What Energy Drink are you using

meesterbond

Sorry, bit of a tedious topic but I've finally got through the tub of blackcurrent SIS PSP (or whatever it's called now). I've been using PSP for a while and think I'll try something else. Even if you half the recommended dose it's still pretty sweet and cloying.

So, what do you use? Do you make your own?

I'm signed up for the Raid Pyrenean this summer so using this to supplement whatever proper food I carry.

Tjgoodhew

I use the orange Gatorade.

Its quite sweet still and like you i use about half the recommended dose which I find is just about right in a 750ml bottle.

I have tried some of the High 5 and Nunn tablets but they dont seem to quench my thirst like gatorade

florerider

Torq pink grapefruit, clean taste, not sweet.

No aspartame in it.

buckles

5kg maltodextrin + 2kg fructose from Myprotein , £20 ish + postage

Lemon or orange juice for flavouring

sloppyschleckonds

Buckles wrote:

5kg maltodextrin + 2kg fructose from Myprotein , £20 ish + postage

Lemon or orange juice for flavouring

How long would that little stash last?

Moonbiker

Orange juice from aldi & tap water mixed.

Brian B

None, just water! Tried every mix your own and premixed brand and to be honest it make no improvement on ride times or performance even up to 200miles.

markhewitt1978

Moonbiker wrote:

Orange juice from aldi & tap water mixed.

Same although I should probably get the proper sugary version rather than the no added sugar one.

napoleond

Whatever squash we have in and if a long ride, I put some myprotein electrolyte in one bottle as I suffer cramps otherwise.
Works out at about 5-6p a serving.

ugo.santalucia

It's all crap.
It is just full of glorified sugar that gives you insuline spikes and electrolites that most likely you don't need, unless you are planning to ride through the Sahara desert.

Just to be clear, serious athletes don't use that crap... it's all marketing. Best drink is water, in winter I often carry warm tea, that stays warm for 15 minutes or so... :? If you don't like the taste of water in a plastic bottle, add a splash of juice or ribeena to it

Receovery drink are another dodgy area... there is no medical evidence that a recovery drink helps you recover... if you are thirsty drink water... if you want some proteins, drink milk, if you want antioxidants drink beetroot juice and have fun with the pink wee

Eat a balanced diet with plenty of fibre (oat bran, even better than oat meal) and don't spend money on that crap

DiscoBoy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

It's all crap.
It is just full of glorified sugar that gives you insuline spikes and electrolites that most likely you don't need, unless you are planning to ride through the Sahara desert.

Just to be clear, serious athletes don't use that crap... it's all marketing. Best drink is water, in winter I often carry warm tea, that stays warm for 15 minutes or so... :? If you don't like the taste of water in a plastic bottle, add a splash of juice or ribeena to it

Receovery drink are another dodgy area... there is no medical evidence that a recovery drink helps you recover... if you are thirsty drink water... if you want some proteins, drink milk, if you want antioxidants drink beetroot juice and have fun with the pink wee

Eat a balanced diet with plenty of fibre (oat bran, even better than oat meal) and don't spend money on that crap

Be careful with how you word that bit about recovery drinks. There is plenty of evidence showing that taking in fluids, carbs and protein after exercise is a good idea. I do agree that there is little need to use a "recovery drink" though so long as you're taking in enough decent food. The same can be said of almost all supplements though, most are just convenience food.

Anyway, this is a bit off topic.

On topic, if you want an energy drink then making your own will save you lost of money. Buying the ingredients from somewhere like myprotein.co.uk and mixing them isn't hard, and recipes can be found online (or just read the side of your current tub )

Don't however, be fooled into thinking that you need an energy drink. Unstead, find out what works best for you. I personally quite like either squash with or without added caster sugar, or water with electrolyte tablets.

ugo.santalucia

DiscoBoy wrote:

Be careful with how you word that bit about recovery drinks. There is plenty of evidence showing that taking in fluids, carbs and protein after exercise is a good idea. I do agree that there is little need to use a "recovery drink" though so long as you're taking in enough decent food. The same can be said of almost all supplements though, most are just convenience food.

