Damn, and I pay good money for my Dihydrogen Monoxide.
Si
So what you are saying is that Gatorade has entirely honest advertising. You DO need something like Gatorade… if you work out like the guys in the Gatorade commercials do (now, the number of Gatorade customers who actually work out like that are probably about similar to the number of Marines who spend their days fighting giant fricken demons on the top of a plateau in the desert somewhere…)
Bolding mine so I can engage in a slight nitpick/hijack, mostly to check my understanding:
With slight variations from person to person, calories expended is a function of the amount of weight moved over a given distance, and not of time. So I should burn the same number of calories walking 3 miles as I would if I sprinted those same 3 miles full-out.
I’m speaking only about calories burned and not any other benefits that may be gained by running vs. jogging vs. walking, i.e. muscular endurance, cardio benefit, etc.
Am I off in my undestanding?
Yes. See this thread where I link to an article that studied this very thing.
When you run, your body not only has to deal with forward momentum, but vertical as well (fighting gravity).
From the study: After one mile ‘The men burned an average of 124 calories while running, and just 88 while walking; the women burned 105 and 74. [The men burned more than the women because they weighed more.]’
You’re pretty much right - it’s weight x distance; time is not a part of the calculation.
However, gait is - running and walking are two different gaits, and walking is more efficient than running. As EmAnJ says, that’s because walking is a smoother, more horizontal gait, whereas running has some upward movement. So running the same distance will expend more calories not because you’re moving faster or anything, but simply because it’s a less efficient gait.
The study cited above gives the difference as more than I thought it was, though - I always thought it was about 10% difference, not the 30%-ish shown. But I’ll happily believe the study in the absence of any others to hand.
It should also be said that the current recommendation for endurance sports is to drink to thirst, no more and no less. It turns out that the thirst mechanism is pretty reliable after all. It has been tuned by millions of years of evolution and it’s what every other animal on Earth relies on. The attitude that everyone is constantly dehydrated and that if you’re thirsty it’s somehow “too late” is a recent invention of the marketing departments of drink manufacturers.
Not to mention a philosophy tauted by the Air Force.
Of course, it recently came to my attention that Monster, Coffee, and sodas also provide hydrating benefits, just not the same benefits as water does (and of course, if it’s a very sugary/creamy version of any of those drinks, you’re probably not doing yourself any favors drinking that stuff before going on a run…)
Indeed. Pro athletes may benefit from a specially formulated drink like Gatorade, but they’re not exercising to lose weight. They’re trying to win the game, and would probably drink a beverage that contains enough calories for them to gain three pounds if it gave them enough of an edge to win.
There were two recommendations in the BBC article I mentioned earlier - first, watch your pee. It should be a pale straw colour, not yellow, not clear. The other was to do some weigh recording before and after exercise: any weight you lose during an exercise session is water loss, no question (i.e. it is not fat you have worked off), and you should replace a substantial portion of that weight with fluids afterwards (about 20% of our fluid requirements are met by the food we eat). Do this for a bit, and you will get a pretty good idea of how much fluids you lose in a workout. Of course, your water loss will vary somewhat based on intensity/temperature/humidity, but you can get a pretty good estimate.
The other point they made was that while the thirst mechanism is pretty good, it can be fooled. Your brain detects dehydration, and triggers a thirst response. You drink, and the thirst is slaked by hydration sensors in the mouth (and the mental triggers of drinking). But the fluid will not rehydrate you for about 30 minutes, when it passes the stomach. So you can dehydrate further during that time. Understanding your dehydration profile when exercising can help you keep your system hydrated without too many peaks/troughs and help avoid overhydration or a bloated sloshy belly.
Si
My rule of thumb is that if a workout is likely to soak through ~75% of 2 layers of t-shirts* I can treat myself to a 1 part Gatorade 2 parts water mix.
*I always wear a white tee under an athletic tee so the latter doesn’t get yellow stains from the deodorant.
Sports drinks and bars are only for performance reasons. That is, you use them when you are trying to maximize speed, endurance, power, etc. If you’re trying to get your fastest 10k time they may be useful. But if your goal is weight loss they are totally counterproductive. Your body will take the carbs from the drink and use them instead of converting your fat stores into fuel.