ExRx.net

My trainer at DeFranco's told me to bring G2 (low sugar gatorade) to my workouts after I got light-headed during my sandbag work. So, I got myself 4 bottles on sale. Used half of one today, about 16 oz, and it was fine. Didn't like the taste much but my energy level felt better during the workout.

But G2, and lots of these other drinks, have high fructose corn syrup. Ugh. Not something I want to put in my body. Nevermind artificial flavorings - I don't even like the taste, so it's lose-lose.

I'm thinking I'm probably better off making my own. Maybe mix some tea (caffeine and flavor!) and pedialyte (electrolyte replacement) with some kind of quick-absorbing sugar. Any suggestions as to what might make a good addition? I can get dextrose, table sugar, honey of all sorts...

I just want to make sure I'm hydrated and don't bonk out when I'm being pushed really hard, and the water didn't cut it. :)

I believe that those are the same things.

Anything will work, mixing a protein shake with caffeine, taurine, carnitine, ephedrine, b vitamins, and some sugar. That would make a super energy shake.

Been a while since I was up on the sugars, but I believe the name is maltodextrine. Very fast acting. You'll have to read labels for grams, and decide what proportions you want, but that plus some electrolite replacement stuff and maybe some protein powder should do the trick.
Tim

table sugar is sucrose, but dextrose has a similar rate of digestion. It has roughly the same affect.

I just thought I'd complicate your project without being very helpful. Thank me later.

I'm just remembering some dim echos from my GI course (or something) 25 years ago. As I recall, the ability to absorb water from the gut effectively is dependent on the particular concentration of the sugar. I remember this in regard to rehydration solutions for use with dehydrated patients. If you can find the recipe (I'll look for it, too) for WHO rehydration salts, that should be approximately the ideal. In fact, you might be able to find packets of rehydration salt. Add a packet to a measured volume of water (?500ml?) and it makes the right solution. You could probably add it to tea. I can't imagine how that would taste.

I'll see what I can find in my pretty limited library.

It was so easy to find that now I'm embarrassed that I didn't just wait and look it up first.

The mechanism I was trying to remember is the sodium-glucose cotransporter. And it's just that both have to be present in adequate amounts, not that there is a critical amount of either.

The WHO solution is about 2 times higher in sodium than commercial solutions like Pedialyte, and there is great controversy (I can just imagine the exciting arguments that could ensue) in the world of oral electrolyte replacement as to which is the best. The brief summary that I read doesn't really get into the arguments, but most people seem to favor the lower sodium concentration. Pedialyte is the lowest at 45 mEq/L (well, except for Gatorade at 20). WHO is 90 MEq/L. Carbohydrate content varies from 20 to 40 gm/L. If you make your own from scratch, you have to use twice as much sucrose (table sugar) as you would pure glucose, since sucrose is split to produce glucose and fructose. Glucose needs to be present in order to take advantage of the cotransporter mechanism. The fructose is absorbed by a different mechanism, but does not carry a sodium with it (so you still get the larger carbohydrate load if you use sucrose).

Also note that Gatorade (the regular kind, I don't know about the new stuff) has only a tiny bit of potassium. Everything else has in the neighborhood of 20 mEq/L.

So it sounds like your original idea of Pedialyte (or one of the other similar rehydration products on the market) would be the simplest way to go. Adding tea? Try it and let us know!

There. I've now once again told you more than I know.

Just a note, caffeine itself does not mix with anything. It'll mix alright, but it is probably the most bitter thing and destroys anything it goes into, besides diet soda. I hear protein + waxy maize or maltodex is great during workouts, and most people that use waxy maize claim they feel like they could run through another workout "probably a bit stretched though".

If you were to add caffiene you would only use about .4 g of it which wouldn't make that big of a deal & also there are gonna be other things in the drink which will make the teste barely noticable.

