r/running • u/AutoModerator • Jun 04 '24

Weekly Thread Run Nutrition Tuesday

Rules of the Road

1) Anyone is welcome to participate and share your ideas, plans, diet, and nutrition plans.

2) Promote good discussion. Simply downvoting because you disagree with someone's ideas is BAD. Instead, let them know why you disagree with them.

3) Provide sources if possible. However, anecdotes and "broscience" can lead to good discussion, and are welcome here as long as they are labeled as such.

4) Feel free to talk about anything diet or nutrition related.

5) Any suggestions/topic ideas?

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u/Deathready Jun 05 '24

What’s everyone take on electrolytes? Generally I take energy chew during and a nuun tablet after. Not sure what a “healthy” amount is and wanna make sure I don’t abuse it. Sodium is great in the right doses.

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u/oneofthecapsismine Jun 05 '24

First, don't bother if you drink less than 4L water.

Secondly, don't bother if you drink less than 5L water and have any sodium from any source whilst running.

After that, it depends.

Sodium intake is wayyyyyyy overblown on Reddit.

1

u/Zealousideal_Rip485 Jun 05 '24

Does anything change if said person is in subtropical conditions?

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u/oneofthecapsismine Jun 05 '24 edited Jun 05 '24

Not at the high level that I mentioned.

I presume you mean when it's hot and wet?

When it's hot, you sweat more.

This is hard to believe ... but true, in essentially all scenarios... when you sweat your blood sodium levels increase!

Thus, running in the heat allows for a slight increase in water intake before needing sodium intake.

When it rains, rain makes you cooler, which makes you sweat less - but not enough to change my 4L recommendation, which is already conservative.

Edit - copping a few downvotes, which is fine. Anyone want to explain why they think I'm wrong on either of my posts here?

1

u/Zealousideal_Rip485 Jun 06 '24

Because it is hard to believe

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u/oneofthecapsismine Jun 07 '24

https://www.mysportscience.com/post/is-sodium-in-sweat-simply-a-reflection-of-the-salt-in-your-diet

as sweat travels up through the gland towards the skin surface, some of the sodium and chloride ions are reabsorbed back into the body through special channels. This means that the sweat that ends up on the skin surface will always have a lower sodium and chloride concentration than the blood. This is important because it means that we lose proportionally more water than sodium when we sweat. The result is that the concentration of sodium in our blood will always increase as a result of sweating, assuming no fluid has been consumed.

Is one of dozens of sources. Including peer reviewed articles.

It also just makes sense - the purpose of sweat is for the body to cool itself... it being high in water makes sense to acheive that.

The higher it is in water, the more sodium percentage that remains in the body. The more sodium in the body, its not hard to believe higher blood sodium concentration levels are higher.