Hey guys! I haven't posted on here in ages, but planning on getting back in the groove. Anywho, just a quick question for now. I absolutely love powerade zero and find it so much easier to drink than water. But I know sports drinks have a lot of sodium so I was wondering if they're bad for me considering I have problems already with water retention? Once I get back eating right, I do pretty good not retaining water, but I just wondered if sports drinks would hinder that. I would like to be able to replace water with these (at least some of it - I still drink plain water), but I didn't know how bad the sodium content was for a person who's not using them to replace nutrients lost while working out. I hope that makes sense and someone has an answer for me. So to recap, I'm not exercising/sweating/needing to replenish my electrolytes, I'm just thirsty and want to know if calorie-free sports drinks are okay to drink instead of water. Thanks guys!

I did a quick google search for you and I found a sports drink with only 25mg of sodium which seems pretty low. It's called Recharge Juice if you are interested in checking that out.

As you know, too much sodium causes water retention, which leads to weight gain (though water is easier to get rid of than fat). But that doesn't mean that you have to have a sodium-free diet. You will just need to figure out how much is too much for you to drink, based partly on the sodium in the rest of your diet. Ironically, though, the solution to water retention is increased fluid intake. Not too helpful, really.

Considering how much of it you would need to drink in place of water, I wouldn't think it's a good idea. I know you said you drink some water but when you add up all the sodium that's in your food, even that alone usually puts most people over the RDA.

Is there any kind of drink mix like crystal light you could use to flavor your water?

Crystal Light has about 50-75 mg of sodium, too, though, in one of the packets that you mix with bottled water. Powerade Zero has 54 mg of sodium per 8-oz serving.

Thanks for all the info, guys. I do like the crystal light pack thingies, I just wondered about the powerade. Maybe just an occasional one then!