Tested: GOODLIFE Nutrition High Carb, Electrolytes, and Endurance Recovery

Fueling has often been cited as the fourth discipline of triathlon, and for good reason: getting your sports nutrition right can help power positive results, while getting it wrong can be disastrous. And we’ve all suffered through getting it wrong, whether that’s GI distress, bonking, cramping, or ultimately, being unable to finish an event. And those are just those that I’ve suffered through during my endurance sports career…

We endurance sports folks also tend to be creatures of habit. Once we find something that we know works, we cling to it. For example, for years I used a specific Infinit Nutrition mix and refused to consume anything else. For the last five years, I’ve been on a Gatorade Endurance kick, and for two reasons: first, it was recommended to me as my best option by a sports dietician; second, it was available on course at IRONMAN races. (Cue my kicking and screaming when IRONMAN moved to Mortal Hydration…)

There are also those products that we have unfortunate memories with. I can never again eat a Hammer Nutrition Montana Huckleberry gel, because I had the immense misfortune of trying to take one while on a run in Portland, Maine’s Back Cove and the wind shifted, bringing a gust carrying the fresh scent of raw sewage from the treatment facility into my mouth at the same time. Even typing that I still get the flavor recall. Never, ever again. And what a shame, because those things were delicious.

This is a long way of saying that I generally like what I like, and I don’t usually make changes, when it comes to my sports nutrition. But, well, I’m here to test stuff out. And as I gear up for version 4.0 of trying to make a novel attempt at coming back to triathlon (seeing as the first three editions went so well), figured it was as good of a time as any to try some new things, starting with GOODLIFE Nutrition’s core line-up of endurance fueling and recovery products. We’ll break a couple of these down, as well as compare to them to a couple of equivalent products that are out there.

Note: GLN is a partner of Slowtwitch. I got the products for free. Otherwise, the review is my own.

High Carb: Mixed to Your Preferred Strength

GOODLIFE Nutrition’s High Carb drink mix is, well, a carbohydrate beverage. It also has electrolyte replacement, free of charge. GLN uses highly branched cyclic dextrin (HBCD), also known as cluster dextrin, as the main carbohydrate source. According to one study, HBCD consumption reduced rates of perceived exertion during exercise versus users who consumed maltodextrin-based sports nutrition. It’s also said to be gentler on the stomach versus other sugar sources.

The downfall of that sugar source? It’s a little harder to mix into a ready-to-drink solution compared to, say, a Skratch Labs or Gatorade Endurance drink. Assuming if you want to mix and go quick. You need to use warm water to prepare High Carb, get the solution to where you want it, then add ice to get it down to ride-ready temperature. That’s less of a problem as we head towards Northern Hemisphere winter, but it is something to be aware of when preparing for hot weather events.

A bag of High Carb runs $39.99 for a 30-serving bag. Servings are a level scoop, which is provided in the bag. That serving contains 100 calories, 25 grams of carbohydrate, and 130 milligrams of sodium. GLN recommends that you use one scoop for every 10-12 ounces of water as a starting point for the solution. I’ve run this up to four scoops in a single bottle without issue, beyond needing to remember to mix it an hour or so before riding and then chucking it into my freezer to cool it down to temperature (I like my drink mixes to have the potential to give me brain freeze).

At that solution level, we’re looking at bottles that are very similar to Skratch’s High Carb drink mix. Comparatively, both provide 100 grams of carbohydrates. The big difference is in the amount of sodium per bottle you’d be drinking. GOODLIFE Nutrition’s High Carb has 520 milligrams of sodium, whereas Skratch’s High Carb mix comes in at 400 milligrams. As someone who sweats bricks of salt, regardless of time of year, I try to reach for the most salt I can get. That said, the Skratch High Carb is slightly easier to mix.

Flavor in lemon-lime, which will always be my preferred sports drink mix since it was all the flavor of Gatorade I knew when I was 5, is on the lighter and slightly sweeter side. There’s not a lot of the citrus zip that I like, but there’s also not any of the cloyingly artificial flavor that you can get out of sports drinks. Probably the most similar product, flavor-wise, is Skratch’s sport hydration mix.

Having used High Carb for a fair amount of my getting back into the swing of things, I’ve found it to be a good source of energy. I could see this being a reasonable option for meeting my carbohydrate needs come racing season next year. On its own, though, it doesn’t cover my electrolyte needs. That means if you’re racing an IRONMAN race in North America, for instance, you’ll need to pull your electrolytes from either the course, or by adding some additional sources.

That’s where GOODLIFE’s Electrolyte mix comes to play.

GOODLIFE Electrolytes: Pair With High Carb, or Sip On Its Own

The Electrolyte Drink Mix is, well, focused almost exclusively on electrolytes. Specifically, you’re going to get sodium, magnesium, potassium, and chloride all together here. If this mix of electrolytes sounds familiar, it should; you can find that specific mix in products from Precision Hydration, LMNT, First Endurance, and more.

The biggest thing with GLN’s Electrolyte mix, as compared to some of the other brands, is that because it has less carbs in it on its own, you can intentionally pair it with the High Carb product to create a single drink that covers both your caloric and hydration needs. Or, if you prefer, because the flavors are strong enough on their own, you can keep your electrolyte needs in their own bottle and focus on fueling separately.

I, personally, prefer to mix everything together when I’m out training or racing. That also is the strategy we’ve seen out of Jason West, who is sponsored by GOODLIFE; he mixes both High Carb and Electrolytes together in the same bottle to meet his needs. When using it for training or racing, I liked to either match the lemon-lime flavor of High Carb, or to go unflavored on electrolytes so as to not alter the flavor of my drink mix. The flavors are a bit stronger on the Electrolyte mix than you might otherwise expect.

It’s why it also can work for mild post-workout / everyday hydration needs, in the same way that some folks might use a LiquidIV or similar product. I found the flavor of Electrolytes easy to sip on on its own, and without the same sweetness level that current generation LiquidIV hits. All in all, it works as intended.

But, of course, pre-workout and during workout is only two-thirds of the story. There’s then recovery.

Endurance Recovery: Beef Protein and Cappuccino Flavor

I am a sucker for a good recovery drink. I have probably consumed my bodyweight in Skratch’s horchata flavored recovery drink. It’s good stuff.

I also have an unquenchable thirst for coffee. My daily coffee consumption is best measured in gallons. It approaches the Dave Grohl, Them Crooked Vultures era level of consumption. My new kick is the espresso tonic, of which I have Brad Culp to thank.

So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered the cappuccino flavored version of Endurance Recovery. Endurance Recovery features a roughly 3:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio per serving. The biggest difference between it and other recovery products targeting our industry is the primary protein source: beef. According to GOODLIFE, beef protein is a “whole-food source of protein that contains all nine essential amino acids in their complete and most digestible form, mandatory for muscle repair, hormone regulation and immune function.” The mix also has egg white protein and whey protein. From a carbohydrate standpoint, Endurance Recovery uses the same cyclic dextrin that you find in High Carb.

On the all important flavor front, the cappuccino flavor errs slightly on the milkier side than I like my coffee to be. That’s easily remedied in a post-workout beverage, though, by adding a bonus shot of espresso to it. But I could not find a discernible difference in how I felt after a hard workout drinking this versus drinking Skratch’s recovery mix, which relies on milk as its primary protein source. That’s a compliment, not a criticism — the stuff works. For me, choosing one or the other comes down to which flavor I’m looking for in the moment.

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