Ah, hydration management! Always a fun topic!
Sports drinks that have salt in them as well as sugar are a little better than those with just sugar & flavoring. Diluted cranberry juice sounds OK. Undiluted juices will make your blood sugar spike & then crash, which is not good in the middle of a workout ...
I typically start hydrating about 1.5 hours before a workout. 20 oz. of water and then I refill the bottle & sip it for the rest of the time. If I feel like I need energy for the workout I will eat something that my system will work on for awhile, like nuts & dried fruit. Never juice or sports drinks beforehand. I have another full glass of water 15 minutes before the workout. During the workout (about a 1.5-hour class plus whatever extra time I can put in beforehand), I might take a mouthful of water or two halfway through, but I don't drink nearly so much. After the workout I have a sports drink, and if I feel hungry, another handful of dried fruit & nuts on the way home.
The important thing, esp. in summer, is to have the body well-hydrated before the workout; it will deal with the whole workout much better. Having something with sugar in it
after the workout will help your body rehydrate (and give you energy to limp to the T for the ride home), but I haven't had good experiences with sugar drinks
during a workout.
After I get home I eat some kinda protein. Eggs, fish, meat, whatever. Few or no carbs. In hot weather I make a home version of Tam Kar Gai (coconut milk soup) which has chicken broth, coconut milk, shrimp, chicken, mushroom & lemon grass; or I go to a Vietnamese restaurant near my school that serves a chicken soup with whole tomatoes and noodles. Both have lots of protein & sodium among other things and rehydrate & give energy very quickly.
Oh yeah and ... after all that,
then the booze!
