Tips for Healthy Eating

Here are some recommendations for healthy eating:

• Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. Eating fruits and vegetables of different colors gives your body a wide range of valuable nutrients, including fiber, folate, potassium, and vitamins A and C. Some examples are green spinach, orange sweet potatoes, black beans, yellow corn, purple plums, blueberries, red watermelon, and white onions. Have them with meals or for a snack. Leave skins on your fruits and vegetables, if possible. For example, eat the skin when you have a baked potato, and snack on unpeeled apples, pears, and peaches. Don’t forget to rinse fruits and vegetables before eating.
• Eat a diet rich in foods that contain fiber such as dry beans, fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain foods. Breakfast is a good time to enjoy foods with fiber. For example, try unsweetened, whole wheat or bran cereals, and add fruit such as berries and bananas.
• Season your foods with lemon juice, herbs, or spices, instead of butter and salt.
• Look for foods that are low in cholesterol and fat, especially saturated fat (mostly in foods that come from animals) and trans fats (found in many cakes, cookies, crackers, icings, margarines, and microwave popcorn). Saturated fats and trans fats can increase blood cholesterol levels.
• Choose and prepare foods with little salt.
• Choose lean cuts of meat and poultry. Trim away extra fat and remove the skin from chicken and turkey before cooking. Broil, roast, bake, steam, microwave, or boil foods instead of frying.
• Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight are important for your overall health and well-being. The secret is to balance your “energy in” and “energy out” over the long run. “Energy in” is the calories from foods and beverages you have each day, and “energy out” is the calories you burn for basic body functions and during physical activity. Your weight will stay the same when the calories you eat and drink equal the calories you burn. On the other hand, you will gain weight when the calories you eat and drink are greater than those you burn. Physical activity can help you reach and keep a healthier weight.
• Watch your portion size. Controlling portion size helps limit calorie intake, especially when eating foods that are high in calories.

Drinking Enough Fluids

It’s important to drink enough liquids to keep your body working properly. This is particularly true for older adults because they often don’t feel thirsty even if their bodies need fluids. Drinking enough fluids every day is essential for those who exercise regularly, eat large amounts of protein, use laxatives, or live in areas with high temperatures. Check with your doctor, however, if you’ve been told to limit how much you drink.

Drink plenty of liquids such as water and other drinks without added sugar. Fat-free or low-fat milk, 100% juice, coffee, and tea also are good sources of fluids, as are foods with high moisture content such as fruits, vegetables, and low-sodium broth-based soups. Those who choose to drink alcoholic beverages should do so sensibly and in moderation, which means up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men

Physical Activity for anti-aging

Regular exercise and physical activity are important to the physical and mental health of almost everyone, including older adults. Being physically active can help you continue to do the things you enjoy and stay independent as you age. Regular physical activity over long periods of time can produce long-term health benefits. That's why health experts say that older adults should be active every day to maintain their health.

In addition, regular exercise and physical activity can reduce the risk of developing some diseases and disabilities that develop as people grow older. In some cases, exercise is an effective treatment for many chronic conditions. For example, studies show that people with arthritis, heart disease, or diabetes benefit from regular exercise. Exercise also helps people with high blood pressure, balance problems, or difficulty walking.

One of the great things about physical activity is that there are so many ways to be active. For example, you can be active in short spurts throughout the day, or you can set aside specific times of the day on specific days of the week to exercise. Many physical activities—such as brisk walking, raking leaves, or taking the stairs whenever you can—are free or low cost and do not require special equipment. You could also check out an exercise video from the library or use the fitness center at a local senior center.

This guide shows you many types of exercise and physical activity. It also has lots of tips to help you be active in ways that suit your lifestyle, interests, health, and budget, whether you're just starting out, getting back to exercising after a break, or fit enough to run a 3-mile race. It's for everyone—people who are healthy and those who live with an ongoing health problem or disability.

Diet matters

What is the best diet for a bodybuilder? To answer that, one must understand what kind of bodybuilder is being referred to, and what goals that bodybuilder needs to reach.

