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Short ride - water
Long ride, long walk, out for the day - Robinson's Barley Water and perhaps water too.
Don’t forget the limit to how much water you can get into your system in any period of time is the pylorus. Decent hyrdration before the ride is the best start you can give yourself.
I always get hot and sweat a lot, so I often drink stuff with electrolytes in it. Not usually at full strength though.
Just couldn’t seem to drink enough.
I find this seems to happen if I have sweated a lot; drinking something with electrolytes seems to help. It may or may not be significant that energy drinks that taste unpleasantly salty when I've not been exercising are the most delicious and satisfying thing I know after a long hot workout. If I don't have something salty I just drink and drink and pee and pee and am never satisfied.
I use carbs in my energy drink instead of food, because I don't like to stop and eat, and it's easier than carrying and eating food on the fly. I know TJ hates this idea, but what does he know? 😉
Oh and electrolytes for drinks aren't just salt. Potassium, magnesium and calcium salts as well as sodium.
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And because TJ will inevitably quote science, here's a one of many abstracts supporting the supplementation of electrolytes in long and/or repeated endurance efforts:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9232555
It restates that electrolyte and water loss varies a lot by indivudual and also acclimatisation. So basically, do what works for you. IMO/E if you aren't satisfied by just water and still feel thirsty then you need some electrolytes. Could be salted peanuts, crisps, pizza, or a sport specific product, see what works 🙂
the concentrations of salt being talked about here are well below the salinity of sea water.
Presumably then, they are also well below the amount that makes you shite you entire insides out?
I wasn't going to argue with you moley 🙂
By objection to your way was you were complaining about not losing weight while consuming between half a kilo and a kilo of sugar a week! That and the effect on your insulin system
Belhaven best scotroues? ~surely you could find something better than that?
If you tend to drink too much, add something to the water to make it taste a bit yucky. If you tend to not drink enough, make it a bit more tasty and palatable.
Interesting Reading:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-dont-need-sports-drinks-to-stay-hydrated/
water and normal food. when you listen to the tdf day coverage all the racers who guest in the commentary box talk about the contents of the musette and what they take out, most of them say they eat the normal stuff like rice cakes etc and the gels are only sparingly used at the end of the day when it's too manic to do anything else. And we're not racers.
@joefm - that's the woman that is being interviewed on the BBC podcast I linked to earlier in the thread.
Non-scientific analysis on multi-day group long rides I've worked on in Kenya (super hot and dry) suggested that the more electrolytes you put into your water bottle, the more you sweated out. So it seemed to have a circular effect of people seeing their crusty kit at the end of the day and thinking "oh no, I must use more tabs tomorrow", upping their electrolyte consumption, getting even more white lines on their kit at the end of the next day, etc.
It's been a VERY long time since my Physiology degree, but I remember being told every one of your body's cells has a very good system of managing its own electrolyte balance, and adapting to pretty significant variations. As long as there's enough water, your body is pretty excellent at managing its own ion balance. As others have pointed out, you're more at risk of hyponatraemia - over-diluting your body - than dehydration, but the general rule of thumb is to look at your pee. It should be like champagne, rather than like lager. If it's dark and / or you're not peeing, drink more water.
This is a subject I have been thinking about a fair amount - partly at least because from my own experience the amounts some folk on here drink seems excessive to say the least.
What I would say is judge your hydration on the amount and colour of your pee as well as thirst and don't confuse a dry mouth from mouth breathing as thirst.
Perhaps use some electoytes but not every bottle - every 3rd one maybe?
Certainly for me all day ( 8-10hrs) exertion in high temps when sweating a lot 3l of water is plenty and I certainly have not needed extra electrolytes
From the article joefm linked to:
We do lose electrolytes through sweat, but even when you exercise continuously for many hours, you will simply correct any losses via your normal appetite and hunger mechanisms.
So you wait for your body to make you want salty food. So.. crisps, chips..?
This is a subject I have been thinking about a fair amount – partly at least because from my own experience the amounts some folk on here drink seems excessive to say the least.
The reason I posted the abstract I did was because it states that sweat composition and amount varies significantly between individuals.
And what you always forget TJ when banging on about drinking lots of 'sugar' (maltodextrin isn't sucrose) is that I lost the most weight ever when using lots of carb drink. Because it allows me to control how much I eat at other times, and it doesn't drive appetite. If I try and restrict carb drink intake whilst riding I find myself struggling much more to avoid starchy sweet food, and I lose less weight.
Find what works for you.
Also:
I take my dog running with me most of the time, and I’ve never measured the color of her pee or forced her to drink (as if I could). I make sure she has regular access to water, but she doesn’t always take it. At times, she won’t drink at all during a long run, and on those occasions, she always goes straight to her water dish when we get home and slurps until she’s satisfied. I’ve never had to give her an emergency IV for low fluid levels. If drinking to thirst is good enough for her, it’s probably good enough for me too.
That's not science, dude.
MOls - I ain't going to get into that debate with you again. Just to point out that you were also drinking full fat coke - 35g of sugar a can and that you did complain you were not losing weight. The coke and the maltodxtrin which is a mix of saccardies ie sugars) amounted to 4000+ calories a week
Of course everyone is different but it is clear that for some folk drinking a lot is not helping. getting down to why that is is trickier. I do suspect hyponatermia ie low electrolyte levels - but not from loss in sweat but from drinking too much. 3l of water is enough to kill. Thats what killed leah Betts
I drink to thirst.
Water, or v dilute orange squash for taste. Or a fancy electrolyte tab for thirst/placebo 🙂
Also a shandy at lunch works for me!