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by Dr. David Minkoff June 03, 2020 4 min read
What if achieving your next level of high performance didn’t have anything to do with building more muscle?
According to research, your highest level of optimal health and athletic performance may be more about using the resources you already have to their highest capacity…
And it all comes down to a new way of managing your hydration.
Athletes sweat. A lot. And with that sweat, they lose huge quantities of electrolytes.
You’ve almost certainly heard about the importance of electrolytes at some point. And you probably already “know” about the benefits of staying hydrated.
But did you know that dehydration of even 1-2% significantly compromises performance?
Dehydration of 3% can lead to cramps, heat exhaustion, and even stroke!
And in hot conditions, even 1 hour of intense exercise can cause dehydration of up to 3%.
Now, most of this is nothing new.
Professional sports teams and athletic competitions are plastered with sponsorships from “sports drink” companies claiming all kinds of benefits of their neon-colored electrolyte liquids.
But behind all the marketing hype and multimillion dollar commercials and celebrity endorsements… what really works? And what do you really need?
In this article we’re going to show you exactly what matters most when it comes to your hydration.
Let’s start with a definition. Electrolytes are minerals that give water –– and your blood –– an electrical charge.
They create the critical internal environment your cells and organs need for optimal function.
Beyond that, they are involved in hundreds and hundreds of chemical reactions necessary for your health and athletic performance.
The most important ones include: sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, chloride, and magnesium.
Beyond the biochemical, they have a powerful effect on your health and performance.
The right balance of electrolytes can...
[1,2]
On the other side of the coin, dehydration and loss of electrolytes can create massive problems.
Here’s just a few of the consequences of dehydration and electrolyte loss:
[1-6]
From that list, it’s easy to see that electrolytes profoundly affect athletic performance.
There are several factors that come together to make this happen.
The negative effects don't stop with the muscles. Compounding the problems of dehydration is the protein breakdown. This often happens during intense exercise.
When muscle cells break down protein for energy, they create nitrogen waste in the form of urea.
If you’ve ever made it through an intense workout, you may have noticed your urine becomes a bright yellow. That’s from the extra urea caused by muscle breakdown.
The problem is that this urea –– combined with thickened blood from dehydration –– places a lot of stress on the kidneys and can catalyze further kidney damage [7].
Clearly, dehydration and loss of electrolytes has some profound consequences on our health and performance.
But before you reach for the nearest sports drink, there’s something you need to know…
The sports drink industry developed in the late 80s and early 90s. This was the same period of time that saw the rise of “Fat Free” as a “healthy” choice (it’s not).
Sports drink companies followed typical food-product marketing protocols and added sugar to their drinks to make them taste better –– nevermind the performance-crashing effects this can have on your insulin levels.
Since then, they experimented with new chemicals and synthetic carbohydrates –– ALL of which spike your insulin and impair performance.
And with so much data about ketosis, paleo-style diets, and the countless benefits of reducing sugar intake, many athletes and weekend warriors are left without an option to stay hydrated and in peak performance.
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There are key things causing hormonal disruptions in men and women today, even in our children, affecting their overall growth.
Testosterone levels have been dropping for decades while estrogen levels have risen sharply. Levels of growth hormone and progesterone are lower and cortisol levels are too high. And hormonal imbalances are now much more than just being deficient in one or another hormone.
There are exact chemicals in the environment today which block hormones from being created, block them from being used, disrupt their normal action, or impersonate them entirely.
And they're increasing each year.
While this affects muscle-building and fat loss significantly, its effect goes far beyond this to our sleep, stress levels, overall health and how fast we age.
In this article we cover what's happening and what you can do about it.
In this article we covered the link between cholesterol and heart health or, more specifically, the lack of any link.
Now I want to go a bit further here, because there is something else that has gotten confused in this subject: saturated fats.
There is an idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and so blood pressure, and this isn’t the case.
Your body needs saturated fats. About 25% of each of your cells are made from saturated fat. And they wouldn’t function without it.
Even more, it’s necessary if we want soft, healthy skin.
But there is another type of fat which has been confused with saturated fats, and which is very destructive: Trans Fats.
We aren’t hearing as much about them today, but they exist in many processed foods and we need to check for them as they cause inflammation in the blood vessels that does lead to high blood pressure.
So let’s see what these are and what they do.
You’ve probably heard of the Cholesterol Hypothesis.
This is a hypothesis that higher levels of cholesterol, particularly LDL Cholesterol, are associated with higher rates of Heart Disease.To prevent heart disease then, we take drugs known as statins that lower our liver’s ability to produce cholesterol.
This hypothesis has been so deeply ingrained in our understanding of how the body works, that the idea of challenging it is almost laughable. (Even though it’s still just a hypothesis after all these decades.)