Indeed, recovery drinks used to be called having a meal after a ride, which is what normal people still do, I believe.
This are the nutritional facts in a recovery drink (a famous one)

Per 66g:
Energy: 992kj / 237kcal
Protein: 18g
Carbohydrate: 39g
of which sugars: 18g
Fat: 1g
of which saturates: - 0.5g
Fibre - 0.6g
Sodium - 0.8g
Salt Equivalent: 2g

As you can see is very high in proteins and sugars, has no fibres and virtually no unsaturated fats, quite possibly the healthiest staple of a good diet.
You can of course also have a meal and balance that, but your meal has to be very low in protein and carbs... I can think of a large salad with a lot of olive/rapeseed oil as a good surrogate.
Is it not better to have the salad and some salmon and some brown rice instead? Same balance but a hell of a lot healthier and with no sugar!

keef66

I've only ever tried the freebies handed out during / after sportives etc. I have a suspicion that one of them was responsible for a bout of particularly explosive flatulence, but I can't remember which. I can't imagine ever buying any with my own money.

Normally I just have squash with a bit of salt in it. Depths of winter I'll sometimes take an old school saddle bag with a flask of sweet tea in it. Summer or winter my 'recovery' routine involves a pint of tea and a couple of Hobnobs.

Nobody has ever accused me of being an athlete though.

rafletcher

And a lot less salt too.

ugo.santalucia

keef66 wrote:

I've only ever tried the freebies handed out during / after sportives etc. I have a suspicion that one of them was responsible for a bout of particularly explosive flatulence, but I can't remember which. I can't imagine ever buying any with my own money.

The popular belief is that beans make you fart... the reality is that fermentation of sugar makes you fart a hell of as lot more... that is true for other simple sugars as well, as unfermented sugars in beer, for instance.
Sugar is evil, there isn't a single instance in which sugar is a good idea, unless you can't digest, then you are given glucose straight in the blood stream.
I am trying to get rid of it as much as sensible from my diet and I have started to notice the adverse effects of sugars, which previously I thought were normal

shmooster

I used to do energy drinks, but gave up a couple of years ago. Now I just do water (with occasional electrolyte if it's a long or hot ride). That got me through a very very long and hot 2013 Marmotte with no issues (no issues with hydration anyway).

DiscoBoy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

Be careful with how you word that bit about recovery drinks. There is plenty of evidence showing that taking in fluids, carbs and protein after exercise is a good idea. I do agree that there is little need to use a "recovery drink" though so long as you're taking in enough decent food. The same can be said of almost all supplements though, most are just convenience food.

Indeed, recovery drinks used to be called having a meal after a ride, which is what normal people still do, I believe.
This are the nutritional facts in a recovery drink (a famous one)

Per 66g:
Energy: 992kj / 237kcal
Protein: 18g
Carbohydrate: 39g
of which sugars: 18g
Fat: 1g
of which saturates: - 0.5g
Fibre - 0.6g
Sodium - 0.8g
Salt Equivalent: 2g

As you can see is very high in proteins and sugars, has no fibres and virtually no unsaturated fats, quite possibly the healthiest staple of a good diet.
You can of course also have a meal and balance that, but your meal has to be very low in protein and carbs... I can think of a large salad with a lot of olive/rapeseed oil as a good surrogate.
Is it not better to have the salad and some salmon and some brown rice instead? Same balance but a hell of a lot healthier and with no sugar!

A recovery drink isn't an alternative to a meal. It is designed purely to help your muscles recover by replacing the lost glycogen and providing the protein they need to repair themselves and grow.

The reason they are high in sugar is because it is digested faster and causes more of an insulin spike, this is linked to faster uptake of protein into the muscles.

