olive oil in general, there's something of a debate going on over whether it should be used for cooking purposes. My opinion is that ... it's not the worst choice but it's not the best either. The smoking point of extra virgin olive oil seems to vary from 160 to 190 °C, depending on the free fatty acid content. Virgin olive oil, however, has some properties that make it more heat-tolerant than most other oils...

So which oils should you use for cooking? For sautéing and cooking at light to medium temperatures, my choice would be the ones on the left of the graph: coconut oil, ghee, butter, palm oil, and lard. If you stay below 170 °C, you're in pretty safe waters in terms of oxidation regardless of which one of them you choose. Virgin olive oil seems like a viable choice, too; just make sure the particular olive oil you're using it doesn't start smoking.

But why even bother cooking with olive oil when I can just use the humongous vats of coconut oil and ghee in my pantry for all my cooking needs? I'll just save the EVOO for non-heated applications (e.g., in dressings, etc.)

THE TWEAK:

Break open the vat of duck fat we have sitting in the freezer.

THE REASON:

Note that I didn't say I was going to cook exclusively with duck fat, or that duck fat is superior to all other forms of cooking fats. I just said I was going to break it out.

Still, duck fat (along with beef tallow and goat fat) is -- according to Whole9 -- preferable to cooking with lard. Why? Because lard (and all pork products) generally come from pigs that eat at least some shitty stuff. There's no such thing as a "grass-fed" pig, because pigs aren't ruminants like cows. They're natural omnivores like you and me. So even pastured pigs who are given freedom to root around and eat whatever they can find in the wild nonetheless are provided with supplemental food -- often in the form of cheap grains and corn. (One exception: The pastured pigs at Full of Life Farm, from which we just bought half a pig.)

Besides, duck fat tastes good.

CaveGirlCheats

Over at the excellent CaveGirlEats blog, Liz posted a list of foods she knows she ain't supposed to eat under a Primal diet, but does anyway. As she puts it, these are "the things I incorporate into my regimen frequently that were *prooobably* not available to your typical Cave Person. They’re my Primal Fudge-ems."

I have a list, too, but some of mine aren't just fudges -- to a strict Paleo eater, they're just out-and-out, off-the-rails cheats:

• Insane amounts of Omega-6-heavy nuts;
• Obscene quantities of black coffee (preferably cold-brewed);
• BCAA powder;
• Vinegar;
• Tasty things I stick in my jerky marinades: tamari, Worchestershire sauce, canned chipotles in adobo sauce (which has added sugar);
• Dairy -- including yogurt, (pastured, grass-fed) butter, ghee, and cheese. Glorious, glorious cheese;
• Consistent with my Rule No. 5, I'll eat anything else that looks too awesome to pass up.

Lastly, I'm not all that careful about my bacon sources. If it's bacon, it's going in my mouth, dammit.

Doing Stupid Things Faster, With More Energy

I'm not exactly a coffee fiend, but I do enjoy a cup or two a day. (You know how much I like cold-brewed coffee.)

And although I tried quitting a while back, it didn't take. So now, I'm on a mission to justify my daily caffeine intake.

So here's a non-exhaustive list of the benefits of caffeine:

• It eases asthma symptoms.
• It may protect against dementia.
• It's associated with lowered risk of Parkinson's.
• It may reduce the risk of certain cancers and diabetes.
• It boosts short-term recall.
• It's tasty.
• It keeps you awake.
• And most importantly for athletic performance: It's ergogenic, it soothes the pain of intense exercise, and taken post-workout, it can enhance subsequent physical performance.

The drawbacks?

Well, among other things, it can make you kill people. (Allegedly.)

Don't overdo it and murder your spouse, but some reasonable coffee consumption appears to be A-OK (though my two favorite Paleo gurus, Robb Wolf and Mat Lalonde, seem to be at odds on this point).

Losing Your Appetite

Remember last month's reports about how the thought of stuffing your face actually helps curbs your appetite? Now comes research that says that "a brisk walk around the block can significantly dampen cravings," too.

But why stop there? Supercharge your weight loss with other appetite suppression strategies, including:

• Drugs!
• Acupuncture!
• Wasabi!
• Dunkin Donuts coffee!
• And watching incredibly gross things on the Internet!

