Keeping Hydrated; With Sports Drinks? Or Without?

It is important to keep hydrated when working out but should we be using sports drinks?

The answer for most of us is probably not but maybe. How is that for being decisive?

As with everything we have to be aware that we are all different and thus our needs are different.

For those of us who are doing activities in the range of 30 to 45 minutes probably don’t need to drink anything but water. I say probably because, once again we must consider individual differences. For those who are involved in highly strenuous activities that extend over an hour should consider a salt replacement drink. Consider a salt replacement drink does not mean do it. The old individual differences comes into play again and like most things physical you need to listen to your body as you make decisions. If you are finding that you are cramping a lot and during the end of your activity that is a sign you may be losing too many electrolytes. Another sign of loss of too many electrolytes might be that even though you are in top condition you are finding abnormal loss of performance toward the end of your activity.

Recent studies out of the university at Nottingham, UK indicate that there are considerable differences in the amount of salt we lose during sweating. Some of us are salty sweaters and some of us aren’t. If you are one of the salty sweaters you will need to consider using a salt replacement drink during many strenuous activities. If you are not a salty sweater you may only need to worry about electrolyte replacement after activity time.

A way to find out if you lose a high amount of salt with your sweat is to wear a black sweat shirt during your activities for a few times in a row. Let the shirt dry out each time before washing. If you find considerable deposit of white salty substance on the shirt you are likely a heavy salt sweater. You need to consider a salt replacement drink at least during long strenuous activities in hot humid conditions. If you are not losing a lot of salt you may not need any activity-time replacement. In both conditions listen to your body and do gradual experimenting. You might want to alternate a sport type drink with regular water or water down your sport drink.

If you are not cramping and your body is not giving you any signs of unusual stress you may just want to replace your electrolytes through normal natural ways i.e. eating foods that are high in these electrolytes.

Actual salt, calcium chloride, is probably the last of the electrolytes you need to worry about replacing considering that most of us intake far too much of it on a daily basis. Its two sidekicks; potassium and magnesium are by far the more important ones to be sure to replace.

Adding even a small amount of extra salt can add extra pounds through water retention. This is contrary to what many of us are taking part in activities for and it also puts extra stress on the heart which has to work harder because our tissues are filled with water.

By supplementing salt in our drinks we risk overloading salt in our systems which according to medical professionals can be detrimental in that it can drive down potassium levels even further than what the exercise does. Potassium is an extremely important in the body’s muscular functioning. It is especially important to the heart muscle’s functioning.

The other important electrolyte is magnesium. It plays a major role in the acid alkaline balance of our body and keeps our body fluids in balance.

We can help replace magnesium through such high magnesium foods as raw barley, raw oat bran, brown rice, whole wheat four, almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, black beans, navy beans and white beans to name a few. Examples of high potassium foods are: dried apricots, avocados, bananas, dates, dried figs, kiwi, cantaloupe and oranges.

Now if you are doing all of this there still may be times when you may need to use a sports drink during some of your activities under certain conditions. If you are going to make use of sports drinks read the labels carefully. You now know that salt should not be a major ingredient. Sugar should not be a major ingredient and if it comes in the form of fructose it should be very low. The body apparently can only make use of small amounts of fructose and if it is in too great a proportion it apparently blocks the absorption of glucose.

There are few studies out yet but added protein does not appear to have any real effect on performance in any tests except those sanctioned by the manufacturers.

So my advice is consider using sports drinks if you are involved extremely energetic or highly prolonged activities, use natural foods as much as possible to replace electrolytes, watch salt very carefully, listen to your body and choose wisely. Until then …

keep cool, hydrated and …

remember ... you ... look ... marvellous!