Contest Preperation

New Orleans Quarterback Elevates Role and Awareness as National Spokesperson

Carrollton, TX, March 30, 2010 – New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees is the first-ever national spokesperson for AdvoCare International, LP.

Building on an eight-year relationship with the health and wellness company, Brees is stepping into this new role. As part of a three-year agreement, he will be involved in AdvoCare’s national marketing efforts, as well as act as a spokesperson for the company and its more than 71,000 member independent sales force.

Brees is a perfect fit for the company whose slogan is “We Build Champions”. “We are proud to be associated with Drew Brees. He is a true champion who embodies the spirit of AdvoCare,” says AdvoCare President and CEO Richard Wright. “We have always been drawn to his character and high integrity on and off the field.”

The announcement comes just one month after Brees was named MVP of the 2010 NFL Championship Game for his record-breaking performance. A loyal AdvoCare product user and endorser since 2002, Brees supports the company and products. “Clearly I believe in AdvoCare products. They help me get the maximum amount out of my workouts and out of my practice work. I also see the positive influence of the Company and its independent Distributors in communities across the nation. This is the next chapter in a strong, enjoyable relationship.”

The relationship between Brees and AdvoCare extends beyond products. AdvoCare supports the Brees Dream Foundation, started by Brees and his wife Brittany and will participate in the upcoming “The Amazing Race” event in New Orleans presented by the foundation.

About Drew Brees

Drew Brees has been ranked a top player among the NFL’s elite quarterbacks. He was this year’s MVP of the NFL Championship Game. He has been recognized for his performance on the field as an athlete and for his off the field charitable contributions and volunteer work through the Brees Dream Foundation (www.drewbrees.com).

About AdvoCare International, LP

AdvoCare International, LP is an award-winning, premier health and wellness company headquartered in Carrollton, TX, that offers more than 70 exclusive nutritional and skincare products and a business opportunity that empowers individuals to explore their ultimate potential. Since 1993, AdvoCare has offered nutritional supplements and vitamins of the highest quality developed through comprehensive research and backed by a Scientific & Medical Advisory Board. For more information on AdvoCare, visit www.advocare.com or call us at 888-393-4033.

How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time? That’s right up there with “How do I get six pack abs” as one of the most frequently asked fitness questions of all time.

The problem is, when you ask it, you get all kinds of conflicting answers – even from experts who are supposed to know these things.

So what’s the deal? Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle at the same time?

There’s now a definitive answer, which is backed by science and real world case studies:

YES – you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time!

Natural bodybuilder and fat loss expert Tom Venuto has just published a new ebook on the subject that explains it in detail, called: “The Holy Grail Body Transformation Program: How to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time”

You’ve probably heard me speak about Tom Venuto before. I have so much respect for his work, and I think everyone should follow what he’s doing as well…

Tom has definitely hit a home run again with this new “holy grail” book.

The Holy Grail is a 74 page ebook that is destined to set the record straight in a way that you could say it’s the LAST WORD on gaining muscle and burning fat at the same time; It’s impressively referenced with peer-reviewed research and frankly, it just makes sense.

New discoveries in the emerging sciences of within-day energy balance, nutritional periodization, nutrient timing and natural hormonal manipulation have pointed the way to a proven method of achieving simultaneous muscle gain with fat loss…

…and it’s NOT what most people think!

There’s NO magical workout program or supplement that assures you of gaining muscle while stripping off fat. It takes hard work.

This is not an easy goal to achieve – So if you’re looking for magic bullets, go elsewhere. This is a serious, scientific and very strategic program.

