My kid and I recently joined a kickboxing gym and the workouts are intense. The instructor told us that the best thing to put in your body after the workout is protein and real sugar.
Guess what was suggested?
Chocolate milk!
Two decades ago I took early retirement and got caught up on the fly fishing I had missed since my teen years.
I walked up down hills for about 3 miles twice a day to get my legs in shape. I had a low bp and 65 pulse rate during and after the walk.
Still, after about an hour into wading in fairly fast water, I got severe leg cramps from the knees down.
One day after the cramps got me out the water and I was sitting down rubbing my legs. A nice guy came up asked if I was okay. I explained about the recurring cramps.
He identified himself as sports medicine doc at the nearby medical school/hospital.
Then, he asked me how much milk I drank a day. I said basically none. He went to his vehicle and brought out 2- 16 ounce bottles of Chocolate Milk. He told me to drink one bottle and walk. If I didn’t feel better to drink the second bottle. If I felt okay, I could go back in the water.
In about 30 minutes, I waded back into the river. He watched me, and when I came out, he said, “Drink your chocolate milk before wading, while wading and when you start driving home.
He suggested 3 calcium tablets with zinc each day. If I forget the tablets at night, I have cramps that night.
The good doc explained to me with all the diet bs, most adults and many teens don’t drink milk or not enough. He had the same problem with cramps while wading, and a medical peer told him to drink the chocolate milk.
Once he started his chocolate milk regimen, before, during and after wading while fly fishing, he never had cramps nor did his patients and friends.
A few weeks, later I put his regimen to a hard test. I went Shad fishing with a group of fly fishers on the Yuba river.
The guides would drop you off by boat and come back at noon for lunch and take those who were ready to go home back to their cars. Then, at about 4 pm, they came back and picked the rest of us up and took us back to our vehicles.
The river was running fast, deep and very cold. I fished all day and never got a cramp thanks to 4 bottles of chocolate milk.
I never got any cramps and several of the other guys did.
One was/is a personal friend as well as a fellow fisher.
The next time he picked me up for a fly fishing day trip, he had a cooler loaded with 16 ounce Chocolate milk bottles. When I got in his truck, he handed me a bottle and said the Chocolate milk was on him for the great medical advice.
Great story! Honestly, the workout right after this advise worked like a charm! I try to limit sugars as much as possible but will find the room in my diet for a chocolate milk after each workout.
Michelle Obama can stuff it.