#electrolytes

bluemindaze:

iopele:

magnolia-lascivious:

jumpingjacktrash:

adigitalmagician:

the-rain-monster:

grimdarkthroes:

equalityformost:

grimdarkthroes:

as ur friendly Neighborhood Nursing Student™ i feel somewhat compelled to remind everyone with the hot weather:

1. every liquid except sea water and alcohol hydrates you. It’s not CHUG WATER OR DIE. in fact, gatorade and the like are designedto hydrate you efficiently.
   
2. yeah, this includes coffee and tea and soda. the diuretic is notenough to cancel out the liquid. juices and milk have solids in them, sure, but they’re also mostly liquid! it counts. 
   
3. your body can only absorb so much water at a time, so chugging 64 oz of water at noon and calling it good will do a wonderfuljob of flushing your kidneys, but not so much of hydrating your tissues. it’s more important that you’re getting consistent fluid throughout the day. 
   
4. there’s a lot of fancy ways to determine How Much Water (Liquid) I Should Drink but honestly? 8 oz (1 cup) every other hour on cool days and 8 oz every hour on hot days should be fine (assuming you sleep for a normal amount of time per day…. i’m assuming ur awake 16 hours a day.)
5. figure out how many oz each of ur favorite cups is. it’ll help your guesstimation. 
6. if ur urine is darker than light yellow, you’re dehydrated. 
7. if u pinch the skin on the back of ur hand for a couple seconds and it takes more than a second or two go to back to normal then ur dehydrated. 

In regards to #1, don’t take this as an excuse to drink the sugar water that they call sports drinks. They aren’t bad for you per se, but please choose water.

actually this entire post was written in the spirit of ppl using it as an excuse to drink sports drinks and soda etc

ppl have been commenting abt sodium levels in soda and sugar levels in sports drinks and thats all well and good but what i’ve noticed is that people who internalize “well, ONLY WATER hydrates me” but who HATE WATER remain horrifically dehydrated cause they dont drink anything. 

so like. if ur a person who haaaaates tap water, this is absolutely me giving you permission to drink whatever fluid you can stomach. please take this as a direct excuse to drink nothing but gatorade if that’s what it takes to get enough fluid into ur body.

it’s not the healthiest for you, sure, but you’re a smart enough person to know that. please drink fluids anyways. 

if u like water thats gr8. if you can stomach water that’s gr8. if you can’t, that’s okay too, and you need to stay hydrated just as much as anyone else, so pleasedrink. 

I used to hate tap water, and in some places (looking at you, Iowa) it is legit disgusting, but one thing I do which helped a ton and was long term cheaper than buying soda or juice was to get a bottle of Angostura bitters. It’s a cocktail additive with a strong distinctive flavor, so although a tiny bottle is like $6 it will last you for ages. Put a small drop or dash in your glass then fill with water. It has a pleasant sort of herbal metal taste (I understand that those words don’t seem like they should go together but it’s hard to describe) which masks tap water. It also helps me smooth an upset tummy but your mileage may vary. It’s not something that will get you drunk, just a flavoring like vanilla extract.

If that all sounds like too much bother, dropping a lemon wedge into water also helps.

I am learning that lemon wedges are magical in almost everything I like to drink.

here is the magic that made me stop being chronically dehydrated:

because yeah, i can’t STAND plain water – it tastes like the inside of my mouth. it tastes like spit. imagine drinking a glass of ice cold spit. ugh. but add a squirt of this stuff to your glass of tapwater, and now it tastes like apple, cherry, lemonade, whatever.

i also got a bunch of these

and pre-prep them with flavored water, iced tea, iced coffee, whatever (or ask my helper to do it), and then when i’m thirsty but distracted and want to just grab some kind of liquid without thinking about finding a clean glass etc., i can just grab one of these.

because yeah, hating water is a thing, and dehydration SUCKS. so drink SOMETHING, don’t be a water purist. better to chug iced coffee than go without.

mio was a damn genius for comin out with that shit

can I just speak up here as someone who has been a nurse for 17 years? I heartily endorse this post and also give you permission to DRINK WHATEVER THE HELL IT TAKES TO KEEP YOU FROM BEING DEHYDRATED

especially in the summer, you can’t play around with that. drink something. seriously. for the love of kittens. DRINK SOMETHING. 

I thought of this earlier today, too: If you’re trying to be really conscientious of the sugar levels in many drinks, a simple thing I do is cut my juice or gatorade like 1:1 with water. That way, it has just enough flavor, but it’ll also dilute some of the sugar content. Tbh, I find that some juices and such have too much flavor for my preferences anyway, so this also helps me want to drink more often.

HYDRATION FRIENDS! If you do not care for sports drinks or the like, but still want something that will help replenish depleted electrolytes, can I recommend…

SEKANJABIN?

Sekanjabin is a drink used across Northern Africa and the Middle East today and has its origins in medieval Persia. It is a vinegar-based drink (which sounds weird but I promise you can barely taste it if made properly). Modern sekanjabin is traditionally made with mint, or mint and cucumber. The first written copy of the recipe was simply honey and vinegar (10th century, in Fihrist of al-Nadim).

