I have decided to (mostly) eliminate caffeine from my diet. For a while now, I've been consuming an awful lot of caffeinated diet soft drinks (in particular Coke Zero, which is remarkably full-flavoured for a diet cola).

According to the Energy Fiend Caffeine Database, each 1.5 litre bottle contains around 146 mg of caffeine - and I was drinking at least one per day, sometimes two. Now, that's a way off the minimum lethal dose (which would be around 15.36g for my bodyweight, according to these data).

Nonetheless, armed with the knowledge that I was consuming 1/100th of a lethal dose each and every day, I figured I'd try swearing off the stuff for a while.

I'm not going to be a zealot about it mind you; I'll still drink the odd bit of tea, have the odd coffee at a cafe, and enjoy a bit of dark chocolate once in a while. But I'm hoping that the dramatic reduction in caffeine intake will result in:

• improved concentration
• clearer thinking
• less stress

... and hopefully won't result in too many headaches, or sudden weight gain. I'll keep you posted ...