Like many people I know, Florida triathlete Stacy Lane was looking for a healthy nutrition bar when she called our office to inquire about PureFit Nutrition Bars. A few weeks later, Stacy sent me the following message:

Hi Robb,

I wanted to let you know that I received the samples of your Pure Fit Bars and absolutely loved them. A review of your product has been posted on my blog. Thank you again for the samples and for putting such a great product on the market. I will definitely be a loyal customer.

Have a great day!

Stacy Lane

The only thing better than receiving a letter like that is reading the review Stacy posted on her blog:

I have been meaning to tell you guys about the Pure Fit Bars I tried the other day. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the bars because someone (ahem…my hubby) deleted them off of the camera. The bars are all long gone now so just imagine a protein bar in a white wrapper and the words Pure Fit.

Robb over at Pure Fit sent me a sample package of the bars and they were absolutely amazing! I received four of the bars and I enlisted my sexy man and a couple of friends to help with the taste testing. Pure Fit Bars contain NO dairy, wheat, gluten, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated oils or trans fat and it was recently named “Nutrition Bar of the Year” by Bike magazine. The texture of the Pure Fit Bars are very similar to a Jay Robb protein bar and the taste is excellent. Let me share with you what one of my review helpers thought:

“I tried the Berry Almond Crunch Pure Fit bar. Now, I am not normally a berry bar head but as I kept on chewing, the taste surpassed my preconceived thoughts. This bar leaves a nice berry taste in your mouth even after you swallow…the berry flavor lingers. I love that this bar has 18 grams of protein and it is very filling and satisfying.”

My other reviewers were just as impressed with these bars and gave it rave reviews. They all asked where they could pick up more of these bars. I have seen these bars at various grocery stores in my area and they also sell them at my gym. I am sure if you look around your local natural foods store you will find them. However, the Pure Fit bars are also available online at http://www.purefit.com. Check them out because they are delicious!

Thanks, Stacy, for trying our bars and writing that review. To learn more about her quest to someday capture the Hawaii Ironman World Championship, visit Stacy’s blog: Eating to Live Love Laugh Tri.

Question: What do you get when you combine 2 Honda Accord EX-L V6 sedans, 10 forklifts, 30 tents, 35 garden hoses, 578 portable toilets, 1,040 trash boxes, 5,000 volunteers, 14,400 bananas, $220,000, and 1,146,000 disposable cups?

Answer: The LA Marathon, of course!

As you can see, it takes a lot of people and resources to support a 26.2-mile race on city streets, including great companies like PureFit Nutrition. If you’re running in Monday’s 24th edition of the LA Marathon, be sure to stop by and see us in booth # 1138 during packet pickup, which takes place alongside the massive Run/Ex/09 Exposition at the Los Angeles Convention Center on both Saturday and Sunday.

Admission to Run/Ex/09 is free and open to the public, so even you are not running in this year’s race, you can still benefit from meeting Team PureFit in person. Stop by our booth (# 1138) for samples of the award-winning line of PureFit Nutrition Bars, great deals on our products, or just to say hello.

Run/Ex/09 Expo times:

• Saturday, May 23: 9:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
• Sunday, May 24: 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

The race itself is run on Monday, Memorial Day (May 25), and if you like watching road races but cannot make it out to watch in person, it’s your lucky day. Coverage of this year’s LA Marathon is considerably expanded, with the NBC4 television broadcast being streamed in its entirety by UniversalSports.com, and a first-ever, play-by-play radio broadcast that will air on TalkRadio KABC 790 AM. In addition, the Marathon itself will be providing live race tracking and provide a live Twitter feed all during the race weekend.

While most major grocery stores now offer dedicated sections for wheat-free and gluten-free foods, many people may be wondering how to tell if what is being promoted as wheat- and gluten-free really is what it claims to be.

Less than five years ago, wheat-free and gluten-free foods were rare and difficult to find. Unfortunately, as demand has grown, so has the controversy surrounding what should be considered wheat- and/or gluten-free.

For many, the problem lies in the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet determined how many parts per million (ppm) are permissible for a food product to be labeled “Wheat-Free” and/or “Gluten-Free.” Current research suggests that for people with celiac disease, the maximum safe level of gluten in a finished product is probably less than 0.02% (200 parts per million) and possibly as little as 0.002% (20 parts per million).

For the most part though, the three major U.S.-based celiac support organizations — the Celiac Sprue Association, Celiac Disease Foundation, and the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America — agree on what the standard should be: Less than 10 ppm. Without getting too technical, that simply means less than 10 parts per million, or an almost untraceable amount of either wheat or gluten.

While the organizations mentioned above advocate for an FDA Ruling insuring food manufacturers making the wheat-free and gluten-free claim are indeed testing at less than 10 ppm, I want you — our customers — to know that PureFit Nutrition Bars are tested for wheat and gluten on an annual basis. Without fail, our test results always come back from a lab used by the Celiac Sprue Association as “BLQ” (Below the Limit of Quantitation), with less than 5 ppm for both wheat and gluten.

