Many people wouldn’t dream of running a marathon just a couple of days after Thanksgiving, but that’s exactly what 10,000+ stuffed souls are preparing to do here in Seattle the day after tomorrow. As you would expect the ‘hardest working CEO in the nutrition bar industry’ to do, I’m up in the Emerald City today and tomorrow for the 38th running of the Amica Insurance Seattle Marathon, Marathon Walk, Half Marathon and Half Marathon Walk — an event that takes place so close to Thanksgiving that it’s both remarkable and inspiring so many people find the time and energy to not only participate at these distances but to finish after eating all those leftovers!

Traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday is never easy, especially when it’s for work. Lucky for me, I’m blessed by the fact that 40,000 or so runners, walkers and their family members will soon trot past the PureFit booth (#68) while picking up their race packets and T-shirts. For me, more than anything else, interacting with race participants and others means I get to say “Thanks” – thanks for trying our bars; thanks for all the great feedback; and, thanks for modeling such good behavior when it comes to your own health and well being.

You know, 2008 has been a phenomenal year for everyone associated with PureFit. From establishing new relationships with key accounts like Kroger and Puresource, to launching our new website and this blog, I have a lot to be thankful for. In particular:

• To Jenna, Belinda, Darcy, Christian, Stewart and everyone else who helps with our daily and strategic operations… thank you for all you do. PureFit would not be where it is today without your hard work, insights and ability to laugh!

• To our customers… thanks for being so loyal and for helping us spread the word about the benefits of our wheat- and gluten-free nutrition bars and the 40/30/30 approach to health and weight management. Everything we do we do for you!

• To our retailers, vendors and business partners… thanks for working with us and being such awesome collaborators.

• To my family, friends and dogs… gratitude consists of being more aware of what you have than what you don’t. Thanks for keeping me grounded and balanced; I enjoy my work because of the life I get to live when I’m not working.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! If you’re in Seattle this weekend and you find yourself passing through the Amica Insurance Seattle Marathon Health and Fitness EXPO at the The Westin Seattle to pick up you runner’s number and T-shirt, stop by booth 68 and say hi.

I have a confession to make: I am truly embarrassed for nutrition bar manufacturers that sell — and consumers who buy — candy bars dressed up to look like nutrition bars. Let me explain. I get the fact that chocolate is delicious (I ate an entire Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate bar just the other night, and like a lot of people, I too have chocolate-related cravings). But I also know that in order to keep chocolate solid at room temperature, you must hydrogenate it, and that hydrogenated oils clog your arteries, which ultimately aids in the advancement of heart disease.

The single biggest farce in the nutrition bar industry is coating bars with chocolate. Seriously, does anyone still believe this is healthy?

Apparently, some of you do, because every day I see more un-scrupulous companies successfully selling chocolate-coated “nutrition” bars. With that simple thought in mind, allow me to tell you about three “nutrition bar” ingredients everyone needs to avoid:

1. Hydrogenated oils
2. Sugar alcohols
3. Artificial sweeteners

Don’t believe me (think I’m just making this up to make PureFit Bars look better)? Take a look at the list of ingredients in your average nutrition bar. Many are loaded with the same ingredients you know you need to avoid in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including: Sugar; Partially hydrogenated oils; Artificial sweeteners; and, Sugar alcohols (often in the form of maltitol syrup).

For the uninitiated, maltitol syrup is a sweetener that can produce gas, bloating and a laxative so overpowering that many countries now actually require a warning label on foods containing the item. Other commonly used sugar alcohols you may want to avoid include: malitol syrup (notice the different spelling), glycol, isomalt, lactitol, glycerol, glycerine, erythritol, arabitol, xylitol, ribitol, mannitol, and sorbitol.

The sad truth about the nutrition bar industry is this: For the most part, we’re unregulated, which means many of PureFit’s competitors use ingredients that are inexpensive, unhealthy, and often contribute to all kinds of negative health issues.

Do yourself a favor: Quit eating candy bars disguised as nutrition bars. Just because something has a little protein powder, that in-and-of-itself doesn’t mean it’s healthy or good for you.

My list of bars that contain ingredients I strongly suggest you avoid is long and offending and I’m not going to post it here. Just know this…  if a “nutrition bar” looks like a candy bar and taste like a candy bar, it is a candy bar.