Here is my actual award-winning Pomegranate Ginger Rose Water sekanjabin:

Ingredients

1. 2 C sugar
2. 1¼ C water
3. ½ C vinegar (white, white wine, or red wine)
4. 1 C pomegranate juice
5. 1 T rose water
6. 3 ginger candies

Instructions

1. Bring the sugar, water, and vinegar to a boil. Stir for three minutes (sugar should now be fully integrated).
2. Add ginger candy; stir until melted. Remove from heat.
3. Add rosewater and pomegranate juice, stir.
4. Let cool to room temperature, then bottle.
5. To drink: add 1 part syrup to 5-10 parts water. Can be prepared hot or cold, but I think it tastes best over ice.

Notes

1. Sekanjabin is shelf-stable and will last a very long time. Feel free to play with the flavors and proportions of the base ingredients – other popular flavors include mint, lavender, and quince. It’s also worth noting that the different vinegars will affect the flavor of the final product.
2. I use Gin-Gin ginger candies. You could also use ginger syrup (1 teaspoon per candy, or 1 tablespoon/3 candies). You can even use powdered ginger, although the end result will have “floaters” in it as a result.
3. If you live in a large city, you may be able to find rose water in your local grocery store (in the middle eastern food area). Medium cities: you can find it at your local Middle Eastern grocer. Oftentimes in health food stores. Small towns: you may want to order online.
4. Rose water is not a common flavor in modern Western cooking. It is VERY easy to over-do  the rosewater; if you are concerned about it tasting like soap or perfume, start with a teaspoon and add more.
5. It’s fun to experiment! Hate ginger? Try adding mint (both have soothing qualities for the stomach). Think pomegranate is boring? Try quince. Know you can’t stand roses? Go for lavender! You could make a bunch of sample bottles to see what works for you.
6. Storage: I put mine in (thoroughly cleaned-out) glass booze bottles. I also currently have two gallons in an old water container. A little bit goes a long way.

Awesome things about sekanjabin: it’s an AMAZING recovery drink. I had folks drinking mine when they were sick and thanking me afterward because it was the only thing they could keep down and likely kept them from dehydrating to the point of hospitalizaiton. I also had folks drinking it as a hangover cure – a higher syrup:water ratio than I’d usually recommend, but it worked for them. 

Hydrate in whatever way works for you! But if you want those electrolytes, make you some sekanjabin.

http://www.hextilda.com/2017/08/01/summer-sekanjabin/

<sb> idea, “silica gel – chow down fatty”

<b> i wonder what happens if you eat those things.

<b>While the contents of a silica gel packet are basically harmless, it would be a rather unpleasant experience to attempt to consume the silica crystals. The sole job of these tiny desiccants is to adsorb moisture.

<b> adsorb, adsorb, adsorb, adsorb, adsorb

 * sb adsorgs all ur moiscure

<sb> leaving u conspitated

<sb> and dehybrated

<sb> better drink some gaporabe

<adam> it’s got elecdrorights

<sb> it really quitches your thirsk

<adam> for that deeb down doby thirsk

loki-zen:

theaudientvoid:

ms-demeanor:

cromulentenough:

ms-demeanor:

So i’m watching a cspan hearing from 1987 about aspartame because it’s one of the big tent-poles of the “pilots can’t fly after drinking a diet coke” claim (timestamps from about 1hr:00-1hr:10).

Okay here’s the pattern this air force major general describes:

• He is big on running and runs a lot. When he runs a lot, he drinks a lot of artificially sweetened kool-aid.
• He is running a lot in the summer heat in nevada, drinking a gallon of kool-aid a day, and develops a tremor.
• The tremor goes away when he is stationed on a remote base.
• He gets back into the regular swing of things and is running a lot and his tremor comes back, but stops when he sprains his ankle and stops running (and therefore drinking the kool-aid)
• He is stationed in Australia, and someone sends him some crystal lite, and he is back to drinking a gallon of it a day and the tremor comes back. (No mention of if he was drinking something else during his runs before, or if he was drinking a gallon a day while not running in this case)
• He is stationed in Florida, and has been regularly running and drinking sugar-free kool-aid, when he has a seizure.
• His father points out a correlation between kool-aid and tremors, and two days later he is put on an anti-seizure medication. Since then he has not had any kool-aid and his tremors have not returned.

Would anyone like to guess the symptoms of hyponatremia, or would anyone like to hazard a guess as to why Gatorade is used as a recovery drink but kool-aid is not?

ALT

ALT

Hyponatremia is what happens when your electrolyte balance is completely fucked up. It typically means you’ve got too much water and not enough salt in your body, and it can straight-up kill you. It’s sometimes called “water toxicity” and is why that lady died after drinking too much water for a radio contest. It *also* kills athletes who are significantly exerting themselves (this guy was describing 5-8 miles of running 4-5 days a week in addition to regular gym visits, including in Nevada in the summer) and not properly replenishing electrolytes. It’s why Gatorade was developed in the first place - it was a sports recovery drink for the Florida Gators football team, who are athletes exercising in a very humid environment that can cause significant depletion of electrolytes.

