What the Eff is an Electrolyte? Is Gatorade the Real Deal?
She drinks gatorade, should you?
Everybody loves Gatorade, so let’s talk about if it’s fluff or it’s actually good for you.
All you hear about is “rehydrate” this, and “electrolyte” that…is it fo real? Your body has a balance, and has “ionic solutions”(boring term, don’t worry about it) called electrolytes that keep your body, muscles, and nerves functioning properly. Your kidneys exist to help keep your body in balance by regulating the fluids and electrolytes in your body. Your kidneys make pee–they basically filter your blood so you can get rid of waste products like urea and ammonia. When you are dehydrated, your kidneys make your pee as concentrated as possible to keep water in the body. When you are well hydrated, your kidneys let more water leave with the waste. Now, there’s all kinds of electrolytes, but the most important ones are: Sodium, chloride, potassium, bicarbonate, calcium, and phosphate. Your kidneys have specific transporters to regulate the concentration of each of these electrolytes in your blood.
When you work out, you sweat (yup, four years of college taught me that). When you sweat, you lose fluids and electrolytes – especially sodium and chloride (which is why your sweat tastes salty…stop tasting your sweat you creep). Now, when you’re lacking fluids and electrolytes, your muscles suffer and your performance suffers. Can’t be having performance issues can we now?
Let’s talk about why Gatorade (or any sports drink–they’re all about the same) works. Water will get into your blood stream faster (and to the right places) when it’s part of Gatorade because water follows electrolytes. Gatorade has electrolytes: your body soaks up these electrolytes quicker because your electrolytes are depleted from exercise, and they soak up the water right along with it. Regular water works just fine too, it just doesn’t get absorbed as quickly.
Gatorade has a good amount of sodium and glucose (sugar). Do you love your small intestines? Well, your small intestines love glucose, so get over it. The little transporters in your small intestines pick up that glucose, and in turn pick up the sodium. If they ‘re picking up glucose and they’re picking up sodium, they’re also grabbing the H20, and you’re getting rehydrated faster. Win win win!
One last reason why your body loves Gatorade is because sodium minimizes urination. (Remember osmosis from high school chemistry? Water goes where the salt is!) When you’re drinking Gatorade, the liquid will stay in your body longer, giving it more time to get absorbed, which will get you back into balance quicker!
So I realize this post reads like an ad for Gatorade. Pay no attention to the bag of money left for me in the corner. All this talk about how great Gatorade is as getting you rehydrated quicker will REALLY only affect you if you’re doing hours and hours of strenuous activity. If you’re just working out for 45 minutes, drinking water throughout the workout and afterwards will keep you plenty hydrated. Now, if you’re running a marathon, Gatorade is a good idea. You know what isn’t a good idea? Bourbon.
Gatorade vs. Water? Really, just make sure you’re drinking one of them. Gatorade tastes better, and has some calories and electrolytes, so it’s more likely to get you to drink it while working your ass off to stay in shape. Just don’t sit on your couch eating donuts and drinking Gatorade, because the sugar will go straight to your ass. Sure, you can be “a thirsty dude (R.I.P. Mitch),” but the sugar really won’t help you unless you’re exercising like crazy. If you’re looking to burn fat, drinking a 32 oz Gatorade will probably put back all the calories you just burned in your workout (there’s about 200-240 calories in there).
On a final note, and a tip that will be greatly expanded upon in the future, Gatorade is great for hangovers. When you wake up after a night of drinking, and your pee looks is the color of Mountain Dew, it’s because your body is severely dehydrated. Pale yellow pee? You’re right on track. Bright or dark yellow pee? Make a few more trips to the water cooler. Any other color of the rainbow? RUN to the doctor (Thanks Ali). Gatorade will get your body out of its funk quicker than water, and return it to levels of proper hydration, so try to keep one in the fridge before you head off to the bars on Friday…or play drinking games with your buddies while watching Arrested Development.
-Steve
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That is one sexy Gatorade ad! O_o
Excellent post, Stevo!
I guess it’s true, sex sells.
-S
im doing an assignment on whether sports drinks work and gee, this really helped! all the other websites are all high tech chemistry terms that i dont completely understand and you realy dumbed it down for me i got all my answers! too bad ive finished writing it though.. pretty sure im gonna edit it actually. thankyouuu
and il defininlty be coming on nerd fitness again. ha, what a cool website!
Well my son just won two dollars on that bet. I told him that Gatorade really wasn’t “All That” and I stand (Or actually sit) corrected. Thanx for the info!
is gatorade as good as gatorade G2
Hey Joey, thanks for the comment.
I would lean towards Water over G2, and G2 over regular Gatorade. Unless you’re running a marathon, you’re probably not wiping out enough electrolytes and calories to offset the amount of sugar in a big Gatorade. I would go with G2 over regular Gatorade for the same reason; Gatorade is such a high calorie drink that you’re probably offsetting all of the hard work you just did in the gym.
-Steve
I loved it! i just learned why its better to drink gatorade, sometimes….u also helped me with my biology project dealing with metabolism!!!THANKS!!!!
I can’t understand why anyone who is working out and going through all that to be healthy would drink gatorade?
Well actually I can understand it! I use to drink it also!!
Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, NFL sidelines. Some of my all time favorite marketing is from Gatorade. DEREK JETER!!
