ok simply put, what you loose when you excersize and swet alot is alot of salts. specifically NaCl, and K. Gatorade advertises that it contains these, but by themselves those compounds taste really really bad, so what do they do to take the bitter salty taste out?.....SUGAR FTW!!! the sugars are supposed to act as a flavoring agent but they also have some use as a transport agent for the rest of it all. If any of you have ever been involved in any kind of armed forces training then you know what an MRE is. Basically its a dehydrated meal in a box/bag. well in those you use alot of water, your body has to give up alot of the water in it already to breakdown the foods. Also included in these MRE's is many salt laden foods. The more salt in your body the more water it can hold and utilize. This is kinda the point to gatoraide, but the sugars dont really help with that. the reason doctors recomend this is because of the higher salt and electrolyte contents. this does in fat help ballance the chemicals in your body a little quicker than normal.

morale of the story really is that water is what you need, that and healthy levels of salts, bananas are a good thing to eat, lots of potassium, and anything salted like peanuts or sunflower seeds is good as well to snack on while out workin. that will keep your salt content high.

personally though i dont really care what it tastes like, if its liquid generally ill drink it if its all that is around. i play alot of paintball and back when i was a on a sponsored team mountain dews livewire was our main sponsor. we drank alot of that on top of an assload of water. i like that stuff, love all kinds of poweraide, but i cant drink gatorade unless its at or above room temp. i dont know why but thats just my tastes, and i cant stand ANY flavor of that mineral water stuff, just makes me wanna stop drinking that and chew on a stick of chalk or something.

gatorade is hard on my stomach, raises the acid level a billion times. I try to only drink it if I don't have anything else available after a workout or if i've got a hangover. stick with water.

I have tried this Vitamin Water after seeing this thread and I have to say I like it about a million times more than I like crazy old Gatorade. Plus the bottles are funny. They just aren't as full of what seems like excess crap; just some flavor and stuff. But in most cases, since I run 5-6 miles a day, just about anything does the trick after a run. Vitamin Water and water just doesn't make me feel so guilty like Gatorade does.

So, I prefer and think water is better as it's just so natural.

I do actually have to agree with SemperFidelis on this one. I am a horrible person for sounding drastically misleading. I do stand by the fact everybody should brush their teeth twice a day on a regular basis, and floss before going to bed each night. Soda pops with lots of sugar (Coke, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, etc.) are really bad for your teeth, and can horribly corrode them. Drink responsibly.

Yup, this pretty much sums it up.

When I go backpacking I always make sure to bring my gatorade mix.
When I'm at home I use my Nalgene to make sure I drink 2 liters of water a day.