Cutting down on caffeine

I attended a milk event recently. It involved getting a bone scan to gauge my risk factor for osteoporosis. I did a scan one year ago and I was diagnosed as low risk. Actually, I’ve always been diagnosed as low risk year after year because I drank a whole lot of milk from childhood to adulthood. I just really love milk. So anyway, I got a bone scan at the event and then my results showed that I was at medium risk. I was freaked out, of course.

Then I began to retrace the last year. What did I do differently? Well for starters from drinking coffee once a week in 2010, I was drinking coffee daily this 2011. Then there’s milk tea. Hubby and I have been addicted to Taiwan-style milk tea since the start of this year. I figured all that caffeine is making me lose my bone density at an alarming rate. I don’t want to be one of those people who take a bad fall and then never recover. Here’s even worse news… bone deterioration at the age of thirty-something is irreversible… so yeah, I’m pretty much stuck on being medium risk for osteoporosis forever starting this year. The experts told me I can only keep myself from graduating to the high risk level but I can never go back to being low risk. It’s really that bad.

So here I am now, determined to make a drastic lifestyle change. I need to drop the daily coffee habit and the constant milk tea drinking. I’ve switched back to drinking milk in the morning like I always did during my younger days… the difference being I now have to stick to low fat and high calcium since I’m older and I weigh a lot more now compared to before. I also need to exercise regularly. My husband and I have decided to invest in a good quality stationary bike so we can get a workout at home. I know I can’t totally not have any coffee or tea but I’ll do my best to cut down my consumption for the sake of my bones.

At this point, both of my kids love drinking milk. They each have a glass almost every meal. I was told before that taking care of your bones is much like banking. You deposit as much calcium as you can while you can so that when you get to the age when you start losing bone, your “account” won’t get emptied out. I guess had I not gotten enough calcium as a child I would be worse off now given my less than healthy lifestyle. And so I’m making a change right here and now.