About Lyte Lab

I grew up riding bikes, playing pond hockey, skiing, snowboarding, and playing tennis — but I always took a pretty casual approach to my snacks and hydration. For longer tennis matches on hot days or long bike rides I'd grab a Gatorade or some granola bars, but that was about as much as I'd ever thought about my fueling.

In college I studied biomedical engineering, started doing a lot of rock climbing, and spent more and more time in the mountains. A few years after graduating my girlfriend Emma and I moved to Boulder, where biking, running, and skiing became an even bigger part of our lives. Two years after moving out here Emma ran her first ultra — a 30-mile trail race — and followed it up with a 50-miler the next summer.

I've always been frugal, had a mind for numbers, and been a bit skeptical of the status quo. As we spent more time at altitude and in the heat, it became obvious that staying on top of hydration made a real difference — I started reaching for an electrolyte mix to prime for a big day outside, or just to feel better day to day, and used carb and electrolyte drinks during the activity itself. But I had a hard time justifying how expensive electrolyte mixes could be. Weren't they basically just salts? When did salt get so expensive?

I started with some light research and a spreadsheet. It quickly confirmed what I suspected: you could match the numbers — same sodium, same potassium, same magnesium — for a fraction of the cost. The proprietary stuff like LMNT's flavor systems and packaging stays on the shelf, but the part that actually does the work in your body is commodity salt. My spreadsheet got messy and complicated fast. I wanted a tool that let you quickly compare different products, see exactly what it would cost to recreate them with bulk ingredients, and add your own tweaks as you see fit.

That led me to build Lyte Lab. My hope was to help other people save money, stay better hydrated, and stop letting cost gate something as simple as salt and water. As I built it, I was also surprised by how much fun I had using it — experimenting with different mixes, watching how the critical parameters shifted with each adjustment, and gaining a real understanding of what had previously been a black box.

A quick note on what Lyte Lab isn't: it doesn't recreate flavor systems, sweeteners, acids, effervescence, convenience formats, or a brand's undisclosed salt blend, and it isn't medical advice. It's a practical calculator for people who want to understand the listed electrolytes, make informed tradeoffs, and mix something appropriate for their own use case — whether that's keto, fasting, training in the heat, or just daily hydration.

We hope you enjoy it.