Read an article recently that suggested that the old ‘8 eight oz.’ of water per day is an exaggerated standard, that most Americans don’t drink anywhere near that much water on a daily basis and get by fine on say, 32 oz. per day.
The article also said that drinking water in pure form doesn’t do much good as the body has difficulty absorbing it and it mostly goes straight through the urinary tract. Better, it said, to get your water eating fruits and vegetables and soups, or chugging down sports drinks.
While all that makes sense, I have a hard time getting the old ‘drink water’ standard. I will say that, whenever I’ve tried to drink plenty of water, all I end up doing is running to the bathroom all day. But hey, its cheaper than buying Gatorade. Isn’t the first ingredient listed sucrose? How healthy can that be?
Well, for me, I prefer the additional stuff in Gatorade. I drink so much of it that I buy the powdered mix and make it myself rather than buying it in bottles.
Yep, As listed on the label we’ve got Sucrose, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Salt, Sodium Citrate, natural Lemon and Lime Flavors with other Natural Flavors, Monopotasium Phosphate, Calcium cilicate and Yellow 5.
I still feel more hydrated drinking a glass of Gatorade than I do just drinking a glass of water.
Gatorade is good if you need electrolytes (for example, after a night of heavy drinking :)), but for regular old drinking, water is by far the best thing you can drink.
Think about it - an 8-oz. glass of Gatorade is mostly sugared water. Other than the electrolytes, minerals, etc., you’re drinking water and sugar. IIRC, a glass of Gatorade has about 100 calories. 8 glasses a day would give you 800 cal. Even 4 glasses is 400 cal, or 20% of your RDA for a 2000 cal diet.
Try flavored seltzer if you don’t like water. Sports drinks and sports bars in general are good if you’re sweating a lot or if you need a quick boost, but should not (contrary to marketing) be a regular part of your diet.
If you really need electrolytes, forget the sports drinks - way too much sugar, try pedeolite which is a drink for infants who have the runs - much more electrolytes much less sugar and the grape flavor is pretty good.
I found this out when I was on a ski vacation and got a stomach flue AND altitude sickness at the same time. Also where I was, I had to go up to get back down to the base lodge. When I got to the top of the chairlift the ski patrol informed me (and everyone else) that they highly recommend going up one more chair to get to the base lodge because the only way to get back was an icy double black diamond.
Suffering from altitude sickness there was NO WAY I was going any higher. I skied over to the trail and it looked ok from the top, steep yes - but I’m used to that, but it didn’t look icy to me, so I started down. then when I made maybe 3-4 turns, 2 locals came to the trail and one said to the other this trail was a sheet of ice. Then I figured it out as I am primarlly an eastern skier and conditions are usally harder - this being a western resort - they are used to powder or at worse packed powder and couldn’t handle what I call hard packed.
I skied to the bottom, when inside the lodge as I waited for my wife to get there (she took the lift up as advised by the ski patrol.) When she got there I was worse. The ski patrol said that they could give me some O2 but I will have to ski down a little further to the infirmary. I when outside and smelt the BBQ and lost it. I tossed ‘cookies’ all over the deck - but man did I feel better.
And I wanted to get back to the condo fast - before the next wave kicked in, that when the ski patrol recomended pedeolite (bet you were wondering when this came in).
After this I found it makes an excellent sports drink for high intensity sports.
pedeolite is great, when on SAR missions as team medic thats what I carry to rehydrate those who do not drink enough water.
With that said, drink water. Thats what your body was ment to have. If you eat a relatively balanced diet you are going to get all of the electrolytes you are going to need from your diet. I have read (cite withstanding, I’ll find it for ya) that you can actually increase your electrolyte balance too high by overconsumption of sports drinks.
How do you all drink gatorade without doing something to sweat it out? I personally can’t stand the stuff unlesa it’s ice cold or I’ve been running around doing stuff.
So what exactly is the “body” that needs to absorb the water? Muscles? Obviously any water we drink is absorbed quite efficiently into the bloodstream, otherwise we’d just get diarrhea.
Anyway, what I usually do is drink water from squirt bottles or drink hot tea. If you drink water slowly it seems to get absorbed more efficiently. (I’m too cheap to buy sports drinks - if I use sports drinks to power my bicycle, it costs as much as driving my car.)
Gatorade is not so expensive if you buy the powerdered stuff. I buy this not only because it is so much cheaper than the pre-mix, but I can mix it to my own desire, which is a lot less gatorade than used in the premix, which is too sweet for my taste.
That said, studies show that water is adequate and adequately absorbed for any one exercising less than one hour at a time. If you are into endurance exercise, you will need some kind of energy drink, like Gatorade and its imitators, of which there are many. You then not only have to replace your glucose, but your electrolytes; such as potassium and sodium.
Fluids contain dihydrogen oxide (H2O)so any kind of fluid satisfies the daily water requirements. All fruits contain water and some, like watermelon, are almost 100% water.
Well, the part about water going right through you-that’s GOOD, because it flushes out your system. Notice that when you drink alot of water, your urine is clear? That’s because it’s cleaning out the toxins in your body. (So I’ve heard). It’s also very good for your skin.
At Kmart, they have the pedeolite with the cough medicine and stuff. I’ll have to try it sometime.
Basically, the human body does an amazing job of conserving water when it is necessary (big long biological reasion I can do into if anyone is curious). When becoming dehydrated you can notice that your urine can become very very dark. When it is not necessary to conserve the water you can piss it off like its, well, water.
As to the OP, there is some merit in the contention that fluid by way of food and energy drinks is more readily absorbable. Tests done on ultramarathoners who ran a S African “marathon” (actually 50K) found that a little salt added to water makes the fluid more absorbable. It has to do with concentrations. Some energy drinks a while back boasted they were isotonic and others said they were hypotonic, in both cases enabling the fluid portion to more readily pass through the membranes.
