Can Energy Drinks Help You Lose Weight?
Lana Hampton
Energy drinks are liquid soda-style beverages that are boosted
by the inclusion of 'energy boosting' ingredients including
sugar, caffeine and other caffeine-like substances like
ephedrine, and guarana. Some energy drinks also have vitamins,
“acid stabilizers” or other nutritious-sounding ingredients,
too. With all of these ingredients one might well ask whether
energy drinks can help you achieve your weight loss goals by
giving you the boost you need to exercise consistently.
Red Bull, Jolt, Amp and Hype are four of the more commonly
known energy drinks. Energy drinks themselves are classified as
"functional beverages" which means that they do not form part of
the bigger nutraceutical food or dietary supplement industry. So
because energy drinks are not classified as either a food or a
dietary supplement, they are not regulated nor monitored by the
Food and Drug Administration.
The aim of energy drinks is to boost your energy for physical
activity and to improve your ability to concentrate on a
specific task. Many believe these drinks can provide the energy
they need to perform their exercise routine. But whatever you
do, you should not confuse energy drinks with sports drinks.
Sports drinks are specially formulated to help provide energy
to tired muscles and to help the body absorb water and glucose
(sugar) – energy drinks are not designed to do this.
While sports drinks are at their most beneficial if your
workout is going to exceed an hour or so, plain water is
generally a preferred option for quenching your thirst and
replenishing your body fluid. Energy drinks, on the other hand,
dehydrate rather than hydrate so this is why they are not
designed for assistance with sports, but rather just to give
you that quick energy-based pick me up.
While many people might claim that energy drinks are good for
you if you are playing sports, the truth is that they are good
for short bursts of activity and mental alertness only. It is
vital that if you are consuming energy drinks that you know
what you are drinking. Energy drinks are not necessarily bad
for you, but they shouldn't be seen as natural substitutes for
health supplements either. Some of the marketing for energy
drinks claim that they "improve performance" and can be
misleading because essentially all you are doing is over
stimulating your body with caffeine.
There is not very much that is currently known about energy
drinks and the effects that their consumption can have on a
person’s overall health and wellbeing. The creators,
manufacturers and marketers of energy drinks will tell you
about the numerous health effects of their products. Their
messages will tell you that these products can increase your
physical endurance, improve your reaction times, boost your
mental alertness and concentration, increase your overall
wellbeing, stimulate and even speed up your metabolism, improve
your stamina and help eliminate waste from your body.
Ideally, energy drinks should not be used by someone exercising
for a sustained period of time because the combination of fluid
loss from sweating and the diuretic quality of the caffeine can
leave the drinker feeling severely dehydrated at a time when
their body needs to be replenished with fluids.
So, what is the deal with energy drinks and why are they so
popular? Well quite simply, if you manage your consumption at
only one or two a day, then energy drinks won’t harm you and in
fact can help you improve your day-to-day activities. Their
super-concentrated stimulating ingredients will indeed wake you
up and help you to improve the way that you conduct and perform
simple mental tasks. There is plenty of sugar and caffeine in
energy drinks though, so you should be sure that you minimize
your consumption to one or two drinks a day at the most. Any
more and you could well experience side effects.
About The Author: Lana Hampton is the publisher of "177 Fast
Weight Loss Tips" (http://www.177FastWeightLossTips.com). Visit
http://WeightLossFantasy.com
to subscribe to her free newsletter
and receive a copy of Lana's "Confessions of a Weight Loss
Expert" report.
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