Energizing and hydrating electrolyte drink {with ginger}

You’ve probably heard about the health benefits of drinking lemon water, right? If not, then you must be living under a rock, cause it became trendy quite some time ago. Warm water with lemon in the morning is definitely a great start of the day but let’s step up the game, shall we?

I present to you – my go-to, energy-boosting, digestion improving, lemony-ginger electrolyte drink! Wooosh, that’s a mouthful to say {write}!

What are electrolytes and why do we need them?

In short, these are the essential minerals in our sweat, blood, and urine that, when dissolved in fluid, form electrolytes (positive or negative ions). They play a major role in all metabolic processes. Our nervous system, our muscle function and the proper hydration of our cells all hang at the mercy of electrolytes.  These minerals include sodium, magnesium, phosphate, calcium, chloride, bicarbonate and potassium.

The painful muscle cramps that wake you up in the middle of the night or take you down mid-workout? Yep, most likely the cause for them is a depleted level of sodium and potassium due to sweating them out. In fact, such imbalance in electrolytes can occur every time we rapidly lose a lot of fluids – having the flu, having a stomach bug {throwing up, diarrhea}, sweating excessively, etc.

No wonder that the store-bought electrolyte drinks are targeted towards athletes and gym-goers. The only problem is – they often come with a bunch of undesired (to say the least) ingredients such as refined sugars, food dyes, and an abundance of artificial flavouring. Makes you wonder why would we ever buy those?!

The truth is, all those companies definitely did well on the marketing front and leading us to believe that the drinks they sell us are somewhat special or necessary.

In general, our bodies do a pretty good job of replenishing its lost electrolytes through water and food. Sometimes, though, food is not conveniently available or you need just an extra boost of energy and hydration. Here’s where my fave drink comes in!

How to prepare your homemade electrolyte drink?

It’s a pretty simple recipe – all you need are 5 ingredients:

• 1 lemon
• ½ orange
• 1/8  tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Honey
• Small piece of ginger

Now, what I do with the ginger is I peel it, cut it in a few big chunks, put them in the blender and add a little bit of water. Then I add it to the juice from the citrus fruits, mix them with the rest of the ingredients and add [filtered] water.

If you don’t have ginger, you can skip it but I love to add it for its anti-inflammatory properties and fresh taste. Additionally, ginger is shown to naturally improve digestion and speed up the emptying of the stomach.

I usually prepare it in the morning and enjoy a glass or two, keep it in the fridge during the day and then sip on it after training, while making dinner. Speaking of dinner, if you are looking for some delicious and easy dinner recipes, try out my favorite chicken meatballs with zucchini here! They will definitely win you over!

Talk to you soon, friends! Let me know how you like the drink in the comments or better yet – join my newly launched FB group! I would love to connect and chat with you some more there!

P.S. Consume within a day!