Are sports drinks any good for you? – Craig McDonald

Today I want to talk a bit about sports drinks. You’ve all seen them heavily advertised on TV and in magazines and whenever you go into a lunch bar or supermarket the fridges are filled with various forms of sports drinks. But are they in fact any good for you?

In my opinion, unless you have been exercising in extreme conditions and are severely dehydrated, the answer is no. These drinks are overloaded with sugar and some people drink 2 or 3 of them per day thinking they are a ‘healthy’ alternative thanks to aggressive marketing campaigns that show high profile athletes, who are in peak condition, drinking them.

Most of these sports drinks contain approximately 30 grams of sugar per serving, so if you had 3 of them in a day that’s an extra 90 grams of pure sugar in your system. Some brands try to lure you in by advertising the addition of artificial vitamins however these ‘vitamins’ add no benefit either as they don’t come from real foods which are the main source of our bodies vitamin requirements.

Another ploy they often use is advertising ‘light’ or ‘sugar free’ drinks however these versions are simply loaded up with artificial sweeteners and other chemicals that can cause even more hormonal imbalances in your body.

As an example, if you were to drink 3 ‘sports’ drinks per day for a whole year that would add, approximately, an additional 130,000 calories to your diet. This could equate to an extra 10-15kgs of body weight per year that is either being added to your existing weight or that you are exercising to keep off.

The alternatives to ‘sports’ drinks are simple. Water or unsweetened teas would be my recommendation. If you have trouble making the change, try making small changes and working up to replacing those ‘sports’ drinks with a better alternative.