Some things to note that I recently added to my drinks, and found that they worked really well. Waxy Maize, kills almost all soreness within half an hour of drinking it. It was really crazy, I did deadlifts, supine rows, squats, and a arm pull routine, and besides being out of energy, my body feels fine. Second is Beta-Alanine. Works similar to creatine and gives you a similar pump to most NO products, so its fun as well as beneficial. And caffeine is really bitter, its okay if something can cover it up, but most protein shakes will taste horrid with it in it.

Here is what I settled on, after a few false starts:

32oz Trader Joe's Electrolyte Water (0 carbs, no sweeteners or HFCS)
2-3 tablespoons of honey (bought from a local farm that get it from a local beekeeper)
20g of L-glutamine

That's it. Good taste - slightly sweet, refreshing. Doesn't dry my mouth out like tea, no nasty aftertaste like gatorade. Cheaper than pedialyte, and I can control all the ingredients. Even the honey is organic and local. The glutamine is mostly there because I found it really helped me post-workout in Japan. If I didn't take it, I'd get sick often. If I did, I'd get sick infrequently. So I figure it's worth the small investment.

It's relatively cheap. The TJ's water is $1.09 for 1.5L, the honey is $5 for a honey bear full ($10 for a big-ass jar, but that's much less convenient...maybe next time). Compare that with $1 for 32oz of Gatorade...it's not any more expensive and I can totally avoid artificial colors, sweeteners, and HFCS, all of which are on my "not if I can help it" list.

Research show that a beverage with protein in it is much better than a carb only drink, like Gatoraide. In fact, Gatoraide is now making a carb/protein beverage.

Evidently, one of the best workout beverages is choclolate milk.

"...athletes who drank chocolate milk after an intense bout of exercise were able to workout longer and with more power during a second workout compared to athletes who drank commercial sports beverages."
International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism

http://www.liveleantoday.com/article.cfm?id=358

Kenny Croxdale

I can always add protein to my drink. The reason I haven't is that I drink a 25g scoop of whey protein with some vitamin powder an hour before I workout, and then I drink a mix of whey protein (25g protein), muscle milk (18g protein), and vitamin powder immediately after my workout (as in, standing in the gym) and then eat a piece of fruit. So I'm not starved for protein. In fact, I figure the chances my body will usefully utilize the protein in a drink I take in during my workout are pretty low...I'm in and out in an hour and I've already got protein digesting in my system.



I've heard, but I'm at least mildly lactose intolerant, so the milk comes with too many downsides. Even adding lactaid tablets doesn't seem to help as much as it should. I recently cut all dairy from my diet, except where its lactase-free and an incidental ingredient, and I've noticed I'm feeling much better. Some otherwise hard-to-source problems just went away.

Otherwise, I'd be right there. I used to drink chocolate milk everyday with my school lunch. :)

There's a recipe for a "rehydration" on webmd:
http://www.webmd.com/hw-popup/rehydrati ... ar=hw86827

I'm too frugal for sports drink so I make my own which is something akin to the one linked to on webmd. For ~500ml of water I use a pinch of salt, a few pinches of sugar and a small splash of orange juice or cranberry juice.

It's my savior for those long bike rides.

Thanks, that link is great. I'll try that after I run out of TJ's electrolyte water.

Loren Cordain's 'Paleo diet for Athletes' suggests that unless you are competing in multi day endurance events the only electrolyte that will need replacing will be sodium. So you can probably bin the expensive electrolyte drinks and just use a punch (or punch if you are sweaty) of salt.

I think the home brew recipe he gives is

4:1 mixture of water to fruit juice.

+2g of dextrose or simple sugar per kg bodyweight for every hour of intense exercise (your body cannot absorb any more, giving it more will merely limit gastric emptying and restrict water absorption.

1-2g of salt per hour.

0.4g whey protein per kg body weight if the session intends to go catabolic (i.e. longer than 90mins).

This is from the top of my head, but I will check with the book at home this evening.