Is a salad with salmon and brown rice a better evening meal than a recovery drink? Yes. Is it the best thing for recovering immediately after exercise? No.

Is your exercise wasted, are your muscles going to wither and die, and is your 10m TT time going to double if you don't have optimum post-ride nutrition? No, but why not maximise the benefit of each ride, even by a fraction of a percent?

ugo.santalucia wrote:

keef66 wrote:

I've only ever tried the freebies handed out during / after sportives etc. I have a suspicion that one of them was responsible for a bout of particularly explosive flatulence, but I can't remember which. I can't imagine ever buying any with my own money.

The popular belief is that beans make you fart... the reality is that fermentation of sugar makes you fart a hell of as lot more... that is true for other simple sugars as well, as unfermented sugars in beer, for instance.
Sugar is evil, there isn't a single instance in which sugar is a good idea, unless you can't digest, then you are given glucose straight in the blood stream.
I am trying to get rid of it as much as sensible from my diet and I have started to notice the adverse effects of sugars, which previously I thought were normal

I disagree. Removing all sugar from your diet makes lots of things (fruit mainly) off-limits to you. Sugar is fine in moderation.

jane90

ugo.santalucia wrote:

It's all crap.
It is just full of glorified sugar that gives you insuline spikes and electrolites that most likely you don't need, unless you are planning to ride through the Sahara desert.

Just to be clear, serious athletes don't use that crap

Why is it crap, Ugo? Are you suggesting that no serious endurance athlete uses energy drinks in competition because I know for a fact that's not true.

Let's be clear that we're talking about race conditions, i.e. sustained high intensity efforts of longer than 90 minutes duration. If we're talking about training runs or rides, then you're correct that no serious athlete would use these so as to encourage greater fat adaptation (burning greater percentage of fat rather than glycogen as fuel). Personally, I just train with a bottle of water and eat fruit where necessary (as little as possible).

You dismiss energy drinks as "glorified sugar" but the fact that there are two different monosaccharides present, glucose and fructose, is important because they both have different metabolic pathways. Given that the rule of thumb is that at high intensity effort you need to replace your glycogen store at 1g per 1kg of body weight per hour but the maximum amount of glucose you can absorb is 60g per hour, obviously larger athletes will need to supplement their glucose intake by adding fructose which is absorbed directly through the small intestine, hence why the commercial sports drinks are offered in a ratio of 2:1 glucose to fructose.

Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCCA) are also an important element of sports drinks on rides of long duration as they're broken down by heavy exercise and used for energy. If you don't replace them, you run the risk of muscle wasteage. Whey protein is a convenient source of BCCA and far easier to add to a sports drink than trying to eat an omlette or a turkey salad on the bike up a hill.

Additionally, recent studies have explored the effects of different ratios of monosaccharides and the results show a significant performance advantage for athletes using a ratio of 5:4 glucose to fructose, independent of their bodyweight. No doubt the commercial companies will eventually offer formulae to reflect this, but until then, if you are a racer - or anyone else - who is looking for any performance advantage, it's another reason besides cost to buy the ingredients from myprotein.com and mix your own.

ugo.santalucia

DiscoBoy wrote:

I disagree. Removing all sugar from your diet makes lots of things (fruit mainly) off-limits to you. Sugar is fine in moderation.

Fructose is not as bad as dextroxe or saccarose, I was referring to the latter... also sugar in an apple yes... as a percentage of the apple is well balanced... sugar in apple juice no... it's too concentrated.

Basically it's not the juice of the fruit that is good for you... it is the actual fruit that is good for you, with its fibre content etc... fruit juice does more bad than good.
It's not the vitamin C, it's the orange or the pepper! It's not the carotene, it's the carrot!

ugo.santalucia

jane90 wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

It's all crap.
It is just full of glorified sugar that gives you insuline spikes and electrolites that most likely you don't need, unless you are planning to ride through the Sahara desert.