Once upon a time, upon learning about the onset of Diabetes, one might actually have thought they were handed a death sentence. Nothing of course could be further from the truth.

One of my first exposures to Diabetes and athletics came back in 1983, when as a 15-year-old I watched with amazement as Bill Carlson become the first insulin-dependent athlete to complete the Ironman Triathlon. Back then, ABC’s Al Michaels — the golden-throated one — provided the play-by-play commentary, which you can see for yourself here:

Bill, it turns out, belongs to a group I support and have a great deal of admiration for: Triabetes. Founded just a few years ago, Triabetes is revolutionizing the way people approach diabetes by:

1. Providing inspiration and hope to help diabetics (and Triabetics) achieve their goals.
2. Educating diabetics and the medical community about diabetes and exercise.
3. Exploring the physiological and social foundations of successful diabetes management.

In my view, the good folks over at Triabetes are continuing to prove that people with diabetes can compete in athletics despite what we used to think (i.e., that there was no way diabetics could be competitive endurance athletes). Today, just as Bill Carlson did back in 1983, people living with diabetes compete at all levels of athletic competition (and might I add that most are kicking some major booty by easily outrunning, outbiking, outswimming, and outcompeting many of us who live and compete diabetes-free).

As many of you reading this may already know, PureFit Nutrition Bars do not spike insulin levels, which means we offer a low-glycemic solution that works extremely well for the diabetic athlete. Next time you’re looking for inspiration, visit Triabetes.org (an organization we happily support).

Like many fans of our all-natural line of nutrition bars, we know some of you enjoy eating PureFit Bars in your automobile. Now, with our new chrome PureFit license plate frame on your car, you can let other drivers know there’s a reason why you’re out in front them… because you choose to stay fit and healthy with the award-winning line of PureFit Nutrition Bars!

While we have no grand illusions about everyone in PureFit Nation ordering one, we are pretty darn proud of the PureFit License Plate Frame, which customers tell us at $10.00 is a great way to let family and friends know they choose to eat the world’s best wheat- and gluten-free nutrition bar.

If you Google the terms “gluten” and “autism” just I have them written here, you’ll receive no less than 1,000,000 results. Among those results you’ll find my friend and colleague Danna Korn’s excellent book, Living Gluten-Free For Dummies, in which she reveals:

I think this is one of the most intriguing areas of research concerning the gluten-free diet. Evidence shows that some people with autism show extraordinary improvement on a gluten-free (and casein-free) diet.

Several well-digested randomized, controlled studies are currently underway at reputable institutions to offer more-substantive data, but years of anecdotal evidence supports the concept, and I’ve personally met hundreds of people who have experienced amazing results on the diet.

Although celiac disease and autism may actually be associated, in many cases, an entirely different mechanism’s at work. Some people with autism may metabolize gluten and casein (the protein found in milk) into the form of an opiate — muck like heroin. Basically, when they eat gluten and casein, they’re getting a high off it — and they’re becoming addicted.

The high they experience is similar to the high that an opiate user experiences, and may account for traits typical in autistic kids, such as monotonous body movements (for instance, finger-flicking in front of their eyes, spinning, and head-banging), as well as being withdrawn and having a fascination with parts of objects (like fixating on one part of a toy rather than the toy itself). Also typical of opiate users and autistic kids is the distress they feel when there are small changes in their environment or routine.

Danna goes on to share that results on a gluten-free and casein-free diet vary, with some people seeing improvements within a week, while for others it could take a year or more.

To learn more about the possible connection between autism and gluten, get yourself a copy of Danna’s highly rated and reviewed book, Living Gluten-Free For Dummies.

Stay tuned for more on this topic as I will be blogging about it again the weeks to come.

We interrupt this blog to provide some much needed commentary about the state of our economy. Here now is our senior economic correspondent, Robb Dorf.

Let’s face it, we all know at least one or two people who are feeling the effects of this down economy of ours. For me, sadly, it is members of my own family. My brother Eric was recently laid off from PayPal, and my sister-in-law Renee was laid off from her job as an electrical engineer. Both are hardworking and intelligent people who consistently received high marks and praise from their employers and colleagues, but were let go nonetheless.

As companies try to find ways to weather the economic tsunami, many — despite the impact on vendors, business partners, and  employees — will do whatever they can to survive, including filing for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, closing stores/locations, and cutting workforces down to the bone. For my part, I am thankful to say that here at PureFit, we have never laid anyone off and I hope we never have to.

