Energy Drinks vs. Sports Drinks vs. Water: Which Hydrates Best?

After a workout or any kind of strenuous activity, we all need replenishing. While reaching for water is always a good choice, that doesn’t always mean your body will feel at its best. So you may want to look into buying a drink that tastes good and makes you feel good, too. 

With plenty of beverages and drink mixes on the market, that should mean there are plenty of different hydration solutions. The problem is that many of these products are distractions from truly hydrating solutions. So how do you know which choice is best for hydration? 

We’ll break down which is best: energy drinks, sports drinks, or plain water. 

Why Should I Care About Which Drink To Choose?

That’s easy to answer: not all drinks or drink mixes were made with your needs in mind. Remember that you’re in charge of your health, which means finding a solution that works for your body. 

Don’t let fancy labels or bright colors get in the way of a healthy lifestyle. Besides, you could likely be suffering from chronic dehydration and not know it. Have you been feeling fatigued after a workout instead of energized? Feeling sick or dizzy after your run? There may be a reason for it.

Energy Drinks

An energy drink’s main purpose is to give you more energy and not necessarily take hydration into account. Energy drinks also have caffeine to keep you awake throughout the day. An average adult can have anywhere between 100 to 200 mg of caffeine a day without issues. While caffeine has a false reputation for being dehydrating, the more likely culprit in energy drinks is the massive amounts of junk ingredients. Even if electrolytes are included, what good can they do if there are yucky things mixed in, too? 

Additionally, many people can cause sleep issues, high blood sugar, higher or abnormal blood pressure or heartbeat, and other problems. If you enjoy energy drinks several times a day, withdrawal symptoms can happen if you don’t have enough in your body. Once your body gets used to having it, it can be hard to wean off of harmful energy drinks. Unfortunately, many kids and teens love energy drinks, and it can be challenging to get them to switch to something better for them. 

Energy drinks may be somewhat hydrating and have a sprinkling of vitamins and minerals, but they also tend to have questionable ingredients. Energy drinks are not as regulated as other products on the market. Added sugars, dyes, and chemicals? No thanks. If you didn’t have anxiety before trying an energy drink, many of them could also drive anxious thoughts. 

So while some energy drinks may provide some hydration, there are much better solutions out there to use instead.

Sports Drinks

Sports drinks are formulated to rehydrate athletes after intense workouts. Sounds like it should be healthy, right? Well, not always. Unfortunately, Gatorade, Powerade, and all of the other colorful sports drinks often have a ton of added sugars, which are not good for our diets. But remember, Natural Sugar isn’t an awful thing, and we actually need it as part of our diets.

But many products dump a ton of sugar in their formula, which doesn’t actually help you. It can cause many problems with your teeth, even if you do take the time to brush them twice a day and floss. 

You also need to take calories into account. The typical sports drink has at least 100 calories. It’s easy to forget that the body doesn’t register caloric intake through fluids as quickly or efficiently as food so that you may drink hundreds of calories in just minutes without a second thought. So your average sports drink isn’t your friend, even if you did just run a marathon. 

That doesn’t mean that every sports drink is horrible for you, but if there’s a better solution, we say to opt for the one that has more of what you need and not an ounce of what you don’t. 

Water

There is nothing wrong with plain water, but can it effectively rehydrate you? The answer totally depends. 

Your body runs with a large percentage of water. Different organs and systems need water to function, and without any at all, they can’t. Water is also responsible for helping your body absorb nutrients and transfer different materials throughout the body. It flushes out toxins and keeps joints moving at their best. We can’t say enough good things about what water can do. 

At the same time, you need water, but you also need plenty of vitamins and minerals that may disappear through urine or sweat. If you don’t replace them, then full hydration isn’t possible. It can be a chore to drink enough water to replenish everything that you need. Water is still much better than nothing but won’t always protect you from experiencing dehydration. 

Why is that? It’s because plain water doesn’t have electrolytes or minerals essential for many of your body’s needs. That’s why sports drinks sound so appealing; they’re supposed to have electrolytes and other nutrients needed to replenish you after a workout. But again, there’s too much of the stuff you don’t need in there that makes your average sports drink more of a last resort than a solution.  

So what gives? If water can’t fully hydrate you, what will? That’s where Cure comes in. 

What Makes Cure Different From Your Average Sports Drink?

We designed our products with athlete’s interests in mind, but we’re more than just a sports drink. We’re an oral rehydration solution designed to be tasty, hydrating, and nutritious. We don’t add unnecessary ingredients and only use what’s needed to give you full, balanced hydration. 

While you might think fitness and diet alone are enough to perform at your best, that just isn’t the case. 

"Nearly every single cell in our bodies depends on hydration - everything from energy levels, blood pressure, digestive health, as well as every organ in your body depends on it to function properly,” said Brooke Alpert, M.S., R.D., C.D.N., a nationally recognized nutrition expert. “While my first recommendation is always simple water, it's often either not appealing enough to some or is lacking in specific electrolytes that your body needs. That's one of the main day-to-day reasons I recommend Cure for my athletes, my stubborn water drinkers, and anyone running the day-to-day marathon of life during the warmer weather. It's a great easy way to add electrolytes to your glass of water to make it the ultimate hydration support team ever."

You heard it here: not only is our drink mix recommended for athletes, but it’s also recommended for anyone who has trouble with hydration. 

Have we mentioned that compared to typical sports drinks, each of our drink mixes has only 30 calories? So you can enjoy the best hydration and nutrition all in one packet.  

The Power of Coconut Water Powder

Coconut water is a tasty, plant-based solution to your hydration woes. You may have seen bottled coconut water in stores. The problem is that many pre-bottled coconut water products don’t use sustainable packaging, are high in sugar and don’t have balanced electrolytes to support rapid hydration. 

Remember that sugar isn’t bad, but way too much of it can cause health issues or take away space for valuable nutrients that could be there instead. Other bottled coconut water products are high in calories due to the added sugars and other ingredients. But coconut water is naturally low in calories and is still known for its delightful taste. Why mess with excellence? 

Cure’s formula uses coconut water powder to make our packaging sustainable, and so you can have hydration on the go. Plus, with how compact it is, you can rest easy knowing that shipping emissions are minimized when it comes to using coconut water powder as opposed to bottling it. 

Despite it being in powder form, it never eliminates the nutritious benefits of the drink, still filled with electrolytes like potassium, calcium, sodium, and more. So all you need to do is provide the water, and we have the rest covered. 

We already went over how our drink mixes made with coconut water powder are sustainable and plant-based. Still, we also provide excellent flavor and nutrition with fruit juices and pink Himalayan salt. As a result, we offer several amazing flavors:

• Berry Pomegranate
• Lemon
• Grapefruit
• Ginger Tumeric
• Watermelon
• Peach

Unlike many energy or sports drinks, Cure is safe for everyone to consume and provides meaningful hydration and energy throughout the day. 

Once you give us a shot, you can get in on our subscription service, so you never miss out on healthy, happy hydration ever again. Just choose the amount, the flavors, and confirm with us. After that, you’ll have Cure right at your door with free shipping. Who knows? There might be a free goodie in it for you, too. 

Sources:

USADA | Energy Drinks & Sports Drinks | usada.org

National Institutes of Health | An Anxiety Disorder Secondary to Energy Drinks | ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

National Institutes of Health | Mixed dentition cavitated caries incidence and dietary intake frequencies | ncbi.nlm.nih.gov