Gatorade is one of those products that just about anyone knows – after all, attend any sports game with your kids and it’s on the sidelines. That’s about the extent of my experience with the beverage. I’ve never been a big Gatorade drinker and neither have my children. One of the big problems I’ve always had with Gatorade is the amount of sugar in the beverage. For your serious athlete, a professional football or basketball player, it’s not going to be difficult to burn off that sugar. For me as a 41-year old woman, that sugar isn’t going to be burnt in the same manner – and sometimes, not at all. For this reason, I’ve mostly avoided the beverage.
The Gatorade company has done extensive research and realized that they have cornered the market with regards to performance beverage: i.e., the drink you enjoy during exercise to replenish the fluids and salts lost while exercising. It’s the pre and post workout that they decided to look to, which is really a largely untapped market. In addition, they realized that the adult, non-professional athlete has different nutritional needs, with less sugar and more protein. Gatorade has created a new line to address this, called G Series Fit.
G Fit is offered in Gatorade’s signature three step program called Prime, Perform and Recover (PPR). Each step is carefully designed to meet the nutritional needs of the athlete at that particular time. The Prime is meant to be consumed up to two hours before exercise, the Perform during and the Recover after. The G Fit line is lower in calories than the traditional Gatorade line and is being marketed to the over 30 athlete.
The first step in the Gatorade Fit PPR line is the Prime. These square energy bites are offered in two flavors – Banana Nut and Cranberry Pistachio. A sleeve contains four individually sealed squares and each square contains approximately 50 calories. You can eat just one square if you don’t plan to exercise energetically, or as many as four. I really enjoyed this offering, as it’s tough to find an energy bar that is only 100 calories – my goal number on my way to exercise. Any more than that and I feel too full and unable to exercise. The Cranberry Pistachio was especially delicious. One of the really nice touches with these energy squares is the fact that they are not sticky – most energy bars leave me needing a hand wash after.
Gatorade removed all high fructose corn syrup from their product lines in 2024, which is a very good thing, but I still find Gatorade too sweet. The G Fit line is sweetened with sucralose and is designed to help you replace those electrolytes lost during exercise without filling you up with unnecessary calories. It contains 30 mg of potassium and 110 mg of sodium, with only two grams of carbohydrates. I found this drink to be tasty and would enjoy it when I exercise, without fear of overloading myself with sugar.
The Recover aspect of the G Fit series is designed to help you fuel your muscles for recovery, with carbs and protein to rebuild muscles, while not adding unnecessary calories. The drink, which comes in a box, contains 12 grams each of protein and carbs. With 120 calories per serving, these recovery drinks don’t need to be refrigerated. This beverage is probably the hardest for me to enjoy, but the first two aspects of the PPR line more than make up for it.
If you are not a professional athlete, you’ve got different nutritional needs, and the Gatorade G Fit series fills the need nicely.
While Gatorade provided Carmen with product for review, this review remains her own opinion and has not been influenced in any way.