Restricting the discussion to males, due to a number of gender-based differences, there are two basic distinctions in competitive bodybuilding— drug-free vs. chemically enhanced. Collectively, these men progress through a sequence of goal-oriented periods: gaining muscle mass, maintenance with moderate fat loss, pre-competition with pronounced fat loss, competition, and recovery.

It should be clear, even from this very general description, that there will never be a single diet planthat fits every bodybuilder. However, there are certain generalities that can be offered that may enlighten bodybuilders who did not achieve the results they expected previously. For the sake of clarity and brevity, this article will be restricted to the ‘maintenance with moderate fat loss’ period.

What do anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs do, and why is that important to consider for bodybuilders? These drugs bypass the normal regulatory mechanisms that control the metabolism and physiology of the user. All of these drugs mimic natural hormones or neurotransmitters that alter the rate of energy expenditure (calorie burning), as well as the balance between anabolic vs. catabolic processes. In a steady state (when the body is at rest and well-fed), there is a balance between anabolic growth and catabolic breakdown. The scales are tipped toward growth when there is a relative excess of any or all of the primary anabolic hormones; breakdown and loss of mass occurs when the catabolic hormones achieve precedence.

There are any number of examples, but for the purpose of understanding, consider testosterone. A supraphysiologic concentration of testosterone (higher than naturally produced) stimulates muscle hypertrophy; hypogonadism (low testosterone such as experienced with aging) results in muscle atrophy (loss). A lifestyle of overeating and indulgence increases both insulin release and resistance, resulting in weight gain and obesity; prolonged starvation forces the body to release catabolic hormones, leading to the loss of fat and muscle. It is important to understand that nutrients do not increase muscle or fat; rather, it is the action of enzymes directed by hormones that are released in response to changes in available nutrients and energy stores.

Chemically-enhanced bodybuilders use pharmaceutical manipulation to adjust their metabolism— bypassing regulatory feedback that might limit growth, require a greater physical demand to trigger growth, or allow for fat deposition. Anabolic steroids drive an increase in muscle growth. Certain androgens reduce fat mass; growth hormone allows for quicker recovery, induces fat release, and promotes growth in non-contractile protein in muscle. Insulin drives nutrients into muscle (and fat), and reduces catabolic breakdown following exercise. Beta-adrenergic stimulants and thyroid hormone analogs increase calorie burning and fatty acid oxidation (burning fat for energy). Aromatase inhibitorsblock the conversion of excess androgens to estrogens, promoting fat loss, etc.^1-5

These drugs are so effective that they allow a non-disciplined lifter to develop an impressive physique and intimidating power, offering success with a generous margin for error and sloth. In the hands of a dedicated bodybuilder, these drugs have helped to sculpt bodies that defy the imagination of comic book artists and action figure designers.

‘Enhanced’ Competitors Often Work Harder

What does this mean in terms of diet? First, by no means does it imply that top bodybuilders are lazy or ‘cheated’ to achieve the gains seen in the last 50 years. Anyone who has had the opportunity to observe or train with champion amateur or professional bodybuilders knows that chemically-enhanced competitors work just as hard as their drug-free counterparts. Chemically-enhanced competitors often work harder, as they are able to recover more quickly, endure higher-intensity resistance training, and higher-volume aerobic exercise. It means that the dietary needs and allowances of bodybuilders vary, depending on the degree of effort exerted, how extreme fat loss is sought while maintaining/building muscle, and what level of chemical enhancement is being used.