So grab your walking shoes, stick some needles in your skin, throw a hunk of wasabi and a handful of Phendimetrazine tablets in your coffee mug, watch "2 Girls 1 Cup" (again), and imagine sinking your teeth into this. You'll lose that spare tire in no time flat!

Or not.

Caffeine + Alcohol = Satan

Prompted by bug-eyed media reports about Four Loko-related hospitalizations (and deaths!) of college-aged drinkers, the FDA's about to ban caffeinated alcoholic drinks. In response, Four Loko's manufacturer has announced that it's preemptively removing the caffeine from its beverages.

But fear not. If you're the kind of person who can't abide the thought of starting the morning without the equivalent of three beers and three cups of coffee, you have options:

• Have three beers and three cups of coffee.

• If you need a stronger upper/downer combination, I have one word for you: Speedball.

• But cocaine and heroin don't come in exotic fruit flavors! The solution: Make your own homebrewed Four Loko with Crystal Light and grain alcohol! Or better yet, mix up a batch with Jolly Ranchers candies, caffeine tablets, a Monster Energy drink, Sprite, and malt liquor. (Bonus: Sprite kills cancer! Kind of. Okay, not really. At all.)

(Photo: Kyle James)

Cold Brewed Coffee

Although I've tried curbing my caffeine intake, I can't stop guzzling cold-brewed coffee. It's different from just regular old hot coffee that's been cooled, you know. As Cindy Price of the New York Times wrote a while back:

Though it pains me to admit, the difference was considerable. Without the bitterness produced by hot water, the cold-brewed coffee had hints of chocolate, even caramel. I dropped my sugar packet — no need for it. The best brews hardly need cream. It really is the kind of thing a gentleman might spend five days in hot-coffee solitary confinement for.

Most days I’m too lazy to hunt down the elusive cold-brewed cup. But recently I discovered an interesting little fact. Cold-brewed coffee is actually dirt simple to make at home. Online, you’ll find a wealth of forums arguing for this bean or that, bottled water over tap, the 24-hour versus the 12-hour soak. You can even buy the Toddy cold-brew coffee system for about $30.

CHOW recently posted a short video teaching you to cold-brew your coffee using a Toddy. But if you already have a French press at home, you can cold brew your coffee the way my sister-in-law taught me. (And even if you don't, a 4-cup Bodum Chambord is the same price as a Toddy, and it's more versatile.)

Cold-brewing with a French press is super-simple:

Step One: Pull out your French press and a 1/2 cup measuring cup.

Step Two: Put a 1/2 cup of coarse-ground coffee into your French press.

Step Three: Fill it up with cold water. Leave an inch of space at the top, dummy.

Step Four: Put the top on. Let it sit overnight (or around 12 hours). Then depress the plunger to filter out the grounds.

Step Five: Pour some out and drink it -- with or without ice. You can also dilute it with water, but I like my coffee concentrated. It's not harsh or bitter. I used to take my coffee with several packets of sweetener to counter the bitterness, but no more -- there's no need. If you're a coffee junkie but looking to wean yourself off sugar or artificial sweeteners, you might want to give cold-brewed coffee a shot.

Killer Caffeine

I don't know if my coffee consumption is going to kill me, but from recent news reports, it certainly appears that caffeine has homicidal tendencies.

You want examples?

• Caffeinated alcoholic beverages will PUT YOU IN THE HOSPITAL!

• Two spoonfuls of pure caffeine will MAKE YOU BARF AND DIE!

• Caffeine'll make you KILL YOUR WIFE!

On the plus side, thanks to the Death by Caffeine Calculator, I now know that it'll take 277 cans of Coke Zero to kill me.

Drip, Drip

I know the importance of sleep, but after a few months of waking up for 5 a.m. CrossFit classes three times a week, my eyes just naturally pop open every morning at precisely 4:17 a.m. -- regardless of whether I'm planning to exercise like crazy or roll over and (try to) go back to sleep.

And I'm not eating sugar anymore, so I can't rely on an afternoon snack of Beard Papa cream puffs to keep me from passing out at my desk. What's left?

Caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine.

Despite the unusually scorching weather in San Francisco today, I knew I couldn't get through my afternoon meetings without some Blue Bottle drip coffee. So I hustled over to the Ferry Building, plunked down two bucks, and scurried back to the office clutching a hot paper cup while trying to stay in the shade.

