Mano Minute (1/21): My coffee obsession (+ routine) ☕️


Mano Minute (1/21): My Coffee Obsession (+ Routine) ☕️

I’ve had a long relationship with coffee.

My love for it started early (maybe a little too early) drinking a cup of coffee at 9 PM with my Italian grandparents.

I didn’t like it at first.
But I wanted to fit in, so I drank it anyway.

That eventually turned into what I called “coffee,” which was really just sugar and flavor (a way to hide the taste of coffee altogether).

Over time, things shifted.

I went from multiple sugar pumps…
to sugar free pumps…
to almond milk only…
to less and less almond milk…
until one day I realized I actually preferred the taste of black coffee.

Not because it was “better.”
Just because my taste adjusted slowly over time.

Now my routine is pretty simple:

  • French press almost every morning
  • Pour over once in a while
  • Starbucks iced coffee on rare occasions

Most days, I’ll add 1st Phorm's Natural Collagen.
It adds a little flavor and helps me get my daily collagen in without thinking about it.

What this taught me has nothing to do with coffee.

Change sticks when it’s gradual, not forced.
Taste, habits, and preferences adapt when you give them time.

I didn’t quit sugar overnight.
I didn’t “optimize” my coffee.
I just made the next version slightly simpler than the last.

That approach works for most health habits.

BONUS TIP:
If something feels hard to give up, don’t remove it yet. Adjust it slightly and let your preferences catch up.

Mano Minute

A 1-minute, Monday-Friday email, to help busy professionals move more, eat better, and think clearer.

Read more from Mano Minute

Mano Minute (3/12): Why you get sore after a workout (and what it actually means) 💪 Soreness gets a bad reputation. People either chase it like a trophy or fear it like an injury. Most of the time, neither response is quite right. Here is what is happening. When you lift weights, you create tiny tears in your muscle fibers. These are called microtears. That feeling of soreness you get 24 to 48 hours after a workout? That is your body reacting to those tears. But here is the important part....

Mano Minute (3/11): Free weights vs. machines. Here is my honest take 🏋️ There is a gym snobbery I want to address. A lot of people treat machines like they are for beginners. Like real lifters only use free weights. Planet Fitness gets mocked constantly because it is mostly machines. I disagree with this entirely. Machines are excellent. Not just for beginners, but for everyone. Here is why. Machines protect your form. They guide your movement through a fixed range of motion, which means you...

Mano Minute (3/10): Eating carbs without the guilt 🍞 Carbs have had a rough decade. Low carb diets. No carb diets. Keto. Everyone treating bread like it is poison. Here is my take. Carbs are not the problem. The type of carbs is the problem. There are carbs that leave you feeling guilty, foggy, and hungry an hour later. Ultra processed snacks, white bread, sugary drinks, fast food. These spike your blood sugar fast and crash it just as fast. Your body does not get much from them. And you are...