A homemade electrolyte drink, designed to cool you on a cellular level.
Jump to RecipeYou probably didn’t even notice that I was gone for a week. But I was. Behind the scenes, diving super deep into my own balance and well-being, and getting ready for a big and busy summer. What does this even mean?
For me, this meant taking significant time away from social media, from devices and email too. It meant taking a few days of silence, immersed in books. I didn’t ride, or run, or push my body to the limit. I took time away from artificial lights, alcohol, red meat, refined sugar, and other foods that are challenging for my digestion. It’s meant focusing on repopulating my gut health, and it still means easing back in to #allthethings carefully to ensure that my body, mind and spirit are dialed for the months ahead.
You’ve heard about what I didn’t do, but here’s what I DID do: spent a bit of time talking to myself, and the cows in the pasture below the house in Paonia, Colorado where I stayed for a week, sandwiched before the mountains and vineyards in Western Colorado. I picked lilacs, and made lilac honey! I went for long walks on long gravel roads, and got some bodywork too….specifically, sweating out things that my body no longer needs.
As an athlete, I have come to really understand just how important hydration is for my performance, but it was amazing to see just how critical hydration was to my well-being and my body’s ability to shed what it no longer needs, keep my brain fresh, keep my sleep deep, and my body feeling strong and READY. Every meal warranted a big pinch of salt, and in the afternoons – after my walks, yoga and sweat sessions (in a proper steam bath) all I wanted was a big glass of something salty and sweet. And that was where this Rehydration Hibiscus Limeade was born.
“Wouldn’t some water have rehydrated you?” You might be asking, “without salt or sugar?” The answer is NO. Unequivocally, absolutely – NO IT WOULD NOT.
When we sweat, we don’t just lose water through our pores, we also lose sodium and other trace minerals that help our bodies to stay hydrated. That’s why your sweat is salty, ya know?
And, in order to rehydrate, we have to put those electrolytes back in. Whether you’re spending hours on your bike or in your running shoes, crushing it in the garden, chasing your kids around the park or just sitting in the sun; if you’re sweating, and you’re not replacing the electrolytes lost in sweat, you’re dehydrating. And water alone won’t rehydrate you! But this homemade “way better than Gatorade” will fix that! In order to absorb electrolytes (sodium,) our bodies need water and glucose (sweetener.) In fact, to rehydrate completely, we need twice as many glucose molecules as we need sodium ions for our internal organs to absorb the liquids we drink. This can come from food, or from the beverage, but it has to come from somewhere.
Being hydrated – which by definition means having enough water on board in your body AND enough electrolytes to hold that liquid so your body can use it, is a deeply important measure of wellness, health and performance.
When we aren’t sufficiently hydrated, our muscles and nerves can’t fire with the same speed or efficiency. We don’t digest our foods properly, and sometimes not at all. Which means we don’t absorb nutrients properly, and we don’t expel waste properly.
When we drink only water – and not a beverage that contains electrolytes (ie: SALT) that help our bodies to hang onto those liquids, we basically pee them out again, often with other trace minerals that our bodies need desperately.
This is a bad bad scenario for those of us that want to be happy, healthy, high-functioning folx.
Using a hydration drink to rehydrate after you’ve spent time in the sun, or during/after an activity 
you sweat at a great rate, will help with your performance, and overall well-being — in the summer time, and all year round.
If you’re interested in learning more about the nitty gritty of why we need a sugar in our drinks, why hydration is important, and how our bodies rehydrate, this article is a favorite of mine.
Yes! SOME sports drinks do just that. And I do lots of sports, a sports drink is never far from my hot little hands. My favorites are Skratch Labs Sport Hydration and Untapped Ginger Maple Aide. The former has more sodium, and the latter is sweetened with maple sugar instead of granulated sugar, so both have virtue.
Gatorade, on the other hand, is chock full of things that your body doesn’t recognize as food (one of them being fire retardant – seriously!) and all of these are things that reduce the osmolality (or the absorption rate) of the drink, which eventually causes GI distress. If you’re reading this, I wish for you that you never pick up a bottle of Gatorade again.
But then, there are times when I don’t want either of these. Because maybe I’m not on my bike for 3 hours, maybe I just had a long day and I don’t want to drink a powder mixed up in a bottle. Or maybe I want a more interesting flavor. OR MAYBE, I I’m trying to steer clear of granulated sugars (as I was this past week,) and want something sweetened with raw honey.
And those are all great reasons to make your own rehydration drink.
Dried hibiscus flowers are easier to find than you think. Many cultures use them as tea, and specifically as a cooling and rehydrating ingredient in cooking.
I typically order dried hibiscus blooms from Rancho Gordo, but they’re easy to find in your Asian or Indian grocery store. They’re also very easy to find online.
As a last resort, you can also feel free to use hibiscus tea bags.
There’s one more driving force behind sharing this particular recipe with you this week and that is to remind you that “sport foods,” are still made of real foods…at least, in their best form they are. You don’t need to have a specially formulated “food for sport” to fuel yourself, you just need smart real foods.
In the case of this rehydrating limeade, a few things I want you to know about this being a “sport food.” As written, this will be a moderately sweetened, moderately salted hydration drink that will be suitable for middle of the road sweaters on reasonable efforts. If you’re headed out for a long bike ride in the heat, I recommend adding a bit more maple (hence the 2-4 Tbsp recommended in the recipe) and maybe an additional pinch of salt if you sweat a LOT. Adding this amount of sweetener also will help to fuel your ride while helping you to rehydrate.
If you’re spending the day in the garden, or chasing your kids around the park, OR lazing in the sun, you may not need quite as much sweetener, and so you can keep it at the 2 Tbsp.
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