Is decaffeinated coffee unhealthy?

Since being serious about losing weight since Christmas I have lost around a stone and am now 13 stone 12 pounds this weekend. The only drinks I've been having are water throughout the day and at night, plus decaffeinated coffee (café hag or arte noire expresso in the tassimo machine with the tassimo milk) in the evenings, in addition to water. I don't drink milk, but do have skimmed milk in porridge. I've read a few articles which suggest that decaffeinated coffee isn't healthy, although this appears to depend on the decaffination process used. Having the coffee in the evening helps me, because in the past I would just snack on crisps, cheese, pringles etc while watching films or reading, whereas now I feel quite satisfied with a couple of mugs of coffee. Normal coffee affects my sleep, so that's why I'm drinking decaf. Does anyone else drink decaf?

[gingernut49]

That's the first I've heard of that. I always drink decaffeinated coffee from lunchtime onwards.

Well done for your weight loss!

[chay]

I think I would consider it healthier than eating Pringles cheese and crisps. Sometimes it's not about healthy or unhealthy but a scale of which is better.

[pearl33]

I have been drinking both decaf tea and coffee for several years now because I was having palpitations, I feel much better. My GP had nothing detrimental to say about its effect on my health.

[ahbuzza1]

If you read enough articles you will probably find that every kind of food/drink is bad for you some how :/ I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's only bad if say you were having 3 sugars per cup lol. I drink decaf coffee and it's done me no harm.

[Hopefuldieter]

I don't drink coffee but I drink tea. I've recently changed to decaff tea and feel all the better for it. Sleep is better and the tea tastes no different from ordinary tea. Since starting on the decaff tea I've lost 2lbs, not much but the only way is down!

[Hidden]

Hi Anthony2014,

I wouldn't have thought decaf coffee to have any significant health warnings attached to it, except for one.

If you usually drink ordinary coffee, your body will expect a hit of caffeine and will kind of brace itself for it when it sees and smells coffee. In effect, you've trained it to react like that through often drinking normal coffee.

If you suddenly change to de-caf, it takes a while for the body to adapt to the change, and at first it will brace itself for the caffeine hit that it doesn't get and that process will probably cause you a thumping headache at first.

It usually passes after a couple of days.