AdvoCare Expensive -- Let's take a look

First off, I truly believe AdvoCare has the best products available. You'd expect to pay more for the best right? You wouldn't go to a Mercedes dealership and ask for the best, but only be willing to pay the price of a Chevy would you?

With that said, I was in Kroger the other day. We happened to be in the bulk natural food aisle....hmmm, that doesn't sound right when I type it. However, I turned around and wham-o, right there in front of me was protein powder. I immediately went back to a Facebook comment that I read early that day...maybe the day before about somebody buying some cheap protein powder at Kroger. I was intrigued. Let's do the math I thought!

 I grabbed the can that screamed out to me, The Biggest Loser! It was a can of protein powder that looked pretty with great graphics and very eye appealing. I took some pictures of it and wanted to compare it to an AdvoCare product. It must be said, this is not scientific, just a look at the product labels and the price tags. 

That's a 10oz can for $15.99 (let's leave tax out of this mess!). Yep, cheap and affordable. I might even enjoy the taste...the can makes it look like it tastes great.

On the way home, I was anxious to get home, throw together a spreadsheet and see how this compared. However, in the store, I forgot to look at the actual nutrition in this pretty canister. That would have to wait till I got home. It didn't stop me from thinking...is this something I'd compare to the Meal Replacement shake (equal parts Protein and Carbohydrates), is this a recovery drink (3:1 Carbohydrates:protein) or this this a snack/before workout drink (higher protein than carbs).

Biggest Loser

Finally when I got home, I looked that label and found it to say 7g Carbohydrates, 12g protein per serving. With the product having more protein than carbs, this is a pre-workout drink or a drink I would have for a late afternoon snack, or maybe I'd have later in the evening to keep the carbs low before I went to sleep. It also compares more close to AdvoCare Muscle Gain than any other AdvoCare product.

I grabbed my canister of Muscle Gain from the cabinet, as my wife looked at me strangely...grabbed the notebook and opened up a spreadsheet. It was on! I was going to figure out how much of a premium I'm paying for AdvoCare. The numbers weren't going to lie to me!


I made up this spreadsheet. I put columns on top ... Biggest Loser, Muscle Gain, and Muscle Gain at a 20% discount (nobody pays full price do you?). Then down the left ... Cost, Ounces, Cost/Ounce, Servings, cost / servings. Then I got into the good stuff...the nutritional content. I recorded calories, fat, potassium, carbs, protein, and finally vitamins (WOW Biggest loser had a lot of "n/a"'s in this section of my spreadsheet.

Used By NFL Players

Yep! Biggest Loser was cheaper. Biggest Loser at $15.99 for 10 ounces was $1.60 per ounce. There is 13 servings in this lovely little can at $1.23 servings per can.  Muscle Gain @ Retail (come on who pays retail????) cost $79.95 per canister. There's 36.6 ounces in that canister (3x that of Biggest Loser) costing consumers $2.18 per ounce and $3.20 per serving (25 servings).

Assuming nobody is paying retail, and everybody can easily get a 20% discount I did the math with the discount. Muscle Gain (at 20% off) is $63.96 for those same 36.6 ounces ($1.75 per ounce). There's still 25 servings, and the per serving cost is $2.56. Biggest Loser is still cheaper! But don't stop reading!!!

Looking at the serving information: Biggest Loser is 90 calories, 7g Carbs, 12g Protein and Muscle Gain is 150 Calories, 8g Carbs and 25g Protein. I won't go into all the vitamins and minerals you get in Muscle Gain that aren't there in Biggest Loser. I'll post the table of information later for you to look at.

I thought, SELF....that seems a little un-balanced. Let's cut the Muscle Gain serving in half (it is 2 scoops) and just use 1 scoop. I added another column: 1/2 Muscle Gain Serving @ 20%. I did some math to the columns (come on people I divided by 2) and here's what I got.

Muscle Gain

Yep, you are still paying $63.96 for the same 36.6 ounces and it still cost $1.75 per ounce. However, there is now 50 comparable servings in this canister. Each of these reduced servings would be 75 Calories (Biggest Loser is 90), 4g Carbs (Biggest Loser is 7g), and 12.5g Protein (Biggest Loser is 12g). As you can see, I was trying to get the protein to be very comparable. We are after all talking about PROTEIN powder.

With this reduced serving size to be comparable to the cheap protein powder at Kroger, the cost per serving is $1.28. Yep! Biggest loser is 5 cents cheaper. 5 CENTS! .......... However, I'm getting less calories, less fat, more potassium, less Carbs, less sugar and a whole bunch more vitamins and minerals. I think i can handle a 5 cent per serving increase.

What else are you getting for that 5 cents? It tastes great! NFL players, Olympians, MLB, MMA and many other profesional athletes use it. The product is tested for 200+ banned substances. The testing is done by Informed-Choice. In fact, here is the link to the testing of the batch I have, Batch # 13005. I didn't see an Informed-Choice label on the Biggest Loser product.

