— Dispatch 03 · Science
Sweat isn't
just water.
Every drop that leaves takes minerals with it. Replacing the water is half the ritual; replacing what the water carried is the other half.
5 min read · Filed from the Great Salt Lake
01 / The big idea
Water leaves with company.
We talk about sweat as if it were tap water on the skin. It isn't. Sweat is water with things dissolved in it — sodium and chloride in the largest amounts, then potassium, magnesium, calcium, and a long tail of trace elements measured in fractions.
Which means a hard session, a hot commute, or twenty minutes in a sauna is not only a fluid event. It is a mineral event. Drink water afterward and you have restored volume. You have not necessarily restored composition.
Volume
The obvious loss. Body weight drops, thirst arrives, and plain water fixes the number on the scale.
Minerals
The quieter loss. Sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium and trace elements go out dissolved in the same fluid.
The gap
Replace only volume and the water you drink is diluting what remains rather than restoring what left.
02 / The over-drinking trap
More water is not always more hydration.
There is a version of hydration that consists of carrying a very large bottle and finishing it. It feels responsible. But water without minerals is a solvent looking for something to dissolve, and after heavy sweating there is less there to work with.
This is why people describe drinking constantly and still feeling flat: dull head, heavy legs, an odd sense that the water is passing straight through.
The loop most people stop three steps early
03 / Heat counts too
Sauna, sun, and the sweat you didn't earn.
Sweat produced in a sauna, on a job site, or in a heat wave behaves the same way as sweat produced in the gym. The body does not distinguish between sweat you chose and sweat that happened to you.
If your week includes heat, your week includes mineral loss — whether or not it includes training.
04 / What we put back
A spectrum, not a shortlist.
Most replacement products pick two or three electrolytes and add sugar and flavor to carry them. That works, in the narrow way that a shortlist works.
ERYTH Ionic Flow takes the other approach: an unflavored liquid concentrate of eighty-four ionic trace minerals drawn from the Great Salt Lake, added by the dropper to the water you were going to drink anyway. Nothing sweet, nothing to shake, nothing new to remember.
You didn't just lose water.
Put back what the water was carrying.
Sweat and mineral questions
- What do you lose when you sweat?
- Sweat is water plus dissolved minerals — sodium and chloride most of all, with smaller amounts of potassium, magnesium, calcium, and trace elements. Replacing only the water replaces only part of what left.
- Do you need electrolytes after a sauna?
- Heat exposure produces sweat the same way training does. Many people who use sauna regularly add minerals to the water they drink afterward for the same reason they do after a workout.
- Is plain water enough after heavy sweating?
- Plain water restores volume. Minerals are what the water is meant to carry. A mineral-rich glass simply finishes the job the water started.
- How is Ionic Flow different from a sports drink?
- Sports drinks typically deliver two or three electrolytes alongside sugar and flavor. Ionic Flow is an unflavored liquid concentrate of eighty-four ionic trace minerals from the Great Salt Lake, added by the dropper to water you were already drinking.