On Monday, Circuit City won court approval for a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy motion and a $1.1 Billion loan from Bank of America. According to the company’s own bankruptcy filing, the chain owes more than $118 Million to Hewlett-Packard, $115 Million to Samsung Electronics, $60 Million to Sony, $41 Million to Zenith, $17 Million to Toshiba, $15 Million to Alliance Entertainment, $15 Million to Garmin International, $15 Million to Olympus, $14 Million to Nikon, $13 Million to Paramount Home Video, $13 Million to Panasonic, $12 Million to Mitsubishi, $11 Million to Kodak, $10 Million to Lenovo, $10 Million to Warner Home Video, $9 Million to IBM, $8 Million to Microsoft, $7 Million to Sharp Electronics, $6 Million to Vizio, $5 Million to SanDisk, $5 Million to Fox Home Entertainment, $5 Million to Monster Cable Products, and seriously, do I need to continue?

At the end of the day, Circuit City lists its assets at $3.4 Billion and liabilities at $2.32 Billion. (By the way, those $2.32 Billion in liabilities, according to the company’s bankruptcy filing, represents monies owed to nearly 100,000 different companies!)

If you ask me, executives and Board members at Circuit City, upon realizing that they’d just took possession of millions of dollars worth of inventory for the holiday season, said to themselves that by filing for protection under Chapter 11, they can now sell their existing inventory without having to pay full price for it. At a later date in time, after many costly court appearances, Circuit City, buoyed by their new $1.1 Billion line of credit from Bank of America, will end up settling with those 100,000 or so vendors for just pennies on the dollar. In the meantime, all of the companies  Circuit City owes money to (i.e., the vendors whose products and services allow Circuit City to be in business in the first place) will have to suffer because their invoices will go unpaid.

Chapter 11 is a shameful and disgusting practice companies use to “survive” during difficult times. I’d love the ability to sell PureFit Nutrition Bars and then not have to pay my suppliers full price for the ingredients that go into them. This mentality that if a business is failing, let someone else foot the bill has to stop. Running a business into the ground, which is exactly what was done at Circuit City, is a clear indication of poor leadership, management and planning.

It’s time U.S. companies start managing themselves more responsibly. Bailouts and Chapter 11’s are nothing more than band-aid solutions to much more pressing and long-term problems.

One of our retailers in southwest Connecticut — Stamford-based Fitness Matters — recently hooked up with a local radio station disc jockey — Tommy Vas of 96.7 The Coast — to raise awareness of a new fitness program aimed at helping people get in shape before the first of the year.

“Fit By the First,” a three-and-a-half month program that started in early-September, is based on a simple yet compelling premise: Why wait for New Year’s Eve to start a new year’s resolution; why not go into the new year with a new you? When local radio personality Tommy Vas (pictured left) heard about Fit By the First, he signed up; and, when he was looking for a healthy nutrition bar to help sustain his goals, the good folks at Fitness Matters turned him onto the award-winning line of PureFit Nutrition Bars.

Here’s wishing Tommy and everyone else participating in Fit By the First the best of luck in reaching their health and fitness goals. The last time we checked, Tommy had lost six (6) pounds and 2.5% body fat, and his waist size had shrunk nearly three inches. You can follow Tommy Vas‘ progress in Fit By the First on his 96.7 The Coast Blog.

One of the joys of running your own business is the acknowledgment you and your team receive anytime someone chooses to do business with you. In our case, the daily ‘show of appreciation’ meter recently went berserk when news arrived that Kroger will be carrying the full line of PureFit Nutrition Bars starting this fall.

Kroger operates more than 3,600 stores — including 2,400+ supermarkets and multi-department stores — under two-dozen banners, in 31 states. Last time I checked, Kroger was listed as the second-largest grocery retailer in the country by volume (and the third-place general retailer in all of the U.S., with Wal-Mart and The Home Depot filling slots one and two, respectively).

For you — our customers — this recent development of ours means you will soon be able to find PureFit Bars in 1,100 Kroger-owned and operated stores. For more information on when PureFit Bars will be available at Kroger, keep reading our blog!

And as an aside, congratulations to Kroger for recently earning the Retailer of the Year award from Supermarket News for 2008.