Energy Drinks: The Harmful Side Effects and Easy Solutions
When you’re heading to the gym, what do you drink for energy? A grande coffee from your favorite coffee shop? A “sport drink” from the grocery store? An energy drink from the local convenience store? If you are drinking any of those before or after your workout, you’re filling your body with massive amounts of two harmful ingredients: sugar and caffeine. Sure, you may have a spike in energy, but there are natural ways to get energy that won’t cause your health to deteriorate.
How Sugar Harms Your Health
When you drink a sugary energy drinks, you get a huge spike in your blood sugar, which is what’s causing your energy to increase. That may seem helpful for your long workout, but that’s your body’s way of trying to use all the calories from that sugar because that much shouldn’t be there in the first place. Any calories that don’t get burned from exercise are stored as fat cells that your body can use later on. When there is a spike in blood sugar, your body also releases the chemical insulin, which is used to regulate your blood sugar. If you continually create a spike in blood sugar from daily or weekly energy drinks, your body will eventually become immune to insulin. This is how Type II Diabetes develops. What’s the point of working out so hard if you ingest all of that sugar?
How Caffeine Harms Your Health
Okay, so your energy drink is claiming to be “sugar free”, so it’s healthier, right? Nope! There is still a large amount of caffeine in energy drinks and, obviously, coffee. Large amounts of caffeine can negatively affect your heart’s health. Caffeine has been known to create heart palpitations, high blood pressure and increased heart rate. Further use can lead to more harmful side effects, like irregular heartbeat, diabetes and strokes. A single cup of black coffee could be your safest bet, but even the effects from that, on top of increasing your heart rate while exercising, can lead to serious heart problems.
What to Replace Energy Drinks With
Before you go for a can of “sugar water” for energy, start with a glass of water; your body just might be dehydrated, causing you to feel sluggish. If that doesn’t work, try having a snack with natural sugar, such as an apple with peanut butter. The additional protein from the peanut butter will give you slow burning energy that will last through a workout! Any type of fruit or lean protein is a great snack to have before heading to the gym (or anywhere else, for that matter) that will give you healthier and cleaner energy than any sports or energy drink will.
It may be hard to kick the habit of grabbing your favorite energy drink when you need a pick-me-up, but replacing it with healthier alternatives is easier than you think! You can still get that boost of energy, and your heart and body will thank you in the long run.
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