But for anyone who is serious about getting leaner AND more muscular, you just have to take a look.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll learn inside the “Holy Grail Body Transformation System ebook:

* Why you MUST understand “energy partitioning” – the fat burning, muscle-building process BEYOND CALORIES-IN vs CALORIES OUT! (page 13)

* The keys to forcing your body to drive energy and protein INTO MUSCLE CELLS and pull calories OUT OF FAT CELLS! (page 13)

* “The power of hormones to dramatically shift fat to muscle… discover what steps you must take to achieve hormonal control for maximum muscle growth and fat loss (page 13)

* The 4 “X-Factors” of concurrent muscle gain and fat loss – these are the special conditions that allow above average muscle gains while losing fat at the same time (page 9)

* The 5 “X2-Factors” that influence your ability to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time; They all depend on your current body composition (lean or fat) and dieting status (dieted down or not dieted down)… Depending on which category you’re in, it can totally change your approach (page 11)

* How to choose the right body transformation goal: should you focus on burning fat, gaining muscle or doing both at the same time? (page 14)

* How to steal the proven system of training periodization from world class athletes and apply it to your muscle-building and fat-burning goals…

* How nutritional periodization might be the single biggest breakthrough for building muscle and burning fat at the same time – This is HUGE! (page 17-21)

* 5 post-workout nutrition strategies to improve muscle growth and optimize recovery from your workouts… (page 23)

* Carb tapering and carb targeting strategies explained for 2010… These are the latest updates to the time-tested techniques used by some of the best bodybuilders, fitness models and figure competitors in the world (page 24-25)

* Cycle dieting techniques under the microscope… find out which methods work and which ones will actually make you fatter (pge 27)

* 4 reasons why cardio can help you gain more muscle and lose fat at the same time, if you do it right… and why you will get weaker and smaller if you do it wrong (page 33)

* 8 carb-cycling menu plans … all DONE FOR YOU, laid out meal by meal, calculated for precision and results (appendix 1)

* Burn the Fat Foods 2.0: … the official new calorie and nutrient data base – it’s a CLEAN EATING food list – NO JUNK This is the list of foods you SHOULD eat… (appendix 3)

* Tom Venuto’s NEW WORKOUT SYSTEM – “TNB” Training – As Seen in Men’s Fitness Magazine … the perfect way to train while following the Holy Grail nutrition plan

(FREE BONUS! See bonus section)

Here’s the deal:

From now until Midnight (PST), May 13th, 2010, you can get a copy of the Holy Grail Body Transformation program ebook absolutely f-r-e-e when you purchase the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle e-book from this web page: Holy Grail System

Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is the “bible of fat loss” for tens of thousands of men and women in over 144 countries worldwide and if you don’t have a copy yet, then this is a better opportunity than ever because you can get the Holy Grail ebook as a bonus along with the Burn The Fat program.

This offer expires on May 13th, 2010 at midnight PST and it will be taken off the market for at least a couple of months before it goes up for sale on its own, so I highly recommend you visit the Burn The Fat website now and jump on this great deal while you still can. Here’s the link again: Holy Grail System

Sincerely,

The eFitness for Life Team

PS. You may have already heard of Tom’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book before, so if you already have it, the other way you can get his new Holy Grail program is by joining the Burn the Fat Inner Circle – all members there are also getting access to it this week up until Thursday the 13th. More info on Tom’s inner circle at: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Inner Circle

Is the Biggest Loser Really What You’re Looking For

Almost everyone knows about the biggest loser – that reality show/ wt loss contest on TV where overweight people drop ridiculous amounts of weight – like 15 or 20 lbs in a week, and 150 or 200 lbs by the time the show is over.

This past January the guys at over at the Burn the Fat websites completed their first ever body transformation challenge contest.

But their contest was NOTHING like the biggest loser.

In fact, Josh Ketter, the overall men’s winner, and Ryan Cochrane, one of the finalists, only lost a pound.

Now, you must be thinking, “what the heck kind of weird body transformation contest were they running where the

winner and the finalists only drop a pound?

Well, it would seem weird if you thought that success at body transformation meant dropping weight on the scale.

But did you ever stop to think about the difference between fat weight and muscle weight?

Think about it – if those contestants on the biggest loser gain muscle – they get penalized, right? Penalize someone for gaining muscle? Shouldn’t contestants be REWARDED for gaining muscle as well as burning fat?

That’s the problem with wt loss contests today and with a lot of people in the industry in general – they are obsessed with scale weight but they don’t pay any attention to body composition (the fat-to-muscle ratio).

