Electrolyte replacement overdose

stokepa31

HI all

Ive just started using nuun hydration tablets on my ride. I also use torq energy drink on longer rides.

Today I went out with a 1.5 litre bladder on my back containing one nuun tablet and a 750ml bottle of torq in the cage (mixed with three scoops).

Is it possible to have too much electrolyte and should I stick with one or the other. my thinking is the torq gives me carbs which I find helps if im out for more than two hours.

ideally id have liked to have stuck in two nuun tablets in the bladder to get a better flavour.

im also a fatty so probably sweat more than your average slim guy.

interested to hear your thoughts

Cheers
Paul

Anonymous

Crikey! That's a lot of water! How long were you out there for?

stokepa31

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Anonymous

stokepa31 wrote:

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Blimey!!

That you do!

In the current climate I'll take out two 750ml bottles, one with energy drink, the other with squash, and that does me bob on for 5 hours!

stokepa31

At 19st 7lbs, I need the liquid. I started weighing myself pre ride and post ride and was finding I was well under on my return. I did only drink half of the torq bottle today though

richa

Believe it is difficult to OD on electrolytes as you are taking it with plenty of water and therefore require more electrolytes, etc.

zammmmo

very unlikely to OD on electrolytes - you'd be more at risk taking too many multivit tablets

btw - the fitter you get physically the more you will tend to sweat irrespective of your size relatively speaking....its an adaption process your body puts in place.

like anything you'd be better off getting electrolyte replacement from good quality natural food sources e.g. fruit.

Team Banana Spokesman

a certain someone on here :roll: has got me into bananas. I ate 4 on todays ride and 2 in a protein shake afterwards which is a mahoosive OD of potassium.

I OD on nuts ona regular basis. massive OD of magnesium and sodium from the salt.

Drink too much milk and get loads of calclium aswell.

AFAIK im ok.

zammmmo

I think it comes down to how well the body can cope with an excess of something you've eaten. I used to eat too much protein - not a good idea - puts alot of strain on the kidneys.

nickwill

zammmmo wrote:

very unlikely to OD on electrolytes - you'd be more at risk taking too many multivit tablets

btw - the fitter you get physically the more you will tend to sweat irrespective of your size relatively speaking....its an adaption process your body puts in place.

like anything you'd be better off getting electrolyte replacement from good quality natural food sources e.g. fruit.

You would have to carry a lot of bananas! There seems to be a strong undercurrent on the forum these days where any commercial sports drink/food is decried.
I'm a great believer in natural food, but good quality sports nutrition is hard to beat on the bike!

sampras38

NapoleonD wrote:

stokepa31 wrote:

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Blimey!!

That you do!

In the current climate I'll take out two 750ml bottles, one with energy drink, the other with squash, and that does me bob on for 5 hours!

Nap, how hard are you riding on those 5 hours as 2 bottles doesn't seem quite enough to me. If you can do it, then more power to you, but that's really not a lot of fluid in 5 hours. Do you have much fluid before leaving the house?

When you get back after the ride, how soon do you need to pee? A good indication is if you pee after the first say, 20 mins, you''re probably hydrated enough, but if it's much longer you're most likely de-hydrated.

And apologies if I sound like I'm preaching...;-)

ride_whenever

Okay....

The hydration drinks are basically isotonic, or pretty close to it, so you wont end up taking too many electrolytes as the fluid contains the correct amount for the volume of water you're adding. Any excess you'll either sweat or piss out.

The only surefire way to monitor hydration is by naked weighing of yourself. Over an exercise session aim to drink as much as you're comfortable with, there is a limit to what you can absorb on the bike, and the number range escapes me for the time being. After exercise, if you consume twice the volume you've lost of a 23mM sodium ion solution you'll be hydrated after 6hours, if you drink the same as you've lost you'll actually still be dehydrated 6 hours later.

As you get fitter you tend to sweat more but it becomes less salty as you become acclimatised to exercise. Some very fit people sweat lots, some dont, comes down to physiology.

oldwelshman

sampras38 wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

stokepa31 wrote:

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Blimey!!

That you do!

In the current climate I'll take out two 750ml bottles, one with energy drink, the other with squash, and that does me bob on for 5 hours!

Nap, how hard are you riding on those 5 hours as 2 bottles doesn't seem quite enough to me. If you can do it, then more power to you, but that's really not a lot of fluid in 5 hours. Do you have much fluid before leaving the house?

When you get back after the ride, how soon do you need to pee? A good indication is if you pee after the first say, 20 mins, you''re probably hydrated enough, but if it's much longer you're most likely de-hydrated.

And apologies if I sound like I'm preaching...;-)

I am managing on one currently in this weather and sometimes even have some left in the bottle. If it does get a bot warmer or we ride a bit harder I just top it up in the cafe stop.
From about may on, I use different bike with two 500ml bottles.

sampras38

oldwelshman wrote:

sampras38 wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

stokepa31 wrote:

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Blimey!!

That you do!

