If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen ads for the electrolyte drink LMNT (pronounced Element). I saw these ads as well and decided I needed to compare them to my current go-to electrolyte drink. This article is the 30-day hands-on review of LMNT.

If you don’t feel like reading the whole article and diving into the science behind the ingredients, the TLDR summary is this:

LMNT is now my favorite electrolyte powder by far. I use it at least twice a day and have seen noticeable positive effects to my health, my workouts, my endurance, and my muscle cramps are entirely gone. My wife is hooked as well. Try it out to see for yourself! Get a free trial pack when using this link: https://elementallabs.refr.cc/riseandgrind

Now back to the review…

Why I selected LMNT

Electrolytes are not something I thought much of in the past. I’ve worked out consistently for the past decade+ and have always thought plain water was best. If I was really working hard, I’d mix in a Gatorade here and there.

Then I started reading more, listening to knowledgeable people on podcasts, and discovered the importance of electrolytes not only in workout performance but in recovery and everyday life.

One of the key things I learned is that your body NEEDS salt. If your childhood was anything like mine, you were always taught too much salt was bad. Turns out, that mostly false. Most adults lack salt in their diet and need more.

Becuase of this new knowledge, I started mixing pink Himalayan salt with a large glass of water and lemon every more to wake up instead of coffee or energy drinks. I grew to really like this and found it super refreshing.

Then I started running for the first time in my life. Mainly a two-mile loop around my neighborhood, but occasionally mixing in a 4 or 6 mile run. I needed something a little more than simple salt in my water.

So I moved up to my first electrolyte mix called “TailWinds”. It’s a powder of electrolytes mixed with simple carbohydrates for energy on long runs or endurance-type events. I loved this.  I tried a few other products before this and they all upset my stomach. Tailwinds did not.

The problem was that I needed electrolytes every day, but I wasn’t always running long distances every day, which required me to have a bunch of additional simple carbohydrates.  So, I setout to find a drink containing ONLY the electrolytes needed without any other fillers or carbs.

I think my phone heard what I was thinking because this is when I stumbled across an ad for LMNT.  I reached out to their team and they were kind enough to send me multiple sample packs to try out since I have a small audience here at riseandgrind.com.

With no strings attached or any promise of a review, I started testing out LMNT along with my wife. Within half a sample pack, we were hooked. Before we even finished half of one sample pack, I already went and purchase a back of 120 unflavored packs from their website (paid for out of my pocket). After that back of 120 packets arrived, my wife and I realised we also liked a lot of the flavor packets as well, so we purchased another 120 packets the same week with our top 4 favorite flavors: citrus salt, grapefruit salt, raspberry salt, and orange salt.

What is the LMNT Drink

LMNT is an electrolyte drink developed by Robb Wolf, Tyler Cartwright, and Luis Villaseñor. After becoming tired of only finding sugar-filled poorly formulated “electrolyte drinks”, they decided the break it down to the main raw ingredients and stop there. No fillers, no sugars, just hydration. LMNT’s goal is to restore health through hydration.

The dink contains essential electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium, which are important for maintaining proper fluid balance, muscle function, and overall hydration. It is free from added sugars, artificial ingredients, and other common additives in many sports drinks.

The company has made quite the impact, and the product stuck a cord with consumers as the brand has been profitable since year one and has an annual run rate exceeding 50 million.

 

The 30-Day LMNT Challenge

Whenever I start taking a new supplement, I want to give it the best chance possible to either work or fail. My goal is to remove as many variables as possible and give it the best shot. For LMNT, I gave it a 30-day trial run to see how I felt taking it consistently.

In June, I completely quit drinking all caffeine and alcohol. I just drank plain water (sometimes with a little salt and lemon mixed in) for the month of June. Coming off this stretch of hydration with nothing else, I thought it was the perfect testing ground for adding in LMNT for 30 days straight to see how it compared to just water.