For the truly drug-free bodybuilder, the challenge is to prevent muscle loss (preferentially continuing with slight muscle growth) in a catabolic environment. It is essential to differentiate this from general weight loss that the general public seeks. If there is no desire to build or preserve muscle, a ketogenic diet can be followed. While there is a continuing academic drama over what diet is ‘best,’ there is little question that the quickest weight loss and fat loss occurs when following ketogenic or even Atkins-like diets.⁶

These diets are actually heart-healthy, having certain advantages over the traditional low-fat diet, though there is some concern over increases in LDL (bad) cholesterol. This is likely balanced by decreases in total cholesterol, increases in HDL (good) cholesterol, and reductions in triglycerides (fats).^7,8 In fact, a modified Atkins diet using only plant-based proteins appears to alleviate the LDL cholesterol elevation.⁹ Though these diets provide ample amounts of protein, sufficient to promote muscle growth, there is often an accompanying loss of muscle mass and strength.

One of the pivotal effects of ketogenic diets is the suppression of fasting and postprandial (after eating) insulin. Insulin is often thought of as the ‘storage hormone,’ but it also plays a significant role in muscle growth, as demonstrated by its popularity with professional athletes and bodybuilders. Exercise and fasting cause muscle to break down to release amino acids to the rest of the body, to meet the energy demands by shuttling certain amino acids into fuel (ATP) production. Insulin stops this breakdown. Ketogenic dieters lose the anti-catabolic protection of insulin, but some protection is offered by the anti-proteolytic properties of ketones.¹⁰ Chemically-enhanced bodybuilders often inject a fast-acting insulin immediately after their workouts, along with a meal high in carbohydrates and quickly-absorbed protein.

To put the “meat” of the article in a concise summary, a fairly straightforward set of recommendations are given for the drug-free and chemically-enhanced bodybuilder, respectively. For the purpose of this discussion, it will be assumed the bodybuilders are 200-220 pounds and approximately 10-16 percent body fat.

Drug-free bodybuilders need to focus on preserving muscle mass and making their metabolism as anabolic as possible, during a period of slight caloric deficiency to promote fat loss. This means placing the body in a protected, catabolic state. Fat loss in the absence of lipolytic or thermogenic drugs requires a hypocaloric diet, which means eating fewer calories than the body burns. If there are not enough calories to supply every tissue type (organs, muscle, fat, etc.), then the body will cannibalize muscle and fat to supply energy and amino acids to maintain critical functions.¹¹ It is essential during such a time that sufficient protein be ingested to provide the amino acids needed for vital functions, body maintenance and preferentially, muscle growth.

While plant-based proteins are wonderful for health and there are many studies supporting their use in athletes, comments by many drug-free bodybuilding men suggest that soy and other plant-based proteins do not support strength or mass well while dieting, as compared to whey, casein, egg- or meat-based protein.¹² It is important that protein intake be the focus of a drug-free diet. While the protein can be ingested throughout the day, it is critical that a quickly-absorbed protein is consumed immediately post-workout, and preferentially, pre-workout as well. A slow-releasing protein prior to sleep may offer additional benefit.

Carbs, Sleep and Fat Burning

Carbohydrates are the preferred energy source for most of the organs and tissues of the body. They have a potent effect on the metabolism, both in the short-term and long-term. Carbohydrates stimulate the release of insulin, which blocks stored fat release from fat cells; insulin also affects the muscle metabolism, switching the preferred fuel from fatty acids to sugar burning.^13,14 For the drug-free bodybuilder, it is necessary to control insulin, keeping its concentration low throughout the day— with two exceptions. There are two metabolic ‘windows’ where a drug-free bodybuilder should take advantage of insulin’s anti-catabolic effect— early morning and post-workout.

Sleep is the only time most bodybuilders fast for any significant amount of time. During the night, the body still burns calories and spends several hours relying on stored sugar (glycogen) and fat. After several hours, the body is primed for fat burning but also is at its most sensitive to insulin’s signal. The best way to take advantage of this is to perform some low-intensity cardio before eating breakfast, then consuming a fair portion of the daily carbohydrates during breakfast. A mix of fast- and slow-releasing carbohydrates is best, such as oatmeal with berries. Restricting carbohydrates outside of breakfast and post-workout will prevent elevated insulin when the body is in a ‘storage’ state (sitting at a desk, watching television, etc).