In the current climate I'll take out two 750ml bottles, one with energy drink, the other with squash, and that does me bob on for 5 hours!

Nap, how hard are you riding on those 5 hours as 2 bottles doesn't seem quite enough to me. If you can do it, then more power to you, but that's really not a lot of fluid in 5 hours. Do you have much fluid before leaving the house?

When you get back after the ride, how soon do you need to pee? A good indication is if you pee after the first say, 20 mins, you''re probably hydrated enough, but if it's much longer you're most likely de-hydrated.

And apologies if I sound like I'm preaching...;-)

I am managing on one currently in this weather and sometimes even have some left in the bottle. If it does get a bot warmer or we ride a bit harder I just top it up in the cafe stop.
From about may on, I use different bike with two 500ml bottles.

You do realise that you lose fluids through your breathing too, so it's just as important to hydrate properly in the winter?

Bhima

To answer the original question, sodium is not toxic but too much will lead to high blood pressure, magnesium toxicity is very hard to achieve, potassium is not toxic unless you have kidney problems and you actually need more calcium than normal as a cyclist so you shouldn't worry about having too much.

redddraggon

Bhima wrote:

sodium is not toxic but too much will lead to high blood pressure

If it's not toxic, how does it lead to high blood pressure, as Toxicity is the degree to which a substance is able to damage an exposed organism.

shockedsoshocked

redddraggon wrote:

Bhima wrote:

sodium is not toxic but too much will lead to high blood pressure

If it's not toxic, how does it lead to high blood pressure, as Toxicity is the degree to which a substance is able to damage an exposed organism.

Can't anything by definition be toxic? Too much water, oxygen etc etc

redddraggon

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

redddraggon wrote:

Bhima wrote:

sodium is not toxic but too much will lead to high blood pressure

If it's not toxic, how does it lead to high blood pressure, as Toxicity is the degree to which a substance is able to damage an exposed organism.

Can't anything by definition be toxic? Too much water, oxygen etc etc

Yeh.

Not many people get water intoxication though, but plenty of people have high blood pressure caused by too much salt in their diet.

jibberjim

ride_whenever wrote:

The only surefire way to monitor hydration is by naked weighing of yourself.

How do you account for the calories you burnt, both fat and glycogen, and the associated reduce water needs because of the water that was released from its associated storage with the glycogen?

Even with "naked weighing" surely you'd also need to know not only the calories expended, but the mix in terms of fat and glycogen that it came from.

Of course even if you absolutely fully deplete your glycogen stores, you're only talking about maybe 750g at most for an average man, but that's still a large discrepency in terms of water lost.

Drinking to thirst is probably better for all but a small minority of people.

Bhima

Grammatical error. Meant to say "not that toxic" but I was typing too fast I guess. I was a bit vague. I meant to elaborate that It's relative to how much you're sweating out, so a USUALLY toxic level could be ok, if you need to replace it during/after an epic ride.

jibberjim

redddraggon wrote:

Not many people get water intoxication though, but plenty of people have high blood pressure caused by too much salt in their diet.

True, but don't dismiss water intoxication out of hand, a number of marathon runners die every year of it, I suspect it's also possibly a problem in sportives, although the lack of access to water when riding perhaps limits it.

ride_whenever

jibber, whilst i agree with the muscle glycogen fat etc. losses. You're talking about, IIRC, 1 g/kg of carbohydrate and 1/4 g/kg of protein for your recovery. Compared to between 400ml and 2 litres of water lost an hour during exercise. It's significant, but not the end of the world.

Thirst on the other hand is a well known useless measure of dehydration, by the time you're thirsty it's too late, either drink constantly, ideally to a regiment as part of your training, or go on urine output/naked weighing to allow you to figure out how much more you need to be taking on over exercise and during recovery.

Usually 2% dehydration will reduce your performance by around 10% as a rule of thumb.

iain_j

I use one nuun tablet per 500ml water, so for my 750ml bottles I use one and a half. Even at the height of summer I go through one of these bottles per hour.

Anonymous

sampras38 wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

stokepa31 wrote:

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Blimey!!

That you do!

In the current climate I'll take out two 750ml bottles, one with energy drink, the other with squash, and that does me bob on for 5 hours!

Nap, how hard are you riding on those 5 hours as 2 bottles doesn't seem quite enough to me. If you can do it, then more power to you, but that's really not a lot of fluid in 5 hours. Do you have much fluid before leaving the house?

When you get back after the ride, how soon do you need to pee? A good indication is if you pee after the first say, 20 mins, you''re probably hydrated enough, but if it's much longer you're most likely de-hydrated.

And apologies if I sound like I'm preaching...;-)

I keep myself well hydrated throughout the day regardless of training, I go by the colour of my pi55...

The 5 hours I burnt 2603kcal according to my powertap. (Or 3048 if you believe a Garmin!)
So a steady ride but some hard climbs.

