If you do cardio for about 45 minutes or so (which I think is optimal) , Which is better, Water or Gatorade? and why? Rick
Add a few ingredients and water becomes Gatorade, but its hydrating effects may not be the same afterward. For the past five years, Robert Robergs, a UNM exercise physiologist, has been researching Gatorade's claims that the sports drink is superior to water in its ability to rehydrate the body. "There's nothing magical about Gatorade that hydrates the body better," Robergs said. "You put water and Gatorade in front of an athlete and they prefer to drink Gatorade just because it tastes better." Robergs said body hydration is tested by weighing a person before and after the drinks have been consumed. He said if the weights are the same, it is obvious that Gatorade isn't retained any better than water. The reason Gatorade is thought to rehydrate better is because of the carbohydrates in the drink, which aid the small intestine in absorbing water in the body, he said. The body absorbs water seven times faster with carbohydrates, but Robergs said there is no evidence the body is able to retain that water. "When our (research) subjects drank Gatorade and drank water, they had to run to the bathroom just as fast," he said. Research shows that Gatorade provides athletes with carbohydrates needed during exercise. But, unless a person is going to exercise for at least 90 minutes, consuming the carbohydrates is self-defeating, Robergs said, adding there is no need for people to ingest a drink that is basically sugar water. "You can make the same drink out of table sugar and Kool-Aid," Robergs said. "Sprinkle in some table salt and it is effectively the same, but at one-fifth the cost." http://media.www.dailylobo.com/medi...udygatorade.No.Better.Than.Water-626076.shtml
90 minutes of cardio exercise is not only unhealthy, but also Who in the working world has that much time on their hands? I used to be an avid runner, ran about 22 miles a week, (Fairly decent) for almost most of my college life and some years after; but mostly i finished my runs within an hour and I always used to eat something like an apple and get some lemonade water. I found that apple always worked better in terms of its release of instant energy. I think that 60 minutes of sweating exercise warrants some instant energy to do some work in subsequent minutes; and if you are like one of those people who HAVE to do some work (mental as well as physical), I think you need instant energy and sustained energy. Gatorade could be a good option, but as I said, I used an apple and some lemonade. I was just wondering if Gatorade affects your: 1.) Kidneys 2.) Electrolyte balance in : harmful ways or beneficial ways? Rick
Gatorade is a bit of a rip off. I've never heard anything about it being harmful to the kidneys. But its electrolytes are a useless selling point. All water has electrolytes in it, unless it is distilled. As far as being harmful, well, it has a lot of sugar in it and some high fructose corn syrup. Neither of those are good for you. As cosmic was saying, you can make your own electrolyte beverage. Just search google for "make your own sports drinks." Its cheaper, works better, doesn't have shit in it. The only draw back is that it may not taste as good.
Dextrose and sucrose are needed to lower cortisol levels and replenish glycogen stores in the muscles. I'd stay FAR away from the Gatorade or Powerade that's pre-made and in the bottle because their primary sugar is fructose... buy the mixing powder because they are dextrose and sucrose only. If you are going 45 minutes of cadio and do nothing to blunt the effects of cortisol, you're burning more muscle than fat and you're making it harder to recover for your next session. Remember, muscle burns fat.. if you lose weight that doesn't mean you're losing fat.
Sports drinks are not rip-offs. A lot of science goes into their formulation and they provide proven benefits for endurance athletes. Carbohydrate and carbohydrate + protein for cycling time-trial performance. Osterberg KL, Zachwieja JJ, Smith JW. J Sports Sci. 2008 Feb 1;26(3):227-33. There’s just one example. There are many others. True, but the issue is whether there are sufficient electrolytes in tap water (compared to sports drinks) to provide a benefit to the athlete. The answer is no, there is not. Sports drinks have less carbohydrate than carbonated drinks like Coke, Pepsi etc. Whether you can be bothered making your own or buy commercial products is a separate issue. It is certainly cheaper to make your own but it is incorrect to say that home-made sports drinks work better than the commercial products. It is not easy to precisely replicate the recipe of the commercial sports drinks - it’s easy to obtain sodium salt (ie. table salt) but harder to obtain potassium salts which are present in the commercial products. ----- The real issue here is whether the exercise regimen described in the OP would benefit from ingestion of a sports drink like Gatorade. I doubt it would; 45 mins of “cardio” is not going to result in significant electrolyte loss, so water for rehydration during the exercise will likely be sufficient. Longer endurance exercise (and the resulting electrolyte and energy loss) will benefit from Gatorade over water.
i have trouble drinking plain water so a way to cut the sugar is to mix the gatorade with water. obviously if you mix it with 50% water you will get half the sugar and i cant see the sugar being such a problem but if people want to make an issue of it then cut it with water.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Your body will try to keep the muscles needed to survive. It takes a lot of time and energy for your body to break down fat and use it as fuel. When the body runs low on the body's stores of glucose (called glycogen), it breaks down muscle tissue into amino acids. These amino acids are carried to the liver and converted to glucose... this process is called gluconeogenesis. Look at it this way... a 200 lbs man at 15% body fat has 130,000 calories worth of fat in his body. This is enough to run from Washington D.C. to Miami. Do you really think he could do this on fat alone? By the time he makes it half way... most of his muscle will be wasted away. This is why long distance runners are skinny fucks while sprinters are bulky. Long distance runner: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Sprinter Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Out of pure curiosity, why is it that you can't stand plain water? I never understood how someone could tell me water tastes bad. I think 3+ liters of water everyday... I'd drink even more if I could.
from a medical stand point i would say no they are not a rip off. have any of you ever herd of a product called gastrolyte? Its VERY similar to the sports drinks in content but isnt as jazzy, however it has a VERY strong purpose. That is the replacements of the loss of mineral salts due to either chronic vomiting or the shits. It (and sports drinks) are also advised for especially the elderly on very hot days where the sweat being produced is sucking the mineral salts out of the body. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kBnypVUEcg I cant see the situation being much different for athlets, sweet means loss of salt and this is bad for the balance of the body. Does it hydrate faster? no, you can only hydrate as much as the amount of water you drink which will be slightly less for a sports drink. However it WILL replace those salts and without them you die, litterly die because without Na+, K+ and Ca++ your heart cant beat effectivly and you end up with this