Just to be clear, serious athletes don't use that crap

Why is it crap, Ugo? Are you suggesting that no serious endurance athlete uses energy drinks in competition because I know for a fact that's not true.

Let's be clear that we're talking about race conditions, i.e. sustained high intensity efforts of longer than 90 minutes duration. If we're talking about training runs or rides, then you're correct that no serious athlete would use these so as to encourage greater fat adaptation (burning greater percentage of fat rather than glycogen as fuel). Personally, I just train with a bottle of water and eat fruit where necessary (as little as possible).

You dismiss energy drinks as "glorified sugar" but the fact that there are two different monosaccharides present, glucose and fructose, is important because they both have different metabolic pathways. Given that the rule of thumb is that at high intensity effort you need to replace your glycogen store at 1g per 1kg of body weight per hour but the maximum amount of glucose you can absorb is 60g per hour, obviously larger athletes will need to supplement their glucose intake by adding fructose which is absorbed directly through the small intestine, hence why the commercial sports drinks are offered in a ratio of 2:1 glucose to fructose.

Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCCA) are also an important element of sports drinks on rides of long duration as they're broken down by heavy exercise and used for energy. If you don't replace them, you run the risk of muscle wasteage. Whey protein is a convenient source of BCCA and far easier to add to a sports drink than trying to eat an omlette or a turkey salad on the bike up a hill.

Additionally, recent studies have explored the effects of different ratios of monosaccharides and the results show a significant performance advantage for athletes using a ratio of 5:4 glucose to fructose, independent of their bodyweight. No doubt the commercial companies will eventually offer formulae to reflect this, but until then, if you are a racer - or anyone else - who is looking for any performance advantage, it's another reason besides cost to buy the ingredients from myprotein.com and mix your own.

What is good for an athlete is not necessarily good for the man inside the athelte. EPO is great for an athlete and works much better than home made remedies, but it's not very healthy.
I don't think we are discussing peak performance here... I am talking health and I see far too many mamils ingesting vast quantities of sugar, protein and electrolites... I don't care what it does to their muscles, it's what it does to their health that is a worry...

gotwood25

Slightly off topic but has anyone ever used these? http://www.energybits.com/
Read some very good testimonials and was tempted to try them but minimum order is £70 so wasn't going to bother unless anyone had a decent argument for.

DiscoBoy

gotwood25 wrote:

Slightly off topic but has anyone ever used these? http://www.energybits.com/
Read some very good testimonials and was tempted to try them but minimum order is £70 so wasn't going to bother unless anyone had a decent argument for.

You're joking, right?

gotwood25

Which bit?

jane90

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Fructose is not as bad as dextroxe or saccarose, I was referring to the latter... also sugar in an apple yes... as a percentage of the apple is well balanced... sugar in apple juice no... it's too concentrated.

Basically it's not the juice of the fruit that is good for you... it is the actual fruit that is good for you, with its fibre content etc... fruit juice does more bad than good.
It's not the vitamin C, it's the orange or the pepper! It's not the carotene, it's the carrot!

That's not true either, Ugo. Neither the juice nor the fibre in the apple is inherently better or worse for you, rather that because the only organ in the body that can metabolise fructose is the liver (glucose can be metabolised by other cells in the body) when you shear the fibre of a fuit when juicing it, you remove the lattice in the intestine that allows a gradual absorption of the body, leading to an instant hit to the liver which causes the insulin spike.

jane90

ugo.santalucia wrote:

What is good for an athlete is not necessarily good for the man inside the athelte. EPO is great for an athlete and works much better than home made remedies, but it's not very healthy.
I don't think we are discussing peak performance here... I am talking health and I see far too many mamils ingesting vast quantities of sugar, protein and electrolites... I don't care what it does to their muscles, it's what it does to their health that is a worry...

But as long as you're metabolising the monosaccharides, your metabolism doesn't distinguish where it's coming from and doesnt' care what the source is. Whether or not you're also ingesting other nutrients and vitimins isn't relevant as long as you're getting them elsewhere as part of your normal diet.

