Refuel
Firstly, you will have burnt a number of calories during your exercise which will need to be replaced. By grabbing a healthy, balanced snack post-workout you are ensuring that your body has the macronutrients it needs to repair your muscles and give you enough energy to carry on with your day.
When working up a sweat, water isn’t the only thing you lose. Dissolved in your body’s water reserves are a number of important minerals called ‘electrolytes’. Electrolytes are made up of salts and salt constituents like sodium, potassium and calcium. They’re given this collective name because when they’re in a solution with water they conduct electricity.
Your body uses electrolytes for a lot of important processes: Sodium regulates the amount of water in your cells, making sure when there’s too little they can draw from the reserves in your bloodstream, or if they’re overfull they can shed the excess. Other electrolytes help to ensure your nerves and muscles can communicate properly, and even have a role to play in regulating your mood.
A person who is suffering from electrolyte deficiency can experience symptoms such as headaches and brain fog, dizziness, muscle cramps, and in serious cases they may collapse. If you’ve pushed your body hard during a workout, and sweated out a lot of electrolytes, then just drinking water won’t help replenish them. In fact, drinking a lot of water without topping up your supply of these important salts can actually make the situation worse!
If you hydrate without adding electrolytes, you’ll be diluting your remaining reserves, resulting in the unpleasant condition known as Water Intoxication, which in extreme cases be fatal.
Sports hydration (or ‘isotonic’) drinks promise to restore your electrolyte levels while quenching your thirst, but can also often include high sugar levels to give you a quick burst of energy. Sugary drinks such as these can be an unhealthy and counterproductive solution to your post work-out needs.