Of course, some of the contestants in that contest did drop a lot of fat – 15, 20, even 25 lbs in only 50 days. But the

person who dropped the most pounds was NOT necessarily voted as the winner.

That explains how the judging was done – some of the winners were rewarded because they made tremendous improvements in their body composition, even though their scale weight didn’t change that much.

Josh lost 8 pounds of fat and gained 7 pounds of muscle in just 50 days. He only lost a pound on the scale because the muscle weight replaced the fat weight.

Ryan Cochrane lost 8 pounds of fat while gaining 7.7 lbs of muscle in 50 days. His weight hardly changed.

Sarah Kensington actually GAINED a pound, from 119 to 120 but her body fat decreased from 19% to a ripped 12.6%. That’s a 7.9 pound GAIN in lean body mass and a 7 pound loss of body fat – remarkable for a MAN, almost unheard of for a woman!

When you look at their before and after pictures, you can see that even though their weight changed by less than a pound, they TOTALLY TRANSFORMED THEIR BODIES! How?

They gained muscle and lost fat at the same time!

Maybe you’re thinking, “wait a minute, I thought it was impossible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time? Don’t you need a calorie deficit to burn fat and a calorie surplus to build muscle?”

Well, yes and no. Calories do matter, but according to fat loss expert Tom Venuto, the guy who sponsored the recent body composition fitness contest, it’s much more complicated than that because of things like within-day energy balance, hormonal fluctuations and “energy partitioning.”

It was these unusual contest results that prompted Tom to dig into the scientific research on concurrent muscle gain and fat loss and create a new program that he calls:

“THE HOLY GRAIL BODY TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM: How to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time”

This is not an easy goal to achieve – So I’m sorry, but I have no miracle for you. If you’re looking for magic bullets, go elsewhere. This is a serious and very strategic program.

Concurrent muscle gain and fat loss is the most difficult goal to achieve.

That’s why people call it the “holy grail”; because it’s so elusive.

BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE: IT IS POSSIBLE.

I’m sure you’ve heard this subject debated ad nauseum on discussion forums. Those debates probably left you confused and not sure what to believe either.

This new ebook sets the record straight in such a way that you could say it’s the LAST WORD on gaining muscle and burning fat at the same time; it’s impressively referenced with peer-reviewed research and frankly, it just makes sense.

Tom Venuto’s previous best selling ebook, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle (BFFM) has become known to many as a “fat loss bible”

But BFFM is designed specifically for fat loss. What if you want to lose fat AND gain muscle?

That’s exactly why this new program was created. It’s the first course of it’s kind that builds on the techniques of BFFM and teaches a system for gaining muscle and burning fat simultaneously, and explains the process scientifically.

If you’re skeptical, I don’t blame you. Even I was skeptical when I heard about it. But when you see BOTH; real-world case studies AND the scientific proof, it makes you want to stop and take a look.

Right now the 1st edition of Tom’s new HOLY GRAIL body transformation ebook is available for just the next 3 days in limited release. It’s actually not even for sale separately yet.

What Tom decided to do was offer the holy grail ebook as bonus with the purchase of his Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ebook.

The Holy Grail ebook is available only for the next 3 days at: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle

(offer expires on Thursday, May 13th, 2010)

On May 14th, he’s going to take the holy grail course off the market for a while, to correspond with some of his new customers and collect feedback and case studies to incorporate in the 2nd edition.

Then the grail ebook will be officially re-released later this year at the regular retail price.

So, this is a great opportunity to pick up Tom’s fat loss bible AND get the holy grail ebook for free at the same time.

If you’d like to be in this first wave of people to try this new combined muscle-building and fat burning system, this is the ONLY way to order at the moment: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle – Holy Grail

Purchase a copy of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle ebook, and the HOLY GRAIL body transformation ebook comes along with BFFM for free.

Sincerely,

The eFitness for Life Team

PS. You may have already heard of Tom’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle book before, so if you already have it, the other way you can get his new Holy Grail program is by joining the Burn the Fat Inner Circle – all members there are also getting access to it this week up until Thursday the 13th. More info on Tom’s Inner Circle at: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle Inner Circle

Study finds that cleats and natural grass make the safest combination

(HealthDay News) — Wearing cleats on a natural grass playing field seems to offer athletes some protection from anterior cruciate ligament injury when they make a quick turn, new research shows.

