Easy Homemade Gatorade Sports Drink Recipe
Today I’m going to show you how to make your very own homemade gatorade with a foolproof sports drink recipe that is just as effective and WAY cheaper than store-bought sports drinks!
Gatorade and other sports drinks are marketed as if they hold some secret key to your athletic performance - some magical ingredient unavailable to the man on the street.
As a sports nutritionist, let me debunk that myth! They are really quite straight forward and can be made from home for as little as 15 cents with just a few simple ingredients.
All you really need is table sugar, salt, juice, and of course a bottle and some water. Easy peasy! One DIY sports drink coming right up!
This homemade sports drink mix has carried me around the world!
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What’s the science behind gatorade?
The idea behind sports drinks is to replenish your supplies of carbohydrates, fluids and electrolytes which are burnt through quickly when you exercise.
Their basic contents includes a source of carbohydrates in the form of sugar, a source of electrolytes like sodium or potassium, in a water based drink.
Why Do I Need Carbohydrates in a Sports Drink?
Your body has two main energy sources: carbs and fat. Carbs are one of those and you only have a limited supply of them, therefore you need to keep your carb stores topped up if you are engaging in particularly long or hard exercise.
This is where the sugar comes in; it provides your body with easily accessible, quick release energy! For any non-athlete, a drink with this much sugar in it would be unnecessary, but for an athlete it actually aids performance.
I cover carbs and endurance events in detail in my ultimate guide to carb loading, so you can learn more about the importance of carbs there!
Why Do I Need Electrolytes in a Sports Drink?
Electrolytes are minerals that are essential to many of your body’s key processes. They help to regulate muscle function, keep you hydrated, maintain healthy pH levels and nervous system function.
If you don’t have enough electrolytes, you may begin to experience fatigue, headaches, nausea, blood pressure changes, muscle cramps and low energy… not fun, and possibly even dangerous.
We lose electrolytes primarily through sweat and urine. That’s why sports drinks contain sources of electrolytes to replace the ones you sweat out during exercise.
The most important one for sport is sodium, because we lose sodium when we sweat and it's the main influencer for hydration.
The saying is "wherever sodium goes, water follows". Sodium is crucial for hydration and for continual good functioning of your muscles, and for sweaty or prolonged exercise it becomes a must.
If you don't consume sodium during prolonged sweety exercise and just drink water on its own you will dilute the amount of sodium in your blood.
This can cause hyponatraemia, a condition where your blood sodium concentration lowers below the normal range, and this can be dangerous… so let's avoid that!
Homemade Sports Drink Ingredients
What ingredients do we use in this homemade gatorade recipe?
Table Sugar
Now this mix might actually be better than a lot of the commercial sports drinks out there, because we're using table sugar, which contains the sugar sucrose.
Sucrose contains glucose and fructose in equal amounts, so a 1:1 ratio.
This means 30 grams of table sugar will contain 15 grams of glucose and 15 grams of fructose. This is extremely close to the optimum ratio of 1:0.8!
We know that your body can use both glucose and fructose for energy which is what makes table sugar so great for your DIY sports drink.
Lots of sports drinks just contain glucose but in general the combination of the glucose and fructose is superior for sporting performance.
Table Salt
We’re also going to be using normal table salt, which is sodium chloride.
This is 40% sodium and 60% chloride, so 1 gram of table salt contains 400mg of sodium. Sodium is the electrolyte that will help to keep you hydrated during exercise.
I use 1 gram of table salt per 500ml of fluid as a minimum for my sports drink mix.
That’s it as far as ingredients that provide us with energy and help with hydration. I love explaining this to people because they’re often so surprised by how basic it is. A homemade electrolyte drink really is this simple!
Juice
I use a concentrated sugar-free squash mix to add some flavor to my homemade gatorade sports drink recipe - only about 20-30ml of concentrated mix is needed.
Keeping it sugar free allows you more control over carb levels, because the only sugar is what you are adding yourself.
Water
Pretty self explanatory, you need a fluid base! I use around 500 millilitres as my “standard” amount, but adjust the quantities proportionately if you want to make more or less.
Bottle
And of course you need a water bottle! This is my go to water bottle that I use (see the photo below!)
The homemade sports drink mix I made whilst on holiday - salt, sugar, juice and water!
How to Make Homemade Gatorade
Putting your homemade sports electrolyte drink together is very simple:
Weigh the sugar. For a standard drink, I use 30g of sugar.
Pour sugar into a bottle.
Add 1 gram of table salt. This is about 1/5th teaspoon.
Add juice and 500 ml of water.
Shake until sugar and salt have dissolved and juice and water are thoroughly combined!
Simple!
Recipe Variation: Meet your Personal Carb Needs!
The standard measurements I use create a drink that contains 30g carbs and 400mg sodium in 500ml of water.
However, depending on your goals, you might want to scale these quantities up or down.
As far as carbohydrate guidance goes, 30g is a pretty 'standard' amount to consume per hour, but you may need more or less - but this gives you a good baseline.
In general the idea is that the longer you exercise, the more carbohydrates you need and also probably the more carbohydrates you can tolerate, because you’ll be working at a relatively low intensity, so can absorb more.
Here's some rough guidance for you based on time:
<90 mins = 30g per hour
90-120 mins = 60g per hour
120 mins and upwards = 60g+
400mg is the baseline amount of sodium per 500ml of fluid that I would suggest for most people, but again, you can add or remove some of this, based on your personal tolerance, your sport and the climate you’re exercising in.
Homemade Gatorade FAQs
Can I use this drink in an ironman or triathlon?
Yes! Test it with your intended carbohydrates and sodium amounts and practice at race pace. If you don't get any stomach upset, then you're good to go.
However, it might not be ideal because it will have a relatively higher osmolarity compared to drinks which use maltodextrin instead of glucose, and sodium citrate instead of sodium chloride.
I don't want to get into that too much here because it might not be relevant for a lot of people, but if you're interested, you can watch a video I made on isotonic, hypertonic and isotonic drinks.
For more information about ironman nutrition in general check out my article on how to fuel an ironman.
How to make your own Gatorade?
To make your own gatorade, all you need to do is mix 30g sugar with 1g salt, add sugar-free juice mix, 500 ml water and shake!
This creates the perfect homemade energy drink for running, complete with carbs, electrolytes and fluids.
How do you make an electrolyte solution at home?
To make an electrolyte solution at home, you just need to identify natural sources of electrolytes and add them to a drink.
The main electrolyte we need for sport is sodium.
Mixing 1gram of table salt, which contains 40% sodium, and then adding water and a flavoring/sweetener of your choice makes a homemade electrolyte drink that is just as effective as a shop-bought one.
Is Gatorade just salt and sugar water?
Essentially, gatorade is just salt, sugar and water, with some added flavorings! Gatorade does contain other ingredients such as potassium, and a bunch of flavourings and preservatives.
However, the most important ingredients are just the sodium, simple carbs and fluids that can be found in salt, sugar and water.
What are the 5 ingredients in Gatorade?
The first 5 ingredients in gatorade are water, sugar, dextrose, citric acid, salt. Other ingredients include sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, gum arabic, natural flavor, sucrose acetate isobutyrate, glycerol ester of rosin and yellow 6.
That’s a wrap on homemade gatorade! Hope you enjoy trying this foolproof sports drink recipe!
