I have a hobby farm, I’m using my GPP to train for a half marathon, and I live in South Florida. Needless to say, I sweat a lot.
Each day I drink up to a gallon of water. If I don’t, I’m pretty thirsty. In the water I put a teaspoon of table salt. If I don’t put enough salt, I cramp. (I’ve tested this.)
I also eat around four servings of fruits and veggies (2020 goal is to get to 10 a day) and I’m on a 2,500 calorie diet (250 protein, 250 carbs, and ~70 fat) which is a deficit of ~500 calories. I am 6’ 1” and 205 lbs. at 20% fat with a 36” waist.
Here’s the question: Would I benefit from putting anything else in the water besides sodium? Am I flushing out “good stuff”? (I’ve listened to every podcast and feel like this has been answered but I can’t find it there or in the forums.)
Thanks for the post and I hope you’re having a good weekend. This is a common question that we get frequently. Let’s try and get to the bottom of it!
On average, most adults consume just over 2 liters per day of fluids, though there is a wide variation amongst individuals. Nevertheless, markers of hydration status remain relatively similar amongst individuals. However, exercise, environment, and individual variability in sweat rates and sweat sodium concentrations makes optimal fluid and electrolyte intake recommendations difficult.
That said, a general recommendation is that an athlete’s diet and beverage intake should include enough sodium to replace what is lost that secondary to sweat and urine losses. While some evidence exists for pre exercise sodium intake reducing decreases in blood sodium levels during exercise, this does not appear to occur reliably and the benefit on recovery and subsequent performance is shaky. In other words, some people respond well to it and some people don’t see any benefit.
Thus, we’d like to have individuals who have high sweat sodium concentrations, high sweat rates (>2.5L/hour) add sodium to the beverages they’re consuming before, during, and after exercise. For those who do not sweat this much, no additional sodium supplementation is recommended. Ideally, a person would have their sweat sodium concentration tested- though this is somewhat impractical. One rule-of-thumb is that if a person is routinely losing >2% of body mass during exercise, is exercising for >4 hours, or has <4hours before their next bout of exercise, they should add sodium to their intraworkout beverage. Otherwise, normal dietary sodium consumption is likely to be just fine.