“These are injuries where an athlete plants his or her foot while making a cut and blows out his or her knee,” Dr. Mark Drakos, a study co-author who, at the time of the research, was an orthopedic fellow in sports medicine at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, said in a hospital news release. The ligament is commonly referred to as the ACL.

“We don’t know all the science behind why ACL injuries may be more common on turf than on grass,” Drakos said. The study begins to address that, he said, because “we need to optimize some of those environmental factors.

To that end, the researchers used lower extremities — knee, foot and ankle — from cadavers to test the strain placed on the ACL, one of four major ligaments in the knee, by four different combinations of shoes and playing surfaces: turf shoe and Astroturf; turf shoe and modern playing turf; cleat and modern turf; and cleat and natural grass.

Compared with the natural grass/cleat combination, the amount of strain on the ACL was 80 percent greater with the Astroturf/turf shoe, 48 percent greater with the modern playing turf/turf shoe and 45 percent greater with the modern playing surface/cleat combination.

When a similar cut, or quick turn, is made on four different surfaces, “the best strain profile is in grass/cleat combinations,” Drakos said. “So, there is less force occurring at your ligament for the same cut on that particular surface using this model.”

The finding is published in the January issue of the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering.

“As a former football player, I was always curious about why I was more sore after playing on artificial surfaces than playing on grass, and I wanted to find out the reasons behind that using a biomechanical model,” Drakos said.

“There are basically 200,000 ACL injuries every year in the United States alone, and this [type of playing field and type of shoe] is an environmental factor which has been shown to play a role in injury, but has yet to optimized,” he said. “I think it is a scenario that deserves attention and further research.”

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more on ACL injury.
– Robert Preidt

SOURCE: Hospital for Special Surgery, news release, Jan. 20, 2010

Follow these tips to improve on your personal best

(HealthDay News) — You may not be an Olympian, but there are lessons you can learn from them if you want to improve your athletic performance.
“The Olympics symbolize the chance for all of us to push the boundaries of human potential. As I tell my students, if you want to compete at a high level, mimic the strategies of those at the top,” Chris Sebelski, an assistant professor of physical therapy at Saint Louis University, said in a news release from the school.

Sebelski offered the following Olympian-inspired tips:

• Set a goal and break it down. For example, if you’re planning a long hiking trip, you might start by walking three miles a day for the first two weeks, gradually building up to 10 miles a day by the end of 10 weeks.
• Be sure to cross-train. It reduces the risk of overtraining, helps avoid injury, enhances muscle performance and helps prevent boredom.
• Work out with others. Sharing a spirit of competition and encouragement will help keep your motivation at a high level. You’ll also gain training benefits from working out with others with different levels of ability.
• Think of people who can help you achieve your goal, such as a trainer, nutritionist, physical therapist or physician. There are many different sources of help and you can select the one that works best for you.

While it’s impossible for most people to devote as much time to training as an Olympian does, you can approach the workout time you do have with the single-minded focus of a world-class athlete.

“Train for a couple of weeks with focus and discipline, and lo and behold, you’ll be surprised by what you can do,” Sebelski said.

Anyone can experience the sense of achievement and pride that comes from striving to improve on their personal best.

“It’s been said that running a marathon is now everyman’s Everest. But that’s true for every sport. You can train for the Sunday night bowling league, if that’s your passion. The bowling championship may be your Olympics,” Sebelski said.

“Regardless of the scale of your goal, you should have the experience, at least once, of training for and accomplishing a physical goal you set for yourself. Crossing that finish line is a feeling unlike any other.”

More information
The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports offers guidelines for personal exercise programs.
– Robert Preidt

SOURCE: Saint Louis University Medical Center, news release, Feb. 5, 2010

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Persistence is the key to success! There is no such thing as a quick fix and you are setting yourself up for failure if you think there is. Good things come to those who wait and any health and fitness goals are going to take effort and commitment on your part.