He even points out that he didn’t have any seizures or tremors after he was put on dylantin, but I’m guessing he also wasn’t *running five miles a day and rehydrating with just water* immediately after his seizure.

Anyway, it does appear that this guy was permanently grounded after a grand mal seizure that doctors believed might have been connected to prior head trauma from a car accident, and I’m sure that sucked, but it really seems like his tremors and muscle spasms were much more likely to have been related to an electrolyte imbalance (if you’re getting cramps, muscle spasms, and twitching one of the first things doctors/trainers/physical therapists will generally recommend is checking on your sodium/potassium/magnesium intake) than they were to consuming a chemical that literally millions of people (including tons of athletes working at high intensity and tons of people with demanding, precise jobs) consume daily without having seizures.

i get isotonic drinks when im really dehydrated cause of the salt thing, i didn’t realize a big part of it was alsi about replacing sugar.

how much salt do you need to be isotonic? google gives conflicting values. one says 0.9% so 9g per litre, but the isotonic drink i have has 1.3g per litre and the labelled one above seems to have even less.

It’s going to vary a lot based on your environment, your activity level, and a bunch of other stuff.

You should primarily be getting your electrolytes from food, but if you are an athlete (and even then only on days that you’re running/playing a sport, etc. Weight lifting, for example, doesn’t tend to require this kind of recovery because a decent weight routine typically causes less sweating and doesn’t take long enough to require this kind of electrolyte replacement, but running a marathon does) or if you’re doing high-energy work outside for long periods of time in the summer someplace that has hot summers (gardening, construction, etc.), you may need a sports drink.

But most people I know who go in for this kind of thing (mostly people who hike or backpack in the desert) are much more likely to go for salt sticks (electrolyte only) and skip the carb replacement.

But yeah like one of the things that I do a lot when I’m out with people in a hot environment is carry individual packets of pickles or olives. Unless you’re doing a LOT of high intensity exercise and losing a LOT of electrolytes, you probably don’t need to worry about it. But if you’re doing something like, say, walking around Vegas for several hours a day in the middle of the summer and you’re not used to that kind of weather (DefCon attendees - these are the people I would give bags of pickles to) you may want to have a salty snack and a liter of water instead of drinking a bottle of Gatorade.

However I know this can be really different between countries; when I was in London and my sister got sick we found blackcurrant rehydration sachets that were about a million miles away from what gatorade is like, and I’ve run into people who were very surprised that Americans drink what is essentially uncarbonated soda to recover from illness. Isotonic drinks isn’t a terminology we use here; we call them sports drinks and they are realistically a lot more sugar than they need to be for recovery and way more than the average person needs to stay hydrated, but actually pretty useful (if sugary) if you’ve been ill and need to rehydrate. But the bottle above is a 12oz bottle, so just over a third of a liter, so it’s about 500mg per liter I guess? In a liter bottle that’s about 25% of your RDV for sodium. I’m not sure what percentage that puts it at (160mg/340ml? I am, as we know, not great at numbers so I’m sure I’m going to get the percentage wrong). But I will say that the blackcurrant rehydration sachets tasted extremely salty compared to gatorade, so maybe the rest of the world just has higher standards for what counts as something that can be marketed for rehydration. (Gatorade is also specifically gatorADE, not gatorAID because that way nobody can claim they’re making medical claims, so that may be it).

Yeah, in my experience the main reason to electrolyte drinks have so much sugar in them is because electrolytes taste bad. Especially the medical grade stuff that they use for treating people who already have dehydration. My main experience was 15+ years ago, but I sure went through gatorade mix drink at a pretty high rate back during my backpacking days.

Ooh I think you’re talking about dioralyte! (Terrible name) That stuff’s fucking foul

In the states, the comparable product is Pedialyte. You can find it in the children’s section of most grocery stores and drug stores, next to the infant formula. It’s more expensive than gatorade, tastes worse, and has less sugar and more salts. (Not just sodium; also potassium and a couple other things.) It tends to also have some artificial sweetener to balance it out so it’s not super gross. (You can also get packets or bags of various electrolyte powders; I use a brand called Vitalyte but there are plenty of them.)

It’s absolutely fantastic for rehydrating. (I have serious and baffling hydration issues, so I’m very familiar.) It restores electrolytes, but it’s also balanced to maximize the speed at which it’s absorbed through the intestines, so you lose less of the liquid (especially important if you’re sick, but also just useful if you need to rehydrate dramatically).

Gatorade has more sugar for two reasons. One is because it tastes better that way, and we often use it as, like, a pseudo-soda. The other is that it was developed for athletes, and if you’ve just been playing intense competitive sports for an hour you probably need to perk up your blood sugar as well. But if you just need it for hydration you want a little sugar—sugar is an electrolyte!—but Gatorade has too much.

If you’re desperate, bang a Georgia peach …