Though water should always be your first drink of choice, there may be certain scenarios where a sports drink is exactly what your body needs. If you're participating in high-intensity workouts lasting more than 45 minutes to an hour, sports drinks may help replenish your body's electrolyte stores better than water.
While Gatorade can help you stay hydrated, it's best to only drink it when needed. For people who aren't exercising for at least one hour, five days per week, water is the best bet for staying hydrated. Electrolytes coming from natural sources without added sugars and dyes are recommended.
Water is a healthier choice — especially when you aren't doing an intense workout or exercising on a hot, humid day — because the added sugars and calories in sports drinks are associated with a higher risk of developing and experiencing complications from conditions like obesity and type 2 diabetes, she adds.
But Gatorade contains high levels of sugar and food dyes, which may increase people's risk of certain health conditions, including weight gain and type 2 diabetes. Gatorade and other sports drinks are not inherently healthy or healthier than other beverages.
Based on her findings, only a few sports drinks actually deserve your attention.
While sports drinks can benefit athletes who engage in long or intense training sessions, they are probably unnecessary for most gym-goers. If you perform light-to-moderate exercise, such as walking or jogging, for less than 1 hour, you probably do not need to use sports drinks.
In addition to this, Gatorade can also have adverse affects on the kidneys. There is sodium added to these sports drinks that has to pass through the kidneys before they are excreted with the rest of the fluids. When the body has excess sodium that the kidneys must absorb and process, the body expels calcium.
Powerade has more vitamins than Gatorade
Neither has any fat or protein. However, Gatorade contains 10 more calories and slightly more sodium than Powerade per serving. On the other hand, Powerade packs more micronutrients, including magnesium, niacin, and vitamins B6 and B12, which play important roles in your body.
Regular sodas are full of calories, 140 per can and up. Diet sodas have zero calories. So it seems logical that replacing one with the other should help you lose weight, or at least stay the same weight. But no--several studies have proved conclusively that drinking diet soda is associated with weight gain.
The 7 Best Drinks for Dehydration
[2] Sports drinks contain less sugar than soda and energy drinks, but still contain simple sugars. For example, a nutritional comparison shows that a 12-ounce cola drink contains about 39 grams of sugar, compared with 21 grams of sugar in a popular sports drinks.
People use sports drinks to replace water (rehydrate) and electrolytes lost through sweating after activity. Electrolytes are minerals, such as potassium, calcium, sodium, and magnesium, that keep the body's balance of fluids at the proper level.
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