Be persistent and patient! Violate this step and you’ll never achieve permanent results. A 10 year study was recently concluded which proves that persistence is the single most important aspect of any diet or exercise program. The study followed a group of people (group #1) who exercised and dieted very strictly, but sporadically and compared those results to a group of people (group #2) who exercised mildly and followed a very basic diet, but this group never varied from their routine. Even though group #2 exercised and dieted far less (but did so persistently) they got 68% better results than those who exercised and dieted VERY STRICTLY but only occasionally.

One way to ensure you don’t fall prey to bored, thus increasing your ability to persevere, is to use variety in your diet and exercise routines. The body is very adaptive. Performing the same routine over and over is not only boring, but your body will get used to the routine and quit responding. Change your exercises, the order in which you do them, the number or sets and reps, or change the weights. In one workout you may use weights, another you may use resistance bands, in another, machines. Make every workout different in some way.

Properly plan and monitor your diet and exercise routine to ensure continued success and motivation!

Carbs, carbs, carbs. That’s what everyone seems to want to talk about. How do I avoid carbs?

Well, what you should be talking about instead is, “How do I get more lean Protein into my eating plan?”

More and more research is coming out showing that protein is a major player in your weight loss success. One way it does this is through the “thermic effect” of food.  Some of you may have heard of this term, but don’t really understand what it means.

The definition of the thermic effect of food is the increase in energy expenditure (calories burned) above your resting metabolic rate due to the cost of digesting your food for storage and use.

Every time you consume food your body burns calories to digest that food.  The interesting thing with this is your body does not require as many calories to digest carbohydrates and fat as it does protein.

For every 100 calories of carbohydrates or fat you consume your body only requires about 3-7 calories to digest those carbs and fat.  If you consumed 100 calories of protein your body requires around 24-28 calories to digest that protein.

So roughly your body burns potentially up to 30% of the protein calories you consume just to digest that protein and only 3-7% of the carbs and fat you eat and digest.

This can be significant when it comes to successfully losing weight as you can see from this research study.

In 2005 a study conducted at the University of Illinois studied the interaction of 2 diets (high protein, reduced carbohydrates vs low protein, high carbohydrates) with exercise on body composition and blood lipids in women during weight loss.

The study was a 4-month weight loss trial and the diets were equal in total energy, but differed in protein content and the ratio of carbohydrates to protein.

The exercise comparisons were lifestyle activities which was the control vs a supervised exercise program of cardio and resistance training.

Subjects in the Protein and the Protein + Exercise groups lost more total weight and fat mass than the Carbohydrate and Carbohydrate + Exercise groups.  They also tended to lose less lean body muscle as well.

The exercise increased the loss of body fat and preserved lean muscle.

This study demonstrated that a healthy diet plan with higher protein and reduced carbohydrates combined with exercise improved body composition during weight loss.

Other studies have replicated these results and have shown that a higher protein diet of at least 1.5 grams per kilogram of bodyweight and reduced carbohydrates of 120-200 grams per day appear to enhance and improve weight loss due to a higher loss of body fat and reduced loss of lean body mass.

Short-term studies report beneficial effects that include:

1. Satiety (fullness)
2. Increased thermogenesis (faster metabolism through the thermic effect of food)
3. Sparing of muscle protein loss (less lean muscle loss)
4. Improved glycemic control (your body uses the sugars more for energy instead of storing them as fat)

These results are likely occurring from lower carbohydrates, which result in lower blood glucose levels as well as higher protein providing increased Branched Chain Amino Acid Leucine levels.

Increased protein intake also triggers the hormone glucagon, which is the counteracting hormone to insulin and helps to keep your insulin from spiking.  This minimizes your chances of storing blood sugars as fat.

A key element in a higher protein diet appears to be the higher levels of the Branched Chain Amino Acid Leucine and its regulatory actions on muscle protein synthesis, controlling your insulin signal and the ability to use glucose for energy rather than fat storage.

If you are like many weight loss seekers you do not eat enough protein in your healthy diet plans and especially not enough protein that contains the key Branched Chain Amino Acid Leucine.

