Take time to hydrate

Last winter, when it was unusually cold, wet and windy for the Lowcountry, I longed for the heat of summer and vowed not to complain once it was here. Even in the suffocating heat and humidity of the past month and the promise of at least eight more weeks of it, I still would rather be hot than cold.

But, boy, has it been brutal, particularly for those who work or exercise moderately or strenuously outdoors.

Essential to surviving the heat is staying hydrated.

As many of us know (perhaps a few need reminding), water alone won’t suffice when we are active for any substantial amount of time, basically 30 minutes or more depending on intensity, and sweating profusely. Our bodies need electrolytes, primarily sodium and potassium.

The king of electrolyte beverages is Gatorade, originally created in 1965 at the University of Florida. Since then, many imitators have followed. Coinciding with the boom of endurance sports and physical fitness in the past decade, the engineered sports beverage and food industry has proliferated with food bars, gels and even jelly beans to help fuel growing populations of amateur athletes and weekend warriors.

At the same time, there has been heightened awareness of packaged and processed foods. Generally, many health professionals not paid by a member of the industry think that the more processed foods are, the less healthy they are for you.

As far as sports beverages are concerned, I started earlier this year trying to find more natural alternatives to the neon-colored, overly sweet sports drinks, not to totally replace them, but to minimize them.

Increasingly, sports drinks are grouped into three categories based on timing: before workouts (fueling up), during workouts (replenish) and after workouts (recovery). That’s the whole premise of Gatorade’s new G Series, which has drinks engineered to “prime,” “perform” and “recover.”

Here’s my sports drink, mostly natural, alternatives:

Fueling up

Calorie-free, water remains my beverage of choice, but I try to trick myself into drinking more — with a little nutrient kick, to boot — by pouring myself a mixed drink, sans the booze.

Fruit juices often have electrolytes and nutrients, but also are fairly expensive and high in calories. So I like to mix them with store-brand seltzer water, usually three parts seltzer with one part fruit juice. My juices of choice are grapefruit because of its refreshing bite, pomegranate because it’s an antioxidant powerhouse and tart cherry because of its antioxidants and reported anti-inflammatory qualities.

One juice I don’t dilute, though it’s thick enough to, but also work into the hydration routine is V8. The famed vegetable juice is high in sodium, which if you’re sweating a lot and not hypertensive, is pretty good for preparing for a hard workout or after a workout.

A popular drink that I haven’t worked into my routine but has a following is coconut water, which has a healthy dose of potassium but not a lot of sodium. Some people, including several colleagues, swear by the stuff.

On the flip-side of coconut water is the sodium-rich (four times as much as Gatorade) BANa water, created by local physician Benjamin Yoo, who I interviewed last winter. Yoo said, “Sodium is the key to rehydration. In my opinion, it’s not potassium, magnesium or calcium, it’s the sodium. When you sweat, you are sweating out salt and water.”

I like BANa, but the $2 per 16.9-ounce bottle and its limited availability (primarily at Piggly Wiggly and online) deters me from using it.

Replenishing

During activity, I often rely on Gatorade or a similar product because that’s when you need that mix of simple sugars and salt. Besides, it’s easy to stop in a convenience store for a cold bottle to guzzle.

Another alternative, particularly for long, glycogen-depleting efforts, may be counterintuitive and even controversial. But for years, Ironman triathletes and ultra runners have been using defizzed cola — yep, high-fructose corn syrup and all — to quickly restore glycogen lost in muscle tissue. The high-dose simple sugars reach it quicker than typically healthier complex sugars.

Recovery

Sometimes, just the fantasy of certain beverages is the only thing that gets me to finish a particularly long, hard workout.

Admittedly, in hot weather, that’s an ice cold beer, but while it’s OK to have just one followed by something else not alcoholic, it’s not ideal. Yet like cola and beer, the natural recovery drink of choice may be a surprise to those who don’t regularly read endurance sports websites and follow nutrition studies.

It’s low-fat chocolate milk, I prefer the organic variety, because it has the ideal carb-to-protein ratio, 4-to-1, for proper recovery and muscle repair.

A simple reminder

Remember that the simplest way to know whether you are properly hydrated is to examine the color of your urine. If it is pale yellow, you are properly hydrated. If it’s white, you’re likely overhydrated and if its yellow, especially bright or dark yellow (unless you’ve taken a vitamin pill), you are likely dehydrated.

Hydration tips

For most athletes, water is a fine source of hydration because it is absorbed quickly and well-tolerated, according to Tonya Turner, a registered dietitian at the Weight Management Center at the Medical University of South Carolina

"Sports beverages may be recommended when exercising for greater than 45 minutes, exercising in extreme hot or humid conditions or exercising with risk for heat injury," she says.

Turner also suggests some natural alternatives to sports beverages:

• Fill a sports bottle with half juice and half water. Adding a pinch of organic sea salt for sodium can help with electrolyte repletion.
• Use hydrating foods such as watermelon, cucumbers, honeydew, cantaloupe and other such water-packed fruits and vegetables. They are excellent sources of water, sugar and electrolytes. Use them as a way to hydrate after exercising.
• Honey and sea salt can be added to green tea or herbal tea if fruit juice is unavailable. Enjoy hot or chilled.
• Soups such as chicken and vegetable broth also can be enjoyed as electrolyte sources.
• Skim milk.
• Coconut water (Zico or One).

Turner also suggests avoiding beverages containing caffeine, alcohol or carbonation, which could lead to decreased hydration or excess urine production, as well as fruit juices or soda drinks with greater than 8 percent sugar unless diluted.

Meanwhile, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends the following four guidelines for hydration: consume 16 ounces of fluid two hours before exercise, drink 8-16 ounces 15 minutes prior to exercise, continue to drink 4-16 ounces every 15 minutes during exercise and, finally, for every pound lost during exercise, replace with 24 ounces of fluid.

Reach David Quick at dquick@postandcourier.com or 937-5516. See his Running Charleston blog at www.postandcourier.com/blogs/running_blog.