Post-workout, muscle cells are much more receptive to sugar (glucose) for a period of up to 2 hours, allowing any sugar intake to be shuttled preferentially to the muscle which has been worked.¹⁵Fortunately, this tissue (working muscle) creates a demand for more oxygen— opening up arteries that supply oxygen, but also the nutrients absorbed from a meal. A high-glycemic post-workout drink is best at this time, and can be very generous in terms of the number of grams of carbohydrates.

Not only does a high-glycemic meal rapidly provide sugar to replenish the stored glycogen, but it also shuts down the release of stored fat. At first this may sound negative, but if the metabolic demand remains high and much of the incoming sugar is being diverted to glycogen storage post-exercise, the muscle cell is forced to rely on the small amount of stored fat contained within the muscle cell, as stored fat is no longer being released by fat cells.¹⁶ By reducing stored intramuscular fat, over time, the muscle cell becomes more sensitive to insulin— allowing it to respond to the anti-catabolic protection more vigorously.

Another recent study announced at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society revealed findings that consuming a high-sugar load (75 grams of dextrose, similar to many sugar-laden drinks) reduced testosterone by 25 percent, and a negative effect on testosterone remained 2 hours later.¹⁷ This supports a 2005 study that found men who switched from a diet relatively high in fat to a low-fat diet experienced a significant reduction in total and free testosterone.¹⁸ Whether this represents a balance between anabolic processes (insulin vs. testosterone) or some yet-to-be-recognized regulatory pathway is unknown.

Fat is a dietary necessity, but it has suffered from too great a generality. Dietary fat is not pre-destined to become body fat; it is an excellent source of energy and certain fatty acids act as precursors to messenger signals. Fish oils may act to reduce inflammation, but for the drug-free bodybuilder, this is not necessarily a positive.¹⁹ Only recently has the role of muscle cell inflammation in hypertrophy (muscle growth) been appreciated.^20,21

A diet high in fish or fish oil may blunt the hypertrophic effect of exercise, making it more difficult to attain or maintain muscle size. It has been noted in Muscular Development several times that what is good for bodybuilding is often bad for health. This seems to be true with components relating to cardiovascular health and longevity, such as the examples of fish oil and resveratrol.

Animal fat is high in saturated fat and is an excellent source of arachidonic acid, which is a fatty acid that can be converted into pro-growth chemical messengers called prostaglandins.²² However, the arachidonic acid signal is suppressed with the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and fish oils.²³

Dr. Dan’s Diets

The basic diet for a 200-pound drug-free bodybuilder looking to lose fat at a moderate pace while maintaining (or possibly building) muscle is as follows:

Slightly hypocaloric: roughly 2,400 calories per day, assuming 30-45 minutes of low-intensity cardio and 45-60 minutes of resistance training. This will stimulate fat loss without being overly catabolic to lean mass.

Macronutrient ratio: 25/45/30 by calorie (carbohydrate/protein/fat). This will provide ample carbohydrates timed appropriately, without maintaining elevated insulin throughout the day. Forty-five percent of protein supplies slightly more than 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Fat should be sourced from animals (including egg yolk) or olive oil, with minimal fish oil exposure (one or two fish-containing meals per week).

The chemically-enhanced bodybuilder can utilize a greater ratio of carbohydrates, as he is manipulating the release of stored fat and maintaining a high metabolic rate— as well continuing anabolic growth via a combination of drugs. If fat loss is being accelerated (such as with growth hormone) in the presence of metabolic rate boosters (i.e., clenbuterol, thyroid hormones), then insulin concentration does not need to be modified through diet. In fact, there may be a greater demand for insulin, as growth hormone use can lead to a state of insulin resistance.²⁴

Chemically-enhanced bodybuilders may benefit from a higher carbohydrate load to promote the anabolic effect of higher volume and intensity training, along with a number of drugs. Of course, greater protein intake is also necessary, shifting the balance of calories away from fat and toward the other two macronutrients.