I was fine!

jibberjim

ride_whenever wrote:

jibber, whilst i agree with the muscle glycogen fat etc. losses. You're talking about, IIRC, 1 g/kg of carbohydrate and 1/4 g/kg of protein for your recovery. Compared to between 400ml and 2 litres of water lost an hour during exercise.
It's significant, but not the end of the world.

You said before that weighing yourself is a surefire way to know how dehydrated you are, but now you agree that 750g (equivalent to 750ml of water) could be down to the calories you've burnt, if that's the case how are you going to distinguish the 400ml to 2000ml of water you're claiming with your weighing technique?

ride_whenever wrote:

Usually 2% dehydration will reduce your performance by around 10% as a rule of thumb.

Complete and utter twaddle, look at the studies on elite marathoners, they are all considerably more than "2% dehydrated" during a marathon. By your assertion above had they simply drunk a little bit more the current marathon world record would be under 1:52. It's not, because humans reduce their need for water when doing endurance sports, drinking to a regime, particularly one that comes from measuring body weight changes that ignore the non water inputs that relate to the change will lead to hypnoatreamia. That's been seen time and time again in marathon runner studies.

stokepa31

iain_j wrote:

I use one nuun tablet per 500ml water, so for my 750ml bottles I use one and a half. Even at the height of summer I go through one of these bottles per hour.

Lots of differing opinions on the level of hydration required but I guess I just need to watch the salt levels then. think i'll risk the extra nuun in my camelbak

Cheers
Paul

chrisw12

jibberjim wrote:

ride_whenever wrote:

jibber, whilst i agree with the muscle glycogen fat etc. losses. You're talking about, IIRC, 1 g/kg of carbohydrate and 1/4 g/kg of protein for your recovery. Compared to between 400ml and 2 litres of water lost an hour during exercise.
It's significant, but not the end of the world.

You said before that weighing yourself is a surefire way to know how dehydrated you are, but now you agree that 750g (equivalent to 750ml of water) could be down to the calories you've burnt, if that's the case how are you going to distinguish the 400ml to 2000ml of water you're claiming with your weighing technique?

ride_whenever wrote:

Usually 2% dehydration will reduce your performance by around 10% as a rule of thumb.

Complete and utter twaddle, look at the studies on elite marathoners, they are all considerably more than "2% dehydrated" during a marathon. By your assertion above had they simply drunk a little bit more the current marathon world record would be under 1:52. It's not, because humans reduce their need for water when doing endurance sports, drinking to a regime, particularly one that comes from measuring body weight changes that ignore the non water inputs that relate to the change will lead to hypnoatreamia. That's been seen time and time again in marathon runner studies.

I take it you're aware of the work done by Noakes then (who I think agrees with you)? There was a good debated on the points you raised over on slowtwitch a while ago.

iain_j

stokepa31 wrote:

iain_j wrote:

I use one nuun tablet per 500ml water, so for my 750ml bottles I use one and a half. Even at the height of summer I go through one of these bottles per hour.

Lots of differing opinions on the level of hydration required but I guess I just need to watch the salt levels then. think i'll risk the extra nuun in my camelbak

Cheers
Paul

The more I'm likely to sweat (ie. going for a ride in the middle of a heatwave) the less I worry about overdosing on salt and minerals. I never, ever liked salt & vinegar crisps - too salty for my liking - but I got an absolute craving for them one baking hot day last summer.

sampras38

NapoleonD wrote:

sampras38 wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

stokepa31 wrote:

about three hours. i like to stay well hydrated

Blimey!!

That you do!

In the current climate I'll take out two 750ml bottles, one with energy drink, the other with squash, and that does me bob on for 5 hours!

Nap, how hard are you riding on those 5 hours as 2 bottles doesn't seem quite enough to me. If you can do it, then more power to you, but that's really not a lot of fluid in 5 hours. Do you have much fluid before leaving the house?

When you get back after the ride, how soon do you need to pee? A good indication is if you pee after the first say, 20 mins, you''re probably hydrated enough, but if it's much longer you're most likely de-hydrated.

And apologies if I sound like I'm preaching...;-)

I keep myself well hydrated throughout the day regardless of training, I go by the colour of my pi55...

The 5 hours I burnt 2603kcal according to my powertap. (Or 3048 if you believe a Garmin!)
So a steady ride but some hard climbs.

I was fine!

You might feel fine but I still don't think you're taking on enough fluids in 5 hours, even if you're well hydrated before you start. I would try one more bottle, just to see.

Goo on, just for me...;-)

jibberjim

chrisw12 wrote:

I take it you're aware of the work done by Noakes then (who I think agrees with you)? There was a good debated on the points you raised over on slowtwitch a while ago.

Well I'd say I more agree with him, having been persuaded by the evidence him and others have presented I've not done the research myself, although I do personally purely drink to thirst

Bhima

ride_whenever wrote:

there is a limit to what you can absorb on the bike, and the number range escapes me for the time being.

0.8L - 1.3L per hour depending on the drink, 1.3 being a "proper" sports drink and 0.8 being pure H20.

You lose 1.5L - 3L an hour though. :!: