There's nothing on the radio when you're dead

[venta]

I need a little shopping advice.

I often wake up, in the night, with dreadful cramp in my legs. This is not pleasant. Some time ago, someone recommended drinking one of those modern-fangled isotonic-flavoured electrolye-ridden buzzword-compliant sports drinks before going to bed.

I bought a drum of lemon-flavoured powder from (I think) Boots and... hey presto! Miracles were worked, and my legs did not tie themselves into excruciating knots in the night.

Enter a second friend, who assured me that the water was the important part and that I was merely paying for the caché of sports drinks unnecessarily. So, this summer (cramp seems to be a summer problem, for me) I stuck to drinking water before bed. Friend2 was wrong. It does not have the same effect.

So, off to Boots I went. And then to Superdrug, Holland & Barrett, Tesco... Nope. No one sells the damn stuff any more. According to Boots' website, they do still sell drums of mixable powder but they now only do orange flavour. Also, I have yet to catch a branch which actually stocks the damn stuff (and the website is out of stock, too).

Can anyone recommend a powdered sports drink which is (a) cheap and (b) available in something non-orange? I only require the re-hydration parts, not the energy parts, since I'll be drinking it before bed. For preference I'd like something available in high street shops, since I don't think my ego will permit me to become the sort of person who orders highly specialised sports beverages off t'internet.

Either that, or I'll just have to settle for squash made up with homebrew ORS. Which might work, but would probably taste nasty.

Comments

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

There's this useful bunch of elements from the perodic table that muscles like - sodium (from table salt), potassium (eg from bananas), magnesium & calcium (the last 2 are often in the same supplement tablet). You don't necessarily need sports drink.

Here's a periodic table for reference. http://www.ptable.com/Images/periodic%20table.png

(One of the magnesium compounds I've tried also contains Taurine, which is just a random stimulant. I blame marketing so I don't use that one.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I could buy random compounds and calculate everything myself... of I could just buy commercial salts and do it the easy way! Hence asking for recommendations :)

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

Er, "calculate"? I'm not sure what you mean? I just have calcium-and-magnesium tablets sometimes when the weather's been toasty &/or I've been exercising a lot. Not sure about this precision malarky. I do follow the instructions and keep to below the maximum dose, though.

Sometimes I eat bananas for potassium - they also have nice complex carbs which are nice for excercising (although actually I hate bananas so I had to train myself to tolerate them; they go well with pancakes).

[venta.livejournal.com]

I love bananas and happily eat them, but I'm not sure I want to nosh down on a couple before bed! Cramp in my case doesn't seem to be linked to exercise, and is not prevented by having eaten bananas during the day. I know that the old Boots sports drink used to work, so I'd prefer to stick with something like that than try taking mineral supplements and hoping it helps.