Weight Loss Drinks

Drinks sold to enhance weight reduction are usually shakes. These drinks are typically low in calories, but contain micro nutrients like vitamins and minerals. They are
usually sold to dieters as part of a liquid diet program or meal replacement diet plan. Medically supervised liquid diets are usually reserved for severely obese patients, and can be highly effective in helping such patients to lose weight. However, the use of weight loss drinks and other meal replacements is commonly a short term response to weight control, as these diet programs do not teach dieters how to make healthy food choices.

Thus, while nutritionally formulated drinks for weight control are helpful in achieving essential calorie reduction, they are not a long term solution to overweight. The best diet drink remains water. It has no calories and helps to maintain a healthy metabolism.

What Sports Drinks Do
Sports drinks contain carbohydrates and electrolytes to replace lost body salt and to replenish muscle energy stores. For endurance activities such as walking, running, or cycling, the body burns through its available muscle energy stores in the first 45 minutes. A sports drink does several things - it replaces the water, sodium and potassium lost in sweat and it provides carbohydrates for ready energy so the muscles can continue to

Carbs Plus Protein Better for Endurance
In the study, a sports drink that has a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio was compared to standard Gatorade sports drink. Cyclists did not know which beverage they were given. They rode a cycle to exhaustion, drinking every 15 minutes. Then 10-15 hours later they did it again. The cyclists who drank the Accelerate protein-carbohydrate drink rode 29% longer in their first session and 40% longer in their second session than those drinking the Gatorade carbohydrate drink.

Protein-Carbohydrate Drink Reduces Muscle Damage
The subjects were also tested for plasma CPK levels, which indicate the amount of muscle damage. Those who drank the Accelerate protein-carbohydrate drink had 83% lower CPK levels, showing less muscle damage. Muscle damage contributes to post-exercise muscle soreness, a major complaint of fitness.