BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Exercise Electrolyte fueled drinks to enhance your work out

Electrolytes are salts/minerals that help your body process water more efficiently, so having a functional level will help you stay hydrated when you are exercising. Does anyone here on Bella use electrolyte enhanced drinks to keep up the regimen?

For a while I was drinking Smart Water for the electrolyte content. I found out at work in some materials we had for a Aquafina marketing campaign, that the electrolyte content of Smart Water was far from functional.

For those that don't know functionality is the amount of electrolytes the body needs to see a sizable difference in water absorption. Smart water has 24.7 parts per million and the functional number is 700 ppm.

So what do you ladies drink to enhance your workouts?

I used to drink smart water but it has this plastic kind of after taste (maybe it's from the bottle, I don't know) plus buying plastic bottles all the time made me feel guilty because we had no access to recycling at the time.

Most trainers just drink purified water because only elite endurance athletes need serious electrolyte supplementation. I use electrolytes if I'm feeling dehydrated or going hiking but I try not to rely on them too much. My electrolyte of choice right now is chia fresh.

We have a Brita water filter on the counter so we "make our own" water, but it is of course just basic water. For what we do, that is quite fine for us. I agree with Monica that I try to minimize the plastic waste we create.

It's funny you said that actually. I was reading more about Smart water and saw this stat:

Smart Water uses 48% more plastic in their 20oz bottle than some other bottled water brands...

Taste aside, that's a lot of extra plastic and as was just posted, we should minimize the amount of plastic we use. The same should go for companies like Glaceau.

It's good that they are publishing statistics like that, so we can make informed decisions about the products we buy!