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What’s the best drink for your workout and healthy lifestyle? By: Jonathan Bille  |
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 It seems that everyday there’s a new sport drink available on the market. So much so that local convenient stores are running out of space in their coolers to sell them all. Some of the most popular include Vitamin Water, Propel, PowerAde, and Gatorade.
These drinks have subtle differences from each other but all are marketed as a water replacement. Each claim that their formula of vitamins, minerals and electrolytes are what make their products unique and the right choice for fighting dehydration during exercise and physical activity.
Here’s the problem, all of these products either contain high fructose corn syrup or sucrose syrup, which is basically table sugar. Additionally many sports drinks also contain caffeine or other stimulants like Taurine, which do provide an energy boost, but also cause an energy crash.
Then there are the added vitamins and minerals. While many of these sport drinks contain vitamins and minerals, they don’t contain much, certainly not enough to make any significant difference in your daily allowance of your vitamin and mineral needs.
Then there is water. Good old normal water.
Water contains minerals and electrolytes just as sport drinks, but in addition water may contain good levels of calcium, nitrates and zinc, depending on the quality of your local water source. A good bottled water such as Mt. Valley Water has an excellent mineral content.
The best part of water is that it doesn’t contain any sugar or stimulants like caffeine so there is no energy crash.
But what about the taste? Perhaps the only valid argument sport drinks can make is that the products taste good which encourages the user to drink more. And I suppose that is true, but here’s something you can try to add a little appeal to your water, encouraging you to drink more.
Add a few drops of fruit soda (orange, grape, cherry, etc…) to your bottle of water, just enough to change the color not to add flavor. Then and a few drops of lemon juice to give your water a kick and you’ll have a homemade sport drink that not only contains the stuff you want, but in addition, doesn’t contain the things you don’t want. The color of the water seems to trick the brain into thinking it’s getting a sweet sport drink when in reality, your just drinking good old fashioned water, the best choice of drinks for your workouts and active lifestyle.
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