Tired of spending money on Gatorade and/or Powerade for your exercise energy supplement. Is it possible to make your own energy drink that still provides you with enough fuel to keep you going on a tough run/work out/ride? I think so.
Some background first. Why drink an energy drink?
Wikipedia says, a variety of physiological and psychological effects have been attributed to energy drinks and their ingredients. Two studies reported significant improvements in mental and cognitive performances as well as increased subjective alertness. Excess consumption of energy drinks may induce mild to moderate euphoria primarily caused by stimulant properties of caffeine and may also induce agitation, anxiety, irritability and insomnia. During repeated cycling tests in young healthy adults an energy drink significantly increased upper body muscle endurance. It has been suggested that reversal of caffeine withdrawal is a major component of the effects of caffeine on mood and performance.
As regular readers are aware, I exercise every day, mostly riding my bike year ’round here in Chicago.
My understanding of the relationship between water and energy drinks is as follows: If you work out less than an hour you can get by with just drinking water. However, if you work out more than an hour you have likely depleted some of your electrolytes and you need to replenish them with more than just water.
When I first started using an energy drink, I got Gatorade. It worked all right, but I was bothered by the amount of sugar in it. An eight ounce serving of Gatorade has about 14 grams of sugar in it. If you are unsure of how much sugar that is, the answer is just of three teaspoons of sugar. One teaspoon of sugar weighs 4.2 grams. If you get nothing else from this blog post. Stick that into your memory bank and remember it whenever you read ingredients.
In true Mr. Lazy Cook fashion, I have gone through several iterations in the recipe.
Here is the latest. To create a 15 ounce drink I include the following:
5 ounces of organic apple cider
5 ounces of coconut water
5 ounces of green tea
As you can see, this is an utterly simple concoction. I included the apple cider for sweet taste and the natural fruit sugar in it. The coconut water was a nice addition to the taste and includes potassium, sodium, magnesium and sugar. Lastly, a third of the drink is green tea. You can read about green tea here in the blog. It does contain about half the caffeine in a cup of coffee. I try to keep drugs to a minimum in my system and personally drink decaf coffee.
Anyway, that simple drink fuels me on my daily bicycle rides on Chicago’s lakefront.
It works wonders in restoring my energy level after a tiring ride.
Please feel free to share your experiences with this or any other energy drink you might have tried or created. I do not include Red Bull or any of those super caffeine drinks which so many folks are using. I can’t believe there will be healthy effects from taking that much of a drug like caffeine.
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