I added it into my normal schedule first thing in the morning and then typically a second time around noon. I either work out right after waking up or, three days a week, I head straight to Jiu-jitsu. So I down a 20 ounce glass of water with LMNT mixed in right before.

For this first drink, I almost always go with the unflavored packet. For the second afternoon drink, I typically add a flavored pack.

So that’s how my 30-day challenge was set up. Now let’s go over the results broken down into a few categories. Starting off with the most important question, does it work?

Does The LMNT Drink Work?

The short answer is yes; of course it works. I say this because although I love this product for a few reasons discussed below, at its core, the product is just sodium, potassium, and magnesium. The basic elements our bodies need to survive have been around forever and are nothing new.

It’s well-researched and studied that electrolytes are vital for our health and well-being. Now while the ingredients themselves are nothing special, the quantity of those ingredients makes a difference, as we’ll see in the section below on ingredients.

As for effects, I noticed two major effects. The first is hydration. I am unsure how to describe this other than a feeling of “absorbing the water”. After drinking Element compared to plain water, I feel better. I feel like my body has absorbed more water and physically feels more hydrated.

Electrolytes do help your body absorbs and process water, so this added feeling of hydration compared to plain water is understandable. I really enjoyed drinking this before Jiu-Jitsu since I sweat so much. It’s an extremely physically intense workout and given that it’s early in the morning after getting dehydrated all night sleeping, I really felt like the added hydration improved my performnce, mental clarity, and recovery.

The second main benefit I experienced was the ability to drink more water effortlessly. I genuinely enjoyed the taste of the flavored packets (and even the unflavored one) compared to normal water, that I instinctively drank more of it. While used to fill up my 20 ounce water bottle, and it would take me a couple of hours to eventually finish, I noticed when I mixed in LMNT, I would finish it within 30 minutes every time.

How Does LMNT Taste?

I stated above that about 2 or 3 years ago, I was turned on to the idea that we needed more salt, not less salt, in our water to properly hydrate. This started me on mixing salt with lemon in my water most mornings on and off over the years. I became accustomed to salt in my water and grew to really like the flavor.

Given this, drinking LMNT made me feel right at home. Since sodium is a main ingredient, AKA salt, I was already accustomed to the flavor and really liked it. This may differ for others.

LMNT comes in two main varieties: Flavored and Unflavored. Let’s first talk about the unflavored.

Unflavored

The unflavored version of LMNT has the best ingredients of any electrolyte drink I’ve tried to date. It is simply sodium, magnesium, and potassium. That’s it! No fillers, no sugars, no preservatives, nothing else but simple electrolytes. Zero calories and pure hydration.

The unflavored version of LMNT is what first brought me to LMNT. I wanted the core electrolytes with nothing else, and to my surprise, that’s more difficult to find than you’d think it would be.

Every single diet I’m aware of, even the most restrictive, like keto and carnivore, can have the unflavored version of LMNT. Given that electrolytes are so vital for proper hydration, this is great news for a lot of people that would otherwise likely go deficient in these ingredients.

Flavored

If the unflavored version of LMNT brought me to the product, the flavored version made me stay. I typically hate flavored powder drinks because they often taste so distant from the flavor written on the box that it’s tough to stomach (non-sugar-filled powders, I should clarify).

One of the only flavored drinks I’ve liked up until this point is the Early Bird Morning Cocktail (see review here). So to my surprise, I loved the flavors of LMNT.

When I first purchased the drink, I went full steam ahead on the unflavored variety and purchased 4 packs of 30 right of the batt. When the product arrived and came with sample packs of the flavored version, I immediately bought 120 more of the flavored packs.

One important distinction for some, depending on your diet, is that the flavored packs are not zero calorie/zero carb. The flavored packs all have 10 calories and contain 2 grams of carbs. This comes from the stevia leaf extract used to sweeten the flavors along with natural flavoring.

