01 09 10 Tweet Dietitians Eat Chocolate Too: Fall In To Fitness: Happy Hydration

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Fall In To Fitness: Happy Hydration

Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.-- Matt Biondi

We had a health fair at work this past week and I ended up spending most of the day at my booth (on heart health, awkwardly next to the chiropractors who I'm hoping didn't hear me refer to their 'weight loss enzyme/detox system' as crap, they also gave out free massages and for the record I do go to my chiropractor on a monthly basis).  I was pretty interested in a few things: 1.  Everyone one of my desk jockey coworkers was tired of being fat 2.  Everyone gave positive comments about the dietitians' booth. 3. Before I was volunteered to be the weigh-in go to person for our 'Biggest Loser' competition, we managed to have 3 different celebrations requiring cake and a lot of Mexican food (which resulted in my Saturday spend enjoying food poisoning).

I've also been completely unmotivated to blog in my spare time which is terrible but when you spend your days in front of a computer, one really doesn't need to waste additional time on Facebook just to see who's thinner (or who got fat), more successful, or who posts their entire life via Instagram (in not-so-smart phones we trust).

Back to my delightful food poisoning that has wrecked my weekend running plans and O.A.R./Sheryl Crow concert I was going to attend in Kent last night...as I was alternating between Pedialyte and fruit punch Gatorade, I began to wonder if any of this stuff was really helping me.  As much as I support Abbott products, Pedialyte is pretty terrible to gag down.  I basically spend the day in and out of consciousness and sleep with a terrible headache from caffeine deprivation debating if I walked into an Urgent Care if they would just give me what I want...an IV bag of electrolytes or as my nursing folk would say, 'a banana bag'.

The British Medical Journal recently published an article about sports drinks which is really worth a read.

"Disease mongering is a well documented phenomenon in healthcare, and Noakes suggests that industry has followed a similar pattern with dehydration and exercise.  'When industry wanted to sell more product it had to develop a new disease that would encourage people to overdrink,' he said adding: 'Here’s a disease that you will get if you run. Here’s a product that is going to save your life. That’s exactly what they did. They said dehydration is a dreaded disease of exercise.'"