Is a better quality product worth 5 cents more? Would you complain about McDonald's raising its price of a McDouble by 5 cents. The quality here is inexpensive when you consider the cheaper alternatives.

Interested? Let me show you how you can get 20%, 25%, 30% or even 40% off this product. Better yet, if you love helping people, and being and advocate for caring...you can do so much more. Contact me for more information or stop by sellspark.com!

This is only a monetary look at the differences. Muscle Gain works! Just ask the OSU Buckeye Football team that took 18 months to breakdown AdvoCare products in the OSU labs and the many other non-paid (yep NON-PAID) endorsers that come from many professional sports.

Now for the boring spreadsheet!

	Biggest Loser	Muscle Gain	Muscle Gain @ 20% discount	1/2 Muscle Gain Serving @ 20%
Cost	15.99	79.95	63.96	63.96
Ounces	10	36.6	36.6	36.6
Cost / Ounce	1.60	2.18	1.75	1.75
Servings	13	25	25	50
Cost / Serving	1.23	3.20	2.56	1.28
Calories	90	150	150	75
Total Fat (g)	2	2	2	1
-- Saturated Fat (g)	0.5	1.5	1.5	0.75
-- Trans Fat (g)	0	0	0	0
Cholesterol (mg)	20	50	50	25
Potassium (mg)	90	280	280	140
Total Carbohydrates (g)	7	8	8	4
-- Dietary Fiber (g)	3	1	1	0.5
-- Sugars (g)	3	4	4	2
Protein (g)	12	25	25	12.5
Vitamin A (%)	0	0	0	0
Calcium (%)	10	35	35	17.5
Thiamine (%)	n/a	230	230	115
Niacin (%)	n/a	30	30	15
Vitamin B-12 (%)	n/a	150	150	75
Pantothenic Acid (%)	n/a	60	60	30
Magnesium (%)	n/a	15	15	7.5
Vitamin C (%)	n/a	60	60	30
Iron (%)	n/a	8	8	4
Riboflavin (%)	n/a	230	230	115
Vitamin B-6 (%)	n/a	310	310	155
Biotin (%)	n/a	10	10	5
Phosphorus (%)	n/a	25	25	12.5
Manganese (%)	n/a	60	60	30

New Blog: AdvoCare / Triathlon / Leadership Focused

I originally thought about starting this blog a couple weeks ago while attending an AdvoCare 360 event. AdvoCare's founder, Charlie Ragus, said that he wanted to add value to everybody's lives. It didn't matter if you were involved in AdvoCare or not. This event was billed as a different kind of AdvoCare event, one that WOULD add value to peoples lives...and this truly did.

I was most impressed with Keith Cameron Smith, the author of The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class. He shared why he wrote the book, went through the 10 distinctions and gave more detail for each one. During his time on stage, I sat in my seat, and said to myself...Everyone Needs to Hear This! That's when I thought of creating a blog.

I thought I'd go into detail into each distinction, share my personal thoughts and how I could implement  each in my life and the life of my family.  Time to get to this:

Distinction #10: Millionaires think long-term. The middle class thinks short-term

I like to relate a lot of my life to sports. I'm a fairly new athlete, running for about a year and a half and into triathlons for even less time. When I started running, I thought about my workout that day, and maybe the workouts for the week. However, as I got more and more into running I needed a plan. I first used the couch to 5k plan (c25k). I knew what my plan was for 9 weeks. Then I came to the end of the plan. I was a floundering fish. I remember, I was in Las Vegas for my last run of my c25k. It was kind of symbolic, I finished my plan at one end of the Las Vegas strip. In the dry heat of Las Vegas, I wondered what's next.

I came back home, tried to do a run here or there, but I was a fish out of water. I recognized nearly immediately and decided to move onto a 10k plan. At this point, I'm still thinking long term. My first foray into triathlon taught me I need to be thinking long term. I new that I couldn't pick up 3 disciplines without a plan. My first triathlon was almost a failure, but I learned a lot about myself that day.

I also learned I was inadequately prepared to plan and train for a triathlon. At this point, I asked for help and got a coach. With the guidance of a coach, I executed a plan and completed my second triathlon last year and found that I enjoyed triathlon. I also found that I needed a long term plan, and at the end of the season my coach and I decided that 2013 would be the year that I train for a half ironman, with a further plan of completing a full ironman distance in 2014.

With the plan in place, I am no longer training for this week, but I train this week for the goals of this year, and next year. I'm planning long term.

When you talk about income or money, it's very similar. The middle class truly is working for others, making ends meet and working paycheck to paycheck, month to month and most run out of money before they run out of month. We need to start thinking long term, come up with the plan, utilize a coach if necessary, and change the mindset from just getting by to setting our sights on freedom.

Today's favorite quote: "A Head of Fears has No Space for DREAMS!"