Again, this is still healthier than 99% of other hydration drinks out there, but it does have some carbs, which would likely make it not an option for anyone on a keto diet or similar.

I am not on a keto diet at the moment, so I have an unflavored pack with some lemon juice every morning and then a flavored pack later in the afternoon every day.

What are the Ingredients of LMNT?

I’m used to going into a lot of detail on the ingredients in these supplement review articles. This article will be a little different, considering LMNT only has three primary ingredients, and they are well-studied simple ingredients that the body requires to survive. No fancy nootropics or hybrid ingredients to dive into. Simple and straightforward. Let’s go!

Magnesium – 60/mg

Magnesium, an essential mineral, plays a critical role in various important processes in our bodies. It’s a key nutrient because our bodies can’t make it on their own, so we need to get it from the foods we eat.

When it comes to drinks that help keep us hydrated, magnesium is a star ingredient. Picture magnesium as a conductor that helps maintain the right balance of fluids inside our cells and tissues. It collaborates with other electrolytes such as sodium and potassium to ensure our cells have the proper amount of water. This balance is super important for functions like nerve signals and muscle movements.

But that’s not all – magnesium also gets involved in turning the food we eat into the energy our bodies use. This is particularly important when we’re active and playing sports. When we exercise, we sweat and lose not just water, but also electrolytes like magnesium. If we don’t have enough magnesium, our muscles might cramp up, and we can feel really tired.

So, when we see magnesium listed in drinks designed to keep us hydrated, it’s because these drinks want to make sure we’re getting enough of this important mineral. Magnesium’s like a behind-the-scenes hero that helps our bodies function well, especially when we’re on the move.

Sodium – 1,000/mg

Sodium is a special element that plays a big role in our bodies. You might have heard of it as salt. It’s not just the thing that makes our food taste better; it’s also essential for our health. Sodium helps control the balance of fluids inside and outside our body cells. This balance is really important for our cells to work the right way and for our nerves and muscles to send messages correctly.

Now, when we talk about hydration drinks, sodium takes center stage. Imagine sodium as a team captain that manages how much water is in our body cells. It teams up with other members like potassium and chloride to make sure the right amount of water stays where it’s needed. This is crucial because when we’re active or it’s hot outside, we sweat and lose both water and sodium. If we don’t have enough sodium, our muscles might cramp, and we can feel tired or dizzy.

You might have been told growing up, or even recently, that too much sodium is bad for you. You hear that we need to limit our sodium and even buy sodium-reduced foods. New research is proving that to be false.  With proper hydration levels, our bodies need MORE sodium, not less.

While the FDA has a daily recommended sodium intake of 2 grams, our bodies actually do best between 4-6 grams of sodium a day. If you have intense workouts and/or sweat a lot, this number goes up even higher.

Hydration drinks have sodium in them for a good reason. They’re designed to help us stay hydrated, especially when we’re busy playing sports or when it’s warm out. The sodium in these drinks helps replace what we lose when we sweat, making sure we stay balanced and feel our best.

Potassium – 200/mg

Let’s talk about potassium, a cool element that does some important jobs in our bodies. Think of it as a helpful teammate that keeps things running smoothly. It helps our muscles move and our nerves talk to each other. We can find potassium in foods like bananas, oranges, and potatoes. Our bodies can’t make potassium, so we need to make sure we eat foods that have it.

Now, when it comes to drinks that keep us hydrated, potassium is like the secret ingredient. It’s like the coach of the hydration team. Potassium works together with other team members, like sodium, to make sure our cells have the right amount of water. This is super important because when we play sports or it’s hot, we sweat and lose water and potassium. If we don’t have enough potassium, our muscles might not work well, and we can feel weak.

For most of us, getting around 2,500 to 3,000 milligrams of potassium each day is a good goal. But the amount we need can change depending on our age, size, and how active we are. Hydration drinks like LMNT have potassium in them to help us stay balanced and strong, especially when we’re moving a lot or sweating a lot.