I was scheduled for a big workout yesterday, but Friday’s night out gave me extra motivation. I planned to do a full weight routine, at least 25 minutes on the cardio machines and plenty of stretching. Normally I only drink water or water with a low calorie electrolyte tablet during my workouts but I wanted to make sure I would have enough energy to last the entire 100 plus minutes I planned to be in the gym, so I added a sports drink.
Now, I’m not normally a big fan of sports drinks, as they can be overly sweet and full of empty calories. But when you exercise you use up the glycogen (a type of sugar) stored in your muscles for energy. If you are working out for less than an hour, water is all you really need as your body has enough glycogen stored to last about an hour. However, if you plan to exercise for longer, as I did yesterday, you need the sugar boost as well as the electrolytes found in most sports drinks. As your glycogen stores are depleted, you start to feel tired as your body has to turn to your fat stores for energy. The problem is that converting fat to energy takes time, which slows you down and makes you feel tired. In order to keep working harder for longer you have to top up your glycogen stores, with the most popular option being a sugary sports drink. Of course, this adds a good 150 to 250 calories to your diet, which is a lot for someone my size, so despite what the Gatorade adverts would have you believe, you don’t want to use them for shorter exercise sessions (unless it is very hot and you are working very hard, like in a summer race). So the usual rules about too much of a good thing certainly apply to sports drinks!
The Score:
Calories: | Protein: | Carbs: | Fat: | Alcohol: | Fibre: |
2063.84 | 108g | 226.74g | 68.26g | 15.5g | 26.49g |
21% | 44% | 30% | 5% | ||
Calories burned through exercise: | 636 |
What I ate:
Time | Item | Amount |
09:45 | Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate | 1 each |
Cold water | 200mL | |
Mattesson’s Turkey rashers | 3 rashers | |
Gluten Free fruit muesli | 70g | |
Alpro Soy milk | 120mL | |
Sainsbury’s pressed apple juice | 170mL | |
10:15 | Black tea | 500mL |
11:30 | Raspberry and Echinacea tea | 250mL |
13:15 | Baked salmon | 122g |
Merchant Gourmet Red and White Quinoa | 100g | |
Steamed broccoli | 60g | |
Steamed cauliflower | 100g | |
Kraft light Honey Mustard dressing | 13g | |
13:45 | Green Tea | 250mL |
15:15 | Workout - resistance training + 25 min on cross trainer | |
Sponser Isotonic sportdrink, fruit mix | about 58g | |
in water | 750mL | |
17:15 | Sponser Protein Snack bar | 1 bar |
19:45 | Cook Catalan Chicken | about 290g |
Red Wine | 150mL | |
Cook Lemon and lime pavlova | about 1/8 | |
21:30 | Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew | 1 chew |
500mg Glucosamine sulphate | 1 pill |
Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.
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