High Sierra Topix

Hi, all,

I'm looking for a high-potassium, low-sodium, sugarless (or largely so) electrolyte replacement that tastes good. Suggestions?

As a [hopefully former] kidney-stone maker, I am, of course, very concerned with staying hydrated—somewhat overhydrated by most people's standards (part of the stone-avoidance game is to pee a lot). I'm also concerned with keeping my potassium levels up in the face of heavy perspiration and so on. So my ideal electrolyte-replacement powder would most importantly taste good, so it encouraged me to take a pull on the hydration tube more often, and also have an rda or so of potassium in a 2-L mix (the RDA for potassium seems to be about 4.7 g or 4700 mg).

No clue about kidney stones, but my marathon running wife likes Nuun. Some flavors are okay, stay away from the orange IMO.

I always want calories though, since I suck at eating at altitude. Friend of mine gave me a giant 1 lb. tub of Roctane Summit Tea that I've been working through.

Decades ago, I used to get muscle cramps from low electrolytes. Then I started using Gatorade, which is better than nothing. Now I use Cytomax.

When I start a day's travel, I have one quart of Cytomax plus one quart of plain water. As I move through the day, I drink the plain water if I am just thirsty, and I drink the Cytomax if I am thirsty plus low on energy. Then I always have more Cytomax powder with me, so I can mix up more. Once in a while I will mix up strange mixtures, like Kool-Aid in water for just the flavor, or maltodextrin in water for just the slow calories. If I am pushing too hard to get up over some pass (like Shepherd Pass), then I keep some glucose tablets and Reese's Pieces in my pocket. That way, I can grab a hundred calories without even sitting down.

I tried the Tailwind mix - not the hydration stuff but the replacement/recovery stuff, in chocolate and vanilla. Based on rice flour I think, mixes real well without clumping, and manages to taste ok.

I have used Nuun, also Electro Mix (made by the Emergen-C folks) and one I got from Whole foods - their house brand I but I don't remember what it's called. All seem to do the trick, and I think all of those are pretty close in terms of contents. I alternate for flavor's sake. Some have stronger flavors, some weaker; a little experimentation is needed to determine whether you will have much flavor if you mix one packet or tablet with the amount of water you want. Conversely, with some of them, if you use enough powder or tabs to get the flavor you want, you may be overdoing the minerals.

I have used the Nuun also but can't stand the taste. Now if I throw a little hawaiian punch flavored drink mix in with it it's pretty good.

There can be many things to throw together to make your own drink powder. I've assembled Citric Acid and all sorts of things that normally make up the commercial drink powders. Hawaiian Punch and Kool-Aid flavors help. Ordinary lemonade powder mix is easy. The only thing that I never use would be any sort of artificial sweetener, because of the aftertaste. Maltodextrin powder seems to work good as the fundamental sweetener, since it has calories that burn slower than sugar.

This just showed up in my FB feed: http://runographer.com/2015/12/homemade ... s_yNb_LtTs

My favorite electrolyte replacement method?
Salty nuts with a healthy amount of dried fruit, especially apricots then a big swig of alpine sierra water.

I like Zipp Fizz for the flavor and the fizz. They do go way overboard on the vitamin B12. You're probably going to urinate out 99% of it, which annoys me as that sort of thing smacks of snake oil salesman.