UmneyDurak

I probably an odd sheep out, but I don't particularly like HEED taste. I use GU2O. My stomach doesn't rebel when I drink it during hard work outs, so thats what I use.

smoke

i guess i'm the really weird person here. i eat accelerade gels and drink their fruit punch drink. i've never tried heed, although i guess i will. to be honest, i don't find much, if any, performance differences with all these "energy" drinks and gels and foods. it just comes down to a matter of taste for me. e-gel is the only stuff that hurt my stomach. the one thing i do love is carb-boom. they have two or three flavors that are so good i would eat 'em at home if the price wasn't so high

smoke

Carbonfiberboy 

HEED contains:
Maltodextrin, Xylitol, Natural Mandarin Flavor, White Stevia, Sodium Chloride, L-Carnosine, Clycine, Calcium Chelate, Magnesium Chelate, Potassium Chelate, L-Tyrosine, Vitamin B6, Manganese Chelate, ChromeMateŽ brand Chromium Polynicotinate *Mandarin Flavor

IOW, it's maltodextrin with artificial sweetener, some minerals of proven value, and other stuff of no clinically proven value. A triathlete friend of mine dropped over $1000 at e-caps last year, and she doesn't even take their pills, that's just on food.

Here's my recipe: buy a 50# bag of maltodextrin at your local homebrew supply house. Should cost about $25. Buy a 2 lb. container of strawberry flavored Optimum Nutrition soy protein from whatever online source is cheapest or from Super Supplements or such. Mix 7 malto to 1 soy. You can also leave out the soy and mix about 5 parts malto with 2 parts Hammergel. Or combine all three for your own mix. Anyway, I put about 750kcal worth of stuff in a waterbottle and drink it over 3 hours. You can use your HEED scoop to figure out how much that is. Or you can cut back on that and eat some solid stuff. I take Endurolytes for the minerals, or you could add the powder to the drink mix.

jjmolyet

Heed tastes like baby aspirin!

ronjon10

Most people I know that try HEED swear by it. I just bought a big thing of it to try it out. I liked it on the one ride I've tried so far. I definitely don't like the cost though.

I may go back to cytomax if HEED isn't MUCH better than cytomax.

merlinman

I like HEED too - use it for my 2-3 hour rides (carrying 2-3 water bottles). For longer rides with water refills I carry NUUN - tablets (12 per container - tape the small cannister to one water bottle) - no sugar but gives me the electrolytes. When I do this I carry a flask of Endurance Max which is about 700 calories of malodextrin. So to sum up for a 4-6 hour training ride I start with HEED which gives me 2-3 hours of energy and electrolytes, then switch to NUUN and one flask of Enduarance whiche gives me another 2-3 hours. Pretty easy to carry in pocket - no powders to carry along. No high fructose corn syrup!

Nick

Machka 

HEED has a very different taste to cytomax. If I had to describe the taste of cytomax, I'd say it is "sharp", while the taste of HEED is "mellow". Mellow is much nicer.

And I also make my own mixture, but I don't think I've got it just right yet. I don't like it as well as I like HEED.

The price of HEED isn't that bad ... no worse than Accelerade!


And for me, the main difference between drinking HEED and drinking any of Gatorade/Powerade/Cytomax/Accelerade is this one thing: on rides over 600 kms, I used to get terrible mouth sores and my teeth always felt like they had a thick film on them. Then I switched to HEED about a year and a half ago. I haven't had mouth sores or fuzzy teeth on long rides since!! It's wonderful!! I'd pay a small fortune for that, but fortunately I just need to stock up on HEED.

Carbonfiberboy 

And that's very important! I was riding a double century with a buddy one time and he bonked with 30 to go, because he was drinking straight Hammergel dissolved in his water bottle and just couldn't handle drinking any more of it, so he stopped drinking. Wrong. I tasted it and immediately saw the problem.

Straight malto tastes kind of like rice water. Very mild, hardly any taste at all. And that's a good thing. People ask me how it tastes, and I always say, "Haven't barfed it up yet!"

In my group most of the rando guys and gals drink (eat) Ensure Plus. A container every hour or two. They keep cans of it in their bar bags. Lots of calories and protein and you can find it in any grocery store. Heavy, though. I haven't tried it. How does it compare to HEED on a long ride, consumabilitywise?

bigskymacadam

i really like the heed (use perpetuem mostly), but i'd like to try this formula ...

merlinman

one thing I do to spice the HEED up from time to time is to add some dextrose (bought 5 pounds on line cheap) - maybe 1/8 of a cup (about another 100 calories) to a water bottle - it is not as sweet as sugar, dissolves easily, and is highly digestible. I LOATH the perpetuem - tried it in all concentrations and it gives a thick viscous coating to the mouth that is hard to get rid of on long rides.

eandmwilson

Does Heed have protein?

bmike

don't think so.
you would probably need to use perpetuem to get that... or find it from another source.

eandmwilson

I'll probably just stick with Accelerade. Works for me.

merlinman

HEED does not have protein - I usually have 1-2 bars with protein that I consume at the 2 and 4 hour marks - works well and is portable.

roadie gal

To through another name into the mix... I use an Infinit Nutrition custom mix with protein. I used to use Perpetuem. It was great... until it got warm, then it was undrinkable. I've been very happy with the Infinit at all temps.

bravo106

I like Heed, too. (and so does my stomach!) Been trying out Cytomax this winter with good results, too. The lemon-lime Heed actually has more of a vanilla taste to me. Definitely not tart or tangy like others. Mix in a little Sustained Energy for longer rides. Did a hilly century last fall relying exclusively on Heed/SE, and didn't get any leg cramps (they'd usually hit me after 50-60 miles).

F = MA

Perpetuem tastes like vomit