Assuming that a chemically-enhanced bodybuilder is promoting the chemical release and burning of stored fat, he can consume a maintenance number of calories or greater, promoting lean mass accumulation. As the anabolic ‘signal’ is created to an exaggerated degree by the drugs, there is more of a margin to allow for anti-inflammatory fish oils (and NSAIDs, if necessary). Thus, a chemically-enhanced bodybuilder’s diet would differ as follows:

Maintenance or slightly hypercaloric diet: roughly 3,000-3,200 calories per day, assuming lipolytic and thermogenic drugs are used. 30-60 minutes of low-intensity or interval cardio and 45-60 minutes of resistance training daily.

Macronutrient ratio: 35/50/15 by calorie (carbohydrates/protein/fat). This provides a greater amount of carbohydrates and protein to provide the nutrients necessary to respond to the anabolic environment, while allowing for a sufficient intake of fats, including anti-inflammatory fats.

Undoubtedly, many will argue the points here or raise the issue of supplements that are thermogenic/anabolic/hormone modifying. There are a number of issues that create individual variability (work-related energy expenditure, genetics, stress, level of drug use, etc). This article is intended only to offer a starting point for discussion and guidance.

Why Bread Makes You Fat and High Fat Foods Can Help You Lose Weight

For a long time, we’ve been told to eat a diet low in fat and high in carbohydrate rich grains to be healthy. The food pyramid, found on school classroom walls and doctors offices, has breads, grains and other starches and its base. The message is eat more wheat, corn and other grains and we’ve been listening. 

Wheat production alone has tripled in the last 50 years to try and keep up with our insatiable demand for ‘healthy’ grains. But is it working?

Just look around you any time you’re out walking on the street if you really wondered the answer to that question. During that same 50 year time period clinical obesity levels in American adults have risen from just under 10% in 1960 to over 35% in 2010. Children’s obesity rates are going up even faster. It’s estimated that by 2030, over half the US population will be obese.

To be defined as clinically obese isn’t just overweight, it’s life threatening. We are getting fat real fast. But how can this be when saturated animal fat consumption has actually fallen significantly over the same time period? Surely eating less saturated fat should have made things better, shouldn’t it? Actually, it’s made things much worse.

How Protein, Fat and Carbohydrates Affect Your Body

One of the hardest things for some people to get their head around is that it’s usually not eating fat that makes us fat. Yes fatty acids contain more calories than carbohydrates or protein. But the way our bodies process and use protein, carbohydrates and fats are very different.

Good protein sources like free range eggs, seeds and nuts, wild salmon or grass fed meat help to build and maintain your body and its muscles, organs and blood. Eating protein also provides a good level of satiety (that satisfied feeling of fullness you should get after eating a meal) and you would find it very difficult to get fat on a diet of natural protein foods combined with a variety of vegetables.

Healthy fats like those found in coconut, avocado, butter from grass fed cows, nuts and seeds and free range meats provide an even higher level of satiety than protein. These types of high-fat foods really fill you up and tell your body to stop eating. They level out your blood sugar and tend to stop our hunger dead in its tracks for many hours.

Certain fatty acids, like the saturated capric acid found in coconuts or the monounsaturated oleic fatty acid predominant in avocados, have also been shown to help reduce body fat and significantly aid in weight loss.
Weight gain really is a much more complex subject than simply calories in calories out. The evidence has been staring mainstream food regulators in the face for many decades. But they are either very slow, or have a very big grain industry to protect.
This brings us to carbohydrates and grains. Bread, pasta and cereals are dealt with by your body much differently than protein or fat.

First of all, they’re digested much quicker. Even the so-called complex carbohydrates are rapidly converted into glucose and hit your bloodstream very fast. Whole wheat bread for instance completes its digestion only marginally slower than white bread. And as for those bleached burger buns or bright white slices of bread, they might as well be made of table sugar for all your body knows. The effect they have and the lack of nutrition they provide really isn’t very different.

Carbohydrates are sold to us as a quick source of energy. Sounds good but this is precisely the reason why they make us fat. Here’s why.

