Gatorade is the pioneer of sport drink and also the most well known brand in the world. Even though the product was initially marketed towards sport players, today it is consume by most people. If you don’t exercise much but still drink Gatorade in an excessive amount, it may bring some health problems later. To understand how the sport drink affect your body compare to regular water, go check our article below.
In this article we are going to give you information about:
– What is Hydration
– What is the importance of Hydration
– What is Gatorade
– What Gatorade is made of
– Gatorade vs Water
About Hydration
We know that hydration is very important to our body. Every day we drink water whether it is regular water or from other beverages like tea, coffee, and milk or from foods we ate during the day. The thirst we feel is the sign from our body to let us know that we need to supply it with water or hydrate it. When water and salt is depleted from our body our brain begin to generate a signal that will be shown as thirst or salt craving.
This craving is sometimes makes people eat salt food too much and makes them gain weight quickly. So this is why when you are craving from salt, it is the way your body tells you that it needs to be hydrated. There are so many ways to hydrate our body with, beside the regular water, such as from hydration drink like Gatorade, which is our focus in this article today. Go check our previous article on Mate Caffeine vs Coffee here.
Benefit Of Hydration
Before we are going to talk and compare how Gatorade and water able to help us hydrate our body. Here are the reasons why we need to drink water:
– The main and vital part of drinking water is because water acts as a building block, a solvent for chemical reaction and helps our body to bring those nutrients from food into our body as well as discarding the waste.
– Improve physical performance especially when you are doing some physical activity because during the activity we lose so many water and proper hydration will help us reduce fatigue, improve endurance, lowering maximum heart rate, and more. Drinking enough water will also help you reduce body sore after exercise.
– Help you shed that unwanted fats. A study reveal that those people who drink 500 ml water before each meals for 12 weeks has lost around 4.6 more pounds compared to those who don’t drink additional water.
– Boost our mood. A study found that participants who regularly drink less than 1.2 liters of water each day and told to increase their intake to 2.5 liters per day does experienced significant less confusion, bewilderment, fatigue, and sleepiness.
About Gatorade
Gatorade is a sport drink manufactured by the same name company. This drink is campaigned as the drink to replenish our body and dedicated for those who do lots of physical activities for it is claimed to be able to quickly recharge our body compared than if you only drink regular water. From the history on how the drink was created in 1965, Gatorade is indeed used to help athletes replaced their bodily fluids that lost during their physical exertion.
The initial ingredients used to make Gatorade are water, sodium, sugar, potassium, phosphate, and lemon juice for flavor. In present day, the beverage is available in numerous flavors for you to choose but mainly still comes with fruit flavors. People tastes are different but the most popular flavor probably the Fruit punch that comes in red liquid. Depend on where you live, you may get your hand on the product with ease or not since the brand availability in some countries are rare.
Gatorade Ingredients
Taken from Livestrong, Gatorade are made from various ingredients and they keep changing their formulation from time to time, so the list below may not stay the same but water should be the main ingredients from recipe to recipe. The second ingredient is dextrose, which is mainly constructed from corn syrup and is already approved by FDA as generally recognized safe and also used in many processed foods to provide texture and sweetness.
Third ingredient is Citric Acid, which is used to add flavor and act as a preservative. Fourth is natural and artificial flavor to enhance the flavor in case fruit juice or certain spices are going to be used. Fifth is salt or potassium chloride, which is used to enhance taste and help regulate fluid balance in our body when consumed. Sixth is sodium citrate that is used to enhance flavor and maintain the stability of active ingredients.
Seventh is Monopotassium Phosphate, which is added as the phosphate source and is already approved by FDA as heart healthy food. Eighth is gum Arabic that is used to bind the sweeteners and flavorings into the beverage. Ninth is Glycerol Ester of Wood Rodin to prevent the citric oil from floating into the surface in beverage that contains citric oil. The last is artificial color that according to Gatorade are already approved by FDA as suitable for human consumption.
Comparison
Now, let’s compare Gatorade and Water to see how they stand to each other. Gatorade is better if you are doing physical activities in a longer period since if you exercise more than an hour you will lose some sodium and potassium, so it is necessary to replenish it. Gatorade is better than regular water for replenishing electrolytes for it contains some carbohydrate and potassium. Gatorade is also better in providing some effects when doing exercise because it can lower the perceived exertion rate than regular water.
However, if you only doing light workout or in under 60 minutes, you won’t need Gatorade to replenish your body and regular water is already enough. If you are not doing hard and prolonged physical exercise but decide to drink Gatorade excessively, you may end up gaining weight. Texas Medical Association reported there is a case of potassium-induced ventricular arrhythmia (irregular heart rate rhythm) in football player who took 5 grams of potassium daily from sports drink.
Gatorade vs Water
| Gatorade | Water |
|---|---|
| - Contains calories | - Doesn’t contains calories |
| - Contain potassium | - Doesn’t contains potassium |
| - Contains some carbohydrate | - Doesn’t contains carbohydrate |
| - Variety of taste | - Doesn’t have a taste |
| - Better for prolonged heavier exercises | - Better for light exercise and regular daily activities |
Conclusion
All in all, the decision is all yours. In our opinion, it is best to choose your hydration based on your activities. If you only do light exercise, it is better to choose water but if you are doing harder physical activities in more than an hour, Gatorade may be a better option to replenish your body.