Clearly, just in case you were wondering, PureFit Nutrition Bars are worthy of the wheat-free and gluten-free designation, and as long as I am running the company, that will never change. In the meantime, I will continue sending batches of our bars out for testing. Even though I know they will show “less than 5 ppm,” I will still post the test results and hope you are snacking on one of our bars when you read them.

One of the questions I frequently receive from customers — especially road and mountain biking enthusiasts — is why is it so difficult to find PureFit Nutrition Bars at their local bike store. Despite  having an excellent track record among the nation’s top 100 bike shops, the majority of bike stores across the U.S. continue to overlook us, and here’s why:

1. It’s the economy, stupid: Bike stores feel the impact of the current ‘down’ economy just like retail businesses in every other sector of society. Just yesterday, for example, we learned retail sales fell for a second straight month in April, which is a disappointing performance that raises serious doubts about whether consumers are regaining their desire to shop, let alone shop for high-end bicycles sold by independent retailers. My educated guess… most bike shop owners are not presently focusing on adding new nutritional items, even if they take up minimal shelf space and are excellent for cyclists.
2. It’s a $2.00 item: Lets face it; bike storeowners and managers like to sell bikes. Reliable and performance-driven bikes cost between $500.00 to $5,000.00 and even more. Bike stores have a tough enough sales job as it is, let alone the wherewithal or desire to educate consumers on the virtues of a $2.00 nutrition bar (which, I might add, won’t melt in its packaging, making it ideal for both road and mountain bikers).
3. It’s all about the cost: That’s right; consumers are buying their nutritional items — like most perishable goods — at the most inexpensive places they can find. This trend has not gone unnoticed among bike storeowners and the employees they hold accountable for buying in and displaying products like PureFit Nutrition Bars. Nowadays, enthusiasts — regardless of what kinds they are (bike, running, kayaking, hiking, etc.) are turning to discount vitamin stores, online retailers, and membership club stores like Costco for the best deals in town. Long gone are the days when bike shops could count on the majority of their customers buying everything for a Saturday morning ride from them. In these economic times, which I believe are far from over by the way, consumers are not only cutting back, but they tend to buy only what they need and at the cheapest prices they can find.
4. It’s all about the shelf space, too: Traditionally, bike stores have not offered a lot of floor or shelf space for nutrition items like nutrition bars. Therefore, the little space available (e.g., racks near the cash register or the counter space upon which you rest your hands during checkout) is highly sought after and usually goes to ‘popular’ brands. Despite the fact that leading trade magazines like Bicycle Retailer recommend bike stores dedicate larger amounts of space to nutritional items such as PureFit Nutrition Bars, not enough do. Ultimately, the bike industry as a whole is giving those sales away to other stores.

Despite our current economic climate and the way some bike shops approach retailing, consumer preference and demand can bring with it an entirely new approach. If you really want to be able to buy PureFit Nutrition Bars from your local bike store, be sure to tell the store’s owner or manager about your preference. Remember, it’s all about what you want!

In case you missed it, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers to immediately stop using Hydroxycut products. Some Hydroxycut products, warns the FDA, are associated with serious liver injuries. Really, ya think!?! Symptoms of liver injury include jaundice (yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes), brown urine, nausea, vomiting, light-colored stools, excessive fatigue, weakness, stomach or abdominal pain, itching, and loss of appetite.

For the uninformed, Hydroxycut is the brand name of some of America’s top-selling weight loss products, which sadly are taken by millions of well-intentioned consumers each year.

A lot of people do not know that dietary supplements like Hydroxycut are NOT regulated by the FDA before they are marketed as magic weight loss supplements. More often than not, as we’re now finding out with Hydroxycut, unregulated supplements supported by trumped-up marketing claims, may in fact contain potentially harmful ingredients. In short, the FDA’s consumer advisory about certain Hydroxycut-branded products should be a wake-up call to anyone looking for shortcuts to weight loss and weight management.

Be very careful when trying to use supplements to enhance your workouts or gain results in a short amount of time. Listen to your body — especially your heart rate — and seriously consider frequent blood tests to make sure your organs are healthy before staring any new exercise regiment or program. The general consensus in both the medical and fitness fields is this… Diet and exercise are still the safest and healthiest ways to achieve body fat loss and healthy weight management. Magic pills like certain Hydroxycut-branded products… not so much!

With all the marathons and fitness expos we travel long distances to throughout the year, it sure is nice to be able to load up the PureFit truck and drive across town for an event. If you live in Southern California and are interested in meeting Team PureFit in person, stop by the OC Fair and Event Center this Friday and Saturday (May 1 & 2) between Noon and 6:00 p.m. You’ll find us right alongside packet pick-up for the 2009 OC Marathon, which last year attracted 10,000 race day participants.

The neat thing about the OC Marathon-aside from the obvious (OC runners and seaside views)-is that last year’s event attracted 1,400 students from Orange County schools who got to participate in their first marathon event through the Kids Run The OC Training Program. Another thing we like about this event, aside from its proximity to our office, is that after it was all said done, last year’s race helped contribute to the nearly $2,000,000 raised by and for local charities through the event since 2004.

For more information, visit the 2009 Avia OC Marathon website, and be sure to say hello if come through packet pick-up and the Health, Fitness & Nutrition Expo.