Even with all these superstars I can’t look past the fact that I just busted my a$$ running 5 miles and I am going to put a NEON yellow or blue liquid back into my body. High fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors. Dyes and who knows what else.
This post is very informative on the benefits of electrolytes. My trainer recently had me do my own research on coconut water and it has all the electrolytes you would find in a Gatorade and is all natural.
here is the one i know, there are others.
http://www.zico.com
Hey Michael, thanks for the comment man!
Yeah, its amazing how many calories get packed into a bottle of gatorade; great if you’re running ultra marathons but pretty detrimental if you’re doing 20 minutes on a treadmill at minimal speed.
-Steve
An undisclosed Gatorade benefit that my brother-in-law told me about 20 years ago was reducing the duration of an influenza illness. Standard medical advice of getting plenty of rest and fluids just didn't quite work when only two glasses of water made me feel too bloated to swallow another drop. Can't get much in the way of fluids with that approach. However, I could easily down gallon bottles of Gatorade with no problem and shorten the time being sick with the flu from 1-2 weeks to only 1-3 days. Don't forget the importance of the other half of the recipe — get plenty of rest. This allows your own immune system to take care of things the way it was designed to.
Hey John!
Thanks for the comment. I haven't done the research on the medical studies
for this, but I've done the same thing when I'm sick and it has worked for
me as well. Must also be why they tell ya to drink pedia-lite when you get
sick.
-Steve
bahahahahahahha that made me laugh for forever!!! but, it really did help me out. so, thanks for not using super big words that confuse people like me!!
TAKE IT IN THE FACE GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHH HAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On a serious note, i woke up with a hangover and my cousin told me to drink some powerade and within a hour i felt better untill i was completly rejuvenated!
YOO THANX ALOT.. i Use to play baseball a whole lot and now i am a professional DJ. So everytime i dj at a club i drink liquer. When i get home hang over.. Ever since i read this.. Been helping me out.. I wish i knew drinking Gatorade was better when i was a baseball player
YOO THANX ALOT.. i Use to play baseball a whole lot and now i am a professional DJ. So everytime i dj at a club i drink liquer. When i get home hang over.. Ever since i read this.. Been helping me out.. I wish i knew drinking Gatorade was better when i was a baseball player
wow nice post and thanks a lot dewd XD
Your trainer should understand that tropical fruits have the highest amount of saturated fat than any other food group, primarily the coconut. Drinking coconut during your workout is like eating a stick of butter with your workout (percentage of fat-wise). I’m sure your heart will love you. I briefly looked at the zico website, and among the nifty marketing descriptions I noticed the word ‘no fat’. Now this is probably because Coca-Cola (zico is a coke product) probably skims the coconut milk somehow, or this coconut water is in fact salt water with coconut flavoring (makes sense to me at least considering Gatorade is salt water with koolade flavoring). But then again I didn’t research how zico actually makes their beverage.
can someone please tell me the difference and tell me if gatorade is better than powerade? and are electrolytes really necessary in the work out?
I'm not sure where the author got his information at. Electrolytes are substances that when dissolved in water cause the solution to conduct electricity better. Electrolytes are salts. Unless you eat only fresh produce, you get way way more Electrolytes then you will ever need. In fact unless you are eating a low sodium diet, you probable get 2-3 time the amount of sodium you need. If you eat any fast food or chips you get an assload of salt. Now when you sweat you loose these electrolytes at a faster rate (sweat tastes salty). However there is no naturally occuring water on this planet that doesn't already contain these electrolytes. Tap water, well water any water that you find contains electrolytes. Yes gatorade contains more, but you probably have way more already than you need, unless you spend most of you day sweating.
As for the whole allowing the kidneys to concentrate you pee and save water, thats called water rentention. And having a lot of salt (Electrolytes) in you body can easily add 2-5% of you body weight in water. You're not trying to retain water, as it makes you heavier and slower. We aren't camels. Easy solution, pee it out and drink more water, its readily available. Retaining water is a bad idea, and you don't want to do it.
Water is absorbed through the large intestines, not the small intestine. Sugar and other carbs slow the rate of absorption, but its really not that big of deal since water can be absorbed pretty quickly anyways. The only point is there is no evidence that suggests that water gets into you bloodstream faster with gatorade, than water. In fact there is evidence to suggest exactly the opposite, but it doesn't matter, because either way it gets there fast enough. You are not limited in anyway by the speed that water gets into your bloodstream. Gatorade will not rehydrate you quicker, there is absolutely no evidence to support this.
The only thing that gatorade has over water is that people are more likely to drink more of it, because it has sugar, and people like sugar. But you can and should get the same thing from water. Tying together hydration with calories is always a bad idea (i.e. don't drink your calories).
My main problem with gatorade is that its expensive and generates plastic bottle trash (bad for the planet). When i sweat from sports i get really thirst and water does me fine every time.
When your sick, actually i agree that its hard to keep hydrated, and if the sugar in gatorade helps you do that, try this recipe:
1 pack of kool aid (or off brand)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of salt
add that water called from on the back of the kool aid pack.
tastes almost exactly like gatorade (the flavors may be a bit off depending on which brand you use, but you won't really notice), for like 1/15th the cost and no plastic bottles to throw away.
Vita Coco has more electrolytes, less calories, AND tastes better than Gatorade.
Loved the article and the humor that went into it. No dry reading with that at all!
Very funny article…I loved it.