Fun fact I picked up from listening to the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast: chocolate milk works better as an after-workout drink than specifically designed carbohydrate-based after-sports drinks.
Ha, I said to myself, and then I remembered I don’t drink or eat anything specifically after working out, and might want to start.
You can read about the research here: Chocolate Milk is a Natural for Post Exercise Recovery, but to summarise, the researchers tested with cycling and running, and found that chocolate milk was better than the sports drink for:
- Building muscle
- Replenishing muscle fuel (glycogen)
- Maintaining lean muscle, and even
- Subsequent exercise performance
Ha, nice. Especially since there’s a chocolate milkshake drink on the market that I really rather love but don’t usually get. Now I have an excuse!
Also nice because I am highly suspicious of special high performance sports drinks,* and love to see them bested by something as simple as chocolate milk.
*At my first gym, they sold one that proclaimed: “high energy – low calories”, which makes about as much sense as: “for a short period of a large number of years”. If the first thing you tell me about your scientifically tested performance improving magic drink is an obvious nonsense, do you really think I’ll take anything else you tell me seriously?
Real science reaches down to influence mad science as I add chocolate milk to my gymmy routine. Although my workouts are a lot shorter and not nearly as strenuous as the ones they tested, to be honest.
Yeah, OK, it’s mostly because I like chocolate milk.
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Excellent! I love chocolate milk. I’ve been drinking just plain water or coconut water. The only concern I would have is that it is hellahigh in sugar. Good info. Thanks.
I guess, the bottles are only 200 ml though, I’m thinking I can handle that amount of sugar. :) And after a workout you might well need some.
Which episode of SGU?
Sorry Anon, I don’t remember. I listened to a number of them over a few days, and it was in the Science or Fiction section of one of them. Not sure which one though. It was around the time this post was posted, so an early June one maybe?
Sorry for no sauce. :(
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