Showing posts with label beverage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beverage. Show all posts

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Belixir, my favorite natural beverage

10:06:00 belixir , beverage 0 Comments

Drinking is the most important aspect of nutrition. We all know that. I usually do not drink anything that differs from water or tea and coffee. But during the day, especially when I need proper hydration or, while at work, I actually love to have something to sip next to me.
I found an "insanely" natural beverage here in Belgium, almost by accident. It's called Belixir and it is produced locally by Christian and Stephen near Brussels.
These two guys follow traditional processes to make such an amazing drink.
Have a look at their website and read precious info about what it is and how it is produced.

I just tried Belixir in its two flavors, Eucalyptus and Lavender and I confirm that it is such a refreshing drink, due to some extremely healthy ingredients such as lemon and ginger. This last one actually gives that nice spicy flavor that is at times fresh and hot.

However, the most important characteristic of Belixir is the fact that there are no sugars added. Not even those that are supposed to be "sugars without sugar" like stevia or aspartame. Guess what makes Belixir also sweet? Honey, of course!

At the moment Belixir is produced and distributed locally in Belgium. In the near future they are planning to expand their market across all Belgium and hopefully Europe.
For now Belixir is selling at Belgomarkt (Rue de Dublin 19, 1050 Ixelles). And from mid June it will be selling at Shop&Go Delhaize (Avenue Louise 306, 1050 Ixelles) and I can finally find my stack at the price of 2.45 euro per bottle.
When you get yours, just remember to put it in the fridge. As I said, there are no chemicals added. Hence, it expires in about 6 months. Don't worry, that's enough to get a new stack in the fridge.

Belixir, well being is a journey, indeed!

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Wednesday 12 March 2014

Isotonic drinks. The do-it-yourself solution

14:14:00 beverage , diy 0 Comments
Preparing the hydration pack with an awful isotonic drink.
That smile will disappear soon
Whenever I prepare the hydration pack for a long run I realise that I would never use all the stuff I put in the bag. Even though I am aware of this terrible mistake and regardless the fact that I really force myself to drinking and eating during workout, I still end up out of fuel in the middle of the race. 
My body really can't take more after the 45th km. I think that very few people could take more after 45 km of running without really replenishing carbs or sugar.
I remember when I criticised  those watches with a reminder functionality some years ago. Those devices had a function that alerted the runner and reminded him to eat or drink. My conclusion about that feature was "how can he forget to eat and drink? These watches are total bulls***!".
I should reconsider my idea on it. 

In one of the most recent long trail runs around Madrid, I decided to put on a test a new isotonic drink (which I will not advertise here). Turns out that the drink was effective even though the taste was so horrible I was about to throw up at every sip. 
Whenever I read words preceded by iso or ipo, I have the tendency to investigate more and put some science into the dibate. 
Isotonic drinks have a peculiar characteristic summarised in their osmotic pressure that is similar to the one of plasma in our blood. Fact.
The components of an isotonic drink would therefore be rapidly absorbed by osmosis. Fact.

This detail is quite irrelevant for those cases in which the time window between two training sessions is quite large. The runner would have a consistent amount of time to reintegrate the salts and minerals lost during the first workout. This is not the case for an ultra runner. 
There is no time there since two or more workouts are very well packed into a very long one. The only available option for a ultra runner is to keep running to the finish line, which, for the sake of clarity, could be as far as 40 km or more. What then?

Isotonic drinks might make a difference here, being the osmotic pressure of the solution very similar to the one in the blood. In such a scenario the cells of the lucky runner (I wish I was that one) will not shrink nor shred and the absorption would be just smooth, with all pleasure to muscles, tissues and blood. 
   
Despite the amount of blabbing about isotonic drinks, the benefits introduced by such beverages are real. I have always been quite skeptic about it. The main reason of my distrust is due to the fact that most of the times commercial isotonic drinks are enhanced with other elements like sirups, sugars, carbs etc. that usually give a party into my stomach, with the side effects that everybody might think of. 
Indeed, something that I am going to try soon is a do-it-yourself isotonic drink. 

Here are the ingredients
1 lt. water
1 tea spoon of baking soda (powder)
2 tea spoons of sugar
1 tea spoon of marine salt
1 lemon or orange or juicy fruit you like

and preparation 
the base is water, of course. For 1 lt of plain water add baking soda, sugar, salt and lemon and shake it a bit or just start. Running wearing the hydration pack will do the rest.

One thing to bear in mind is that the drink I just described will be subjected to deterioration, due to the lack of the awful set of chemicals that is usually added to commercial drinks. Thus, it should be consumed in about 3 or 4 hours, which is not really a problem for any ultra runner.

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