How Bread Makes You Fat?

Insulin is a powerful hormone that is responsible for storing fat. When a farmer wants to fatten up his cattle or a sumo wrestler wants to put on weight quickly, they don’t eat fats. That would fill them up and not have the desired effect. Instead they eat grain – wheat for the cattle, rice for the sumo wrestler.

They do this for the grains ability to spike insulin. It’s insulin that is needed to swell the body’s adipose fat cells and deposit even more fat. Without a spike in insulin you’d actually have a very hard time gaining weight.

Eating a diet high in carbohydrates will prevent stored body fat being used as fuel. There is never a chance for your body to switch to using it as an energy source. Even if you were to cut out fat completely (which is extremely unhealthy as fatty acids are involved in many vital bodily processes), you would still be unlikely to lose weight as long as you continue to eat grains. In fact, you’d probably get fatter even faster.

Your body isn’t actually very good at dealing with large amounts of carbohydrates. Any meal high in carbs converts quickly to significant amounts of glucose and is actually seen as a threat. Your blood sugar levels must be maintained in a fairly narrow range. As soon as they get too high your body releases insulin to deal with the danger.

A small amount of glucose can be stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen (and this would be helpful if you intend to run a marathon the next day). But the rest is shuttled away into the adipose tissue designed to store fat, at first around the waist and hips and once that starts to get full, pretty much anywhere it can.

This is a protective mechanism we’ve developed over many thousands of years and would have been useful in the past when food was scarce. But that’s no longer the case and now it’s our relentless consumption of fattening grains that is making so many of us obese and leading to a huge rise in diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease that are killing us.

Low-Fat Versus Low-Carb

Low-fat diets haven’t worked. They make us hungrier and much fatter as a result. We need healthy fats. They are a vital part of both good health and weight loss.

There’s one important exception, sometimes still marketed as good for you or ‘heart healthy’ but definitely not so. The processed vegetable oils like corn, soy, cotton seed, sunflower and canola oil that are added to a high percentage of processed supermarket foods and hydrogenated into toxic margarine.

These heated and altered polyunsaturated fats are highly inflammatory and linked to heart disease and many other health problems. Avoid them at all costs.
Avocado oil or coconut oil are far healthier cooking choices in your kitchen. Olive oil is a source of good fats too as long as you don’t heat it as it breaks down easily.

Ideally, carbohydrates in your diet should come from vegetables like pumpkin, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots, peppers, leafy greens and many others and lesser amounts of fruit. These contain the fiber to slow down carbohydrate digestion as well as high levels of nutrients and enzymes for better health.

There’s a growing movement of people who have given up grains completely and many have been amazed at the changes in their health and energy. If you really need to lose some weight, cutting out grains for a while will be likely to have a far greater effect on your body weight than the old counting calories. Starving yourself just doesn’t work. You actually teach your body to get better at storing fat as food is suddenly restricted.

Once you reach your ideal body weight, you may be able to tolerate some grain foods without provoking too much of a spike in insulin. Even then, nutritional experts who’ve actually looked deeply into the effect foods like wheat and corn have on our physiology (rather than just chanting the old ‘carbohydrates for quick energy’ mantra) generally believe grain based food should not be more than 20% of your daily intake.

They also consistently say healthy fats have an important place in your meals if you want to lose weight and be fit and healthy.

Conclusion

Have you been trying to lose weight with the old cutting calories, low fat, more grains prescription? Has it been working? Why not try a different way?

While it may be hard to believe, you probably need more, not less, of the right kind of fats. Couple that with a reduction in insulin spiking grains and you’ll be well on your way to weight loss, better heath and more energy.

Low Levels of Vitamin D May Lead to Depression

Low serum levels of vitamin D are associated with clinically significant symptoms of depression in otherwise healthy individuals, new research shows.

Here is another good reason for taking vitamin supplements. Low levels of vitamin D seems to be the norm, rather than the exception. There are many important functions for vitamin D, including bone health, cancer prevention, immune system function, etc. Here is another.

