Ben Greenfield explains low- or zero-calorie alternatives to traditional high-calorie sports drinks for replenishing electrolytes after a fluid-loss workout. He demos and compares three categories: electrolyte tabs (e.g., Noon/EU Hydration), powdered mineral concentrates (including a goat-whey–derived mineral powder with antioxidants), and liquid full-spectrum mineral blends (trace minerals), and gives informal dosing suggestions. He emphasizes these are lower-calorie options to use when you plan to eat a real meal and want to avoid extra drink calories.
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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield here and I just finished an indoor bike training ride where I lost a lot of fluid. Now, there are some cases where when you're losing fluid and losing electrolytes, you need to be able to replenish those, but you may not want to put calories into your body. So for example, I'm going to be eating a real meal now. Now, I don't want to top off that meal with 250 or 300 calories of Gatorade or Powerade or another sports drink. Not that I have anything really against those drinks, but sometimes you need an alternative that maybe is going to give you some of the minerals, some of the antioxidants, but that doesn't have the calories in it so that you're not constantly getting in all these excess calories because it adds up after a while if you're drinking a high calorie electrolyte replacement drink versus a low calorie or zero calorie electrolyte replacement drink. So a few of the things that I kind of have out here as options, one would be like these Noon electrolyte tabs. Now this one is called EU Hydration and let me close in on this for you so you can kind of see what it is. Basically it's a goji berry green tea. Noon makes one called U hydration. They also make one called Noon. But this would be one example of something you just drop into a glass of water and you can have this with a real meal. You know, after an hour long indoor bike ride like I just got done with, I would actually be doing a couple of these in a glass of water. Another thing that you can use that I've done a blog post before about@BenGreenfieldFitness.com if you is something like this, and this is mineral that's been extracted from a goat whey product. And it sounds kind of funky, I know, but the difference between this and something like a U hydration is this stuff is a powder that you would actually not only be getting salt from like you would from EU hydration, but you'd also be getting from a powder like this antioxidants, which can be good if you're exercising enough to where you actually need them. If you're doing a lot of damage to your body, creating a lot of free radicals through exercise, those antioxidants can help. Now the third option would be just like a liquid mineral. Here's an example of something else that you could use. This is a full mineral blend the difference between this and the new new hydration is that this has a very complete electrolyte and mineral spectrum. It's got a lot of what are called the micro minerals or the trace minerals in it. And the solar synergy is very similar in that respect. The difference between something like this and something like this is that this that I'm holding right now, this natural life minerals, this doesn't have like the antioxidants in it. It's also in liquid, not in powder form. So you'd put like a teaspoon of this into a glass of water. You know, you'd put one to two tablets of this into a glass of water, or you'd put about a teaspoon or so of this into a glass of water. But any of those would be examples of something that you could use instead of like a Gatorade or a Powerade when you're trying to go just a little bit lower calorie when it comes to sports drinks replacements. So if that was confusing or if you have questions about that, just leave a comment underneath this video and I'll try and address your questions. Or you can shoot an email to Ben greenfieldfitness.com and I'll answer it on the podcast. There's lots of different sports drinks out there, lots of different ways to go. There is more than one way to skin a cat. I'm not saying any of what I just showed you is much better than the other. They're just different for different needs of different people. So hope that helps. This is Ben Greenfield signing out.