The coffee would have tasted even better if I hadn't begun sweating into my cup.

Coffee, Tea or Me?

Over the past few days, I’ve been trying to gradually phase out my caffeine intake, but it’s been a spectacular failure.

I was actually doing okay for a few days. Despite getting up before dawn and the soporific effects of my long, boring commute, I fastidiously avoided coffee and Diet Coke. Until today.

Today started with a particularly brutal workout, and after getting ready for work, I had back-to-back meetings pretty much from 8 a.m. until now. I’m dead tired, and not looking forward to battling the bumper-to-bumper traffic back home. Before I knew it, I was down in the company café, cradling a big-ass caffeinated beverage.

I guzzled it before my brain even registered any guilt. And I feel better.

But it got me thinking: What exactly does caffeine do to us? Does it impact physical performance, fitness or weight loss?

The “experts” are all over the place on this one.

Some believe that caffeine is an unmitigated disaster. They point out that when caffeine is consumed, it wreaks havoc on your system by:

• Triggering the production of adrenaline, giving you a temporary spike in energy (but causing you to crash later);
• Inhibiting the body’s absorption of adenosine, a hormone that calms your body;
• Increasing your body’s levels of cortisol – the “stress hormone” – which can sabotage your weight loss and other health goals;
• Increasing your dopamine levels, making you physically dependent on the substance.

Mark Sisson has sounded the alarm as well:

As a stimulant, caffeine offers the temporary benefits of improved concentration, enhanced memory and an extra bit of energy. However, this “heightened” state has some unappealing physical effects as well. Obviously, there are the proverbial caffeine jitters and, for a few people who are either caffeine sensitive or who regularly overindulgence, even heart flutterings. But there’s more. Recent caffeine consumption can reduce blood flow to the heart during exercise.

And, apparently, some of us are “slow caffeine metabolizers” (who knew?). Being part of this crowd and partaking of caffeine, some research shows, puts us at increased risk for non-fatal heart attacks. Caffeine has been shown to also raise blood sugar levels in those with type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, caffeine induces heartburn in many people. Given that prescriptions targeting acid reflux are so common these days, we often wonder how much caffeine plays into many people’s symptoms. At a certain point for certain people, caffeine probably isn’t worth it just from that standpoint alone.

But others have staked out the opposite side of the argument, and claim that caffeine actually enhances endurance and helps drive weight loss. According to The London Times,

researchers investigating caffeine’s influence on fitness and sports performance are discovering that an amount considered acceptable by most health experts — only a cup or two a day — is needed to get better results at the gym. They have shown that there are substances in caffeine which trigger the release of body fats into the bloodstream during activity.

Plus, as we all know, caffeine can help stave off fatigue:

A study at the University of South Carolina, published in the American Journal of Physiology (2003), revealed that one or two cups of coffee up to an hour before a gym session can delay or prevent post-exercise tiredness by up to 60 per cent: “People seem to be able to work harder without realising it when they take caffeine before a workout,” says Louise Sutton, the principal lecturer in sport and exercise nutrition at Leeds Metropolitan University.

And the American Journal of Cardiology published a study purporting to show that

caffeine may help to boost nitric oxide (NO) levels, resulting in increased blood flow to muscles. According to a study done by Japanese researchers, when young, healthy males were given 300mg of caffeine pills, the dilation of their forearm blood vessels increased as a result of greater production of NO. As a result, some have taken this to mean that “drinking caffeine before a workout will not only give you a boost in stamina and strength, but it may also lead to a better muscle pump and, over time, greater muscle hypertrophy (growth).”

Who to believe? The more I look into the question of whether caffeine is bad for you, the more I’m convinced that the answer is a resounding “maybe.”

As Robb Wolf explained in one of his Paleolithic Solution podcasts, the answer depends on the dosage of caffeine that’s ingested, as well as the individual’s response to the caffeine’s effects on his/her central nervous system. While caffeine intake may negative affect some folks’ hormone levels and lead to diminished performance and addiction, it may have little effect on others – aside from providing some of the benefits described above.

In other words, I just wasted a crapload of time trying to hunt for an easy answer that doesn't exist.

Oh, well. I've decided to once again try to abstain from caffeine – not because I’ve concluded it’s evil, but because I can save a ton of money by drinking water instead.

Plus, I have a headache now, and caffeine will only make it worse.