Sports drinks

Question
I have heart disease since 1998. I exercise every day and eat healthy. In the summer I ride my bike 25-30 miles in the morning and try to do 15-20 in the evening.I bring two 20 ounce bottles of water. I was told by a non expert that I should bring a sports drink like gator ade because its better for you in the heat. Dosent a sports drink have stuff  like sugar , carbs and other fatty things.I've lost 90 lbs. and dont want to defeat my purpose of exercising to stay healthy then putting bad chemicals in my body.thanks for any advice.

Answer
Randy,

Sport drinks, with their electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride) and sugar (glucose carbohydrate), are a good choice if your exercise is prolonged and intense.  Do you sweat profusely for an hour or more?  Then choose a sports drink - I would recommend Gatorade.  Some other sport drinks contain too much sugar - dilute them with half water.  Sports drinks are intended for people who sweat out too many electrolytes or exercise so long or hard that they burn much of their reserves of energy (glucose).  

There are no fats in sports drinks - just sugar (carbohydrates).

If your exercise is not "intense" (yours should not be too intense) then water should be fine.

Here is a link to an American College of Sports Medicine newsletter - page 2 has a short article:
http://www.acsm.org/health+fitness/pdf/fitsociety/ACSMFitSocFall03.pdf

I hope this helps and let me know if you have other questions or need any clarification.

Best wishes.

Todd

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