Saying you are going to eat a high protein diet for the next 3 months is great, but that isn’t going to help you with long-term weight loss.  Essentially you need to maintain a higher protein diet long-term and the research studies are showing that long-term weight maintenance is better when following a higher protein diet compared to a moderate to high carbohydrate diet.

Now the biggest obstacle is consuming enough protein.  Some are not big meat eaters and that is fine, but it does make it harder to get in the suggested amount of lean protein required to maximize your fat loss and long-term weight maintenance.

This is where a protein shake can be beneficial to your overall success.

A cold-processed protein powder that also contains plenty of Branched Chain Amino Acids particularly Leucine is what you want to look for so that you can benefit from the lean muscle growth, increased metabolism, and accelerated fat loss.  Make sure it is cold-processed protein because many cheaper protein powders use heat in their processing methods.  What this does is damage the fragile protein molecule and make the protein molecule less active and functional.  Essentially you get protein that is not as effective as it could be.

Resources:

Layman DK, Evans EM, Erickson D, Seyler J, Weber J, Bagshaw D, Griel A, Psota T, Kris-Etherton P.  A moderate-protein diet produces sustained weight loss and long-term changes in body composition and blood lipids in obese adults.  J Nutr. 2009 Mar;139(3):514-21. Epub 2009 Jan 21.

Layman DK, Evans E, Baum JI, Seyler J, Erickson DJ, Boileau RA.  Dietary protein and exercise have additive effects on body composition during weight loss in adult women.  J Nutr. 2005 Aug;135(8):1903-10.

Layman DK, Boileau RA, Erickson DJ, Painter JE, Shiue H, Sather C, Christou DD.  A reduced ratio of dietary carbohydrate to protein improves body composition and blood lipid profiles during weight loss in adult women.  J Nutr. 2003 Feb;133(2):411-7.

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Nutrient Ratios and Caloric Intake are the Keys to Fat Loss

To get ripped, should I be on a high- or low-carbohydrate diet?

Properly managing carbohydrate and calorie intake are vitally important for getting lean. Here’s what we recommend:

If you exercise for an hour, three or four times a week, you’ll typically need to consume a number of calories equal to about 10-12 times your bodyweight in order to lose bodyfat quickly, without sacrificing much hard-earned muscle.

Some people need more calories than this, and some people might need less, but this is a good starting point.

I weigh about 195 lbs now. For me to drop bodyfat rapidly, I need to keep my calorie intake down to right around 1,950 calories a day with about 40% of these calories coming from carbohydrates. For me, that’s about 800 calories of carbs, and since each gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories, I consume no more than 200 grams of carbs a day.

Over the last decade, I’ve tried a lot of different cutting-up nutritional strategies, but keeping my carbs relatively low and controlling calorie intake always works well. However, I recently tried a new strategy—instead of dividing up my carbohydrate intake evenly among six different meals, what I do now is consume a “double serving” of carbs after my weight-training workouts, and I eliminate carbohydrates completely from my last meal of the day (making it almost all protein). Here’s an example: for my first four meals of the day, I’ll have around 30 to 40 grams of protein and 25 to 35 grams of carbs. Then, after I work out in the evening, I’ll have about 30 grams of protein and around 70 grams of carbs. Then, in my last meal of the day, I’ll eat around 30 to 40 grams of protein (2 chicken breasts and a salad) and virtually no carbs.

This produces great results in terms of fat loss, and it also seems to help me maintain my energy and recover more quickly from my workouts. (Sometimes when I’m on a fat-loss program, don’t seem to recover from my weight-training workouts nearly as well.)

Some people have had success using diets that contain 60% carbohydrates or even more, but those don’t seem to work as well for me. Others have had success using very, very low-carbohydrate diets (less than 50 grams a day), but when I tried that, I couldn’t even function; it was really hard to work out or even think straight.

Remember, there is no ONE solution that will work for everyone. We are individuals and although there are some staples that should be included in EVERY fat loss program, the ratios of carbs-protein-fat best suited will most likely need to be adjusted person to person.