 

Making a series of assessments of healthy women during a 1-month period, investigators found that more than one third of participants had depressive symptoms, that almost half had vitamin D insufficiency, and that depressive symptoms were predicted by vitamin D levels.

 

"Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency occur at high rates in healthy young women, and lower vitamin D3 levels are related to clinically significant depressive symptoms," say the researchers at the School of Psychological Science, College of Liberal Arts, Oregon State University, Corvallis.

 

Noting that vitamin D supplementation is a low-cost, simple, and low-risk intervention, they add: "Given the lifespan health risks associated with insufficiency, supplementation is warranted whether or not the modest role of vitamin D in depression observed here generalizes more broadly."

 

The study was published online March 6 in Psychiatry Research.

Why Electrolytes Are So Important

For exhaustive exercise and training, electrolytes are vital for performance.

When you sweat you lose more than just water, you lose vital electrolytes. Refueling and rehydrating after intense training is second nature for some athletes. However, not everyone realizes the importance of replenishing key electrolytes lost through perspiration, and that it can make or break performance.

Electrolytes, such as sodium and potassium, are electrically charged minerals that travel through the blood and extracellular fluid. They regulate the body’s hydration, blood pH, blood pressure, recovery of damaged tissues, and nerve and muscle function. Electrolyte levels are tightly controlled within a strict concentration range by the kidneys and a variety of hormones.

While all electrolytes are important, special attention should be paid to maintaining sodium and potassium levels to protect against muscular and neurological deficits that can hinder performance.

Sodium

The most highly concentrated electrolyte in sweat is sodium. A study of an elite soccer team during a 90-minute training session found on average two grams of sodium were lost through sweat (1). These sodium losses can cause impaired mental and physical performance (2).

Sodium plays a key role in many important processes, including the vital regulation of cellular charge balances. As a positively charged ion, sodium works in contrast with the negatively charged potassium to create cell membrane potential. The charge-driven activity of membrane potential drives normal muscle and nerve function (3).

Maintaining stable sodium levels is especially important during an intense workout to avoid a drop in blood pressure. When sodium levels are low, the amount of extracellular fluid in circulation decreases resulting in less blood volume and a lowered blood pressure, which can cause fatigue or worse depending on how low levels drop (4).

Potassium

Potassium is also particularly important for athletes due to its role in regulating fluid and nutrient balance across cell membranes, which affects muscle and neuron activity (3). Without enough potassium in the body, muscle cramping and weakness, along with low energy is common.

Even though not as much potassium is lost in sweat as sodium, it’s still important to restore depleted stores after a workout. This is because significant changes in potassium levels in the blood can be dangerous. When potassium levels fall far below the normal range, the nerve impulses that cause the heart muscles to contract are disrupted. In some extreme cases this can result in a dangerous irregular heart beat or arrhythmia (5).

Sports drinks are a great tool to help rehydrate and restore electrolyte balance, especially when exhaustive workouts or athletic events cause substantial loss of fluids and electrolytes. However, many popular formulations contain excess sugar and calories that make them an unhealthy choice for non-athletes, not to mention being filled with artificial flavors, colors, and sweeteners.

Refrences

1. Maughan RJ, et al .Water balance and salt losses in competitive football. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2007 Dec;17(6):583-94.

2. Sawka MN, Burke LM, Eichner EL et al. American College of Sports Medicine position stand: Exercise and fluid replacement. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2007;39:377-390.

3. Higdon Jane. Sodium (Chloride). Linus Pauling Institute: Micronutrient Research for Optimum Health. 2004 Feb.

4. Sahay M, Sahay R. Hyponatremia: A practical approach. Indian J Endocrinol Metab. 2014 Nov-Dec; 18(6): 760–771.

5. 2005 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care: Part 10.1: Life-Threatening Electrolyte Abnormalities Circulation. 2005;112:IV-121-IV-125.