DiscoBoy

gotwood25 wrote:

Which bit?

About even considering purchasing that utter crap?

gotwood25

DiscoBoy wrote:

gotwood25 wrote:

Which bit?

About even considering purchasing that utter crap?

Don't suppose you want to go into any more detail as to how and why this is 'crap'? I only got a C in GCSE food technology so I am not expert. I read good things about it, I post on here to see if anyone has any first hand experience.

I am fully prepared to accept its 'crap' however would like to know why.

NeXXus

Brian B wrote:

None, just water! Tried every mix your own and premixed brand and to be honest it make no improvement on ride times or performance even up to 200miles.

Because energy drinks don't offer a performance gain

meesterbond

Ok, hadn't realised it would cause that much debate.

Just for clarity, I'm not talking about developing an optimal fueling strategy for a 30 min pootle, I was referring more to multi-day events, such as the Raid, where you're riding for 6+ hours for 3 or 4 days.
There's no way I can eat enough on the bike to cover the calorie deficit and whacking down an extra 2000+ calories for dinner / snacks / breakfast doesn't sound ideal so surely taking on those calories through the carbs in an energy drink is one way to minimise the deficit?

ugo.santalucia

meesterbond wrote:

Ok, hadn't realised it would cause that much debate.

Just for clarity, I'm not talking about developing an optimal fueling strategy for a 30 min pootle, I was referring more to multi-day events, such as the Raid, where you're riding for 6+ hours for 3 or 4 days.
There's no way I can eat enough on the bike to cover the calorie deficit and whacking down an extra 2000+ calories for dinner / snacks / breakfast doesn't sound ideal so surely taking on those calories through the carbs in an energy drink is one way to minimise the deficit?

Incidentally I did the Raid Pyreneen 4 years ago. I didn't drink any electrolites, it was cold rather than hot... I could have done with a hot tea on the Tourmalet, to be honest.
I did not eat gels or other crap... I did eat many cereal bars, I did eat too much cake, I did eat too much at dinner. I put on 2 Kg, believe it or not... nobody in my group of 16 lost weight... so if you think you can't eat enough, think again.
The big problem you will face is sleep... eating too much and too much crap, means you will wake up in the middle of the night with a very sustained heart rate, most of us had it... one of the guy, a GP had it too, so nobody worried about it.
Try NOT to eat too much instead and drink plenty of WATER

Tb2121

I'm with Ugo on this one. I've studied with some leading nutritionists at the University Of Herts regarding gels and electrolyte drinks mainly, but also looking into the research on recovery drinks etc. I've addressed a lot of this on another thread in the forum- and got shot down for some of things that I said- people tend to believe the marketing hype. BTW The Uni of Herts found that lucozade/gatorade- electrolyte drinks had no difference in performance versus a mixture of water, orange juice and a small pinch of salt.

The research is lacking in all areasof supplementation- and a balanced diet that addresses the macro contents specifically will give you the best outcomes. All top professional athletes will have their diet addressed- analysed and then advised to what they should eat- no top athlete is advised to drink/eat/use a recovery drink/electroyte drink/protein- they are usually paid to drink/eat/use said aids.

If you want to drink these drinks then do so, but you aren't improving your recovery and you are probably ruining your teeth, plus probably doing some horrible things to your guts! Instead- if you want to recover appropriately- calculate the calories used on your run, the amount of water you perspired, and ingest/re-hydrate once completed your ride/run/exercise. Most people can't be bothered to do that- so use a recovery drink because they think it will achieve all their aims and improve their recovery- the majority of the time it'll stop you sleeping, give you the farts and because you haven't adjusted your calorie intake make you fat!

Obviously serious cyclists- who burn 3000+ calories a day (ie. TDF/olympians) need some help in getting all their nutrients (Calories mainly)- these boys may well use some supplements- but these are totally different creatures to MAMILS- they are starting from 6% body fat- they can't lose much more!