The MARKED Blast & Burn Pack: A Thermogenics-Oriented Review

GNC MARKED Blast & Burn Pack

Just this year, GNC, one of the USA’s leading nutrition supplement manufacturers, teamed up with actor/producer Mark Wahlberg to create MARKED™, a line of products that aims to help people keep up a fit and active lifestyle.

Toted by the star as a “game changer with amazing formulas” this line consists of ten active nutrition and sports products that include everything from mass gainers to pre-workout igniters. At the forefront of these is the MARKED Blast & Burn Pack, a must-have for people who are into hardcore thermogenics.

Thermogenics has been rapidly increasing in popularity among the health buffs and fitness conscious. As the name suggests, it involves heat – namely, the burning of fat stores through boosting the metabolism, which is often accompanied by a rise in body temperature. It’s a fact of science, after all, that more reactions happen at higher temperatures, and the results of a number of studies show that the same applies to your body.

There are many natural foods and substances that can help achieve this. You’ve probably felt the heat coming off of you after you eat anything spiced with chilies, and the undeniable metabolic boost that comes from caffeine. These both figure prominently in any hardcore thermogenics diet, but there is something to be said for supplements that can help you burn the fat faster and safely.

The MARKED Blast & Burn Pack is just such a product. Each pack contains four capsules, each of which is an essential part of a four-part program which, as the company says, is designed to boost metabolism, sculpt muscle, and help you on your way to a sleek and chiseled physique.

First, there’s the Fatty Acid Metabolizing CLA. CLA is the friendlier acronym for conjugated linoleic acid. This compound is naturally found in the fat of animals like cows and sheep, and scientific research has found that it’s really effective at burning fat and supporting a healthy body composition. It’s even believed that it has properties which can help stave off the onset of diseases like diabetes and some forms of cancer, and this sounds very good indeed. The little baby in the Blast & Burn Pack packs a punch, giving you 2 grams of CLA in one go.

Then there’s the Water Balance Electrolyte Blend. This contains Vitamin B-6, potassium, and magnesium, as well as a proprietary blend of natural herbal powders that hits you with just the right dose of vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. As well as helping towards your nutrition, this helps regulate excess water, an important factor if you want to work your way to a lean physique.

The Glucose Stabilizer has cinnamon and chromium – the good kind, not the kind you learned about in “Erin Brockovich” – and these two work wonders towards burning carbohydrates and fats. This will up your energy production by quite a lot, and will thus make any exercise you do that much more effective.

Lastly, the Energy and Calorie Burning Matrix is a mix of the classic hardcore thermogenics ingredients. Caffeine, capsicum, and black pepper all combine to ignite the process of burning your body fat. It also has niacin, which improves your circulation and helps raise the levels of the good cholesterol HDL in your body.

The label recommends that you take all of these four tablets in the pack at once – sounds a bit daunting, but definitely not as bad as sitting down for the equivalent coffee and plate of pepper-dusted chilies – one or two times a day. Ideally, you’ll take a pack once in the morning, and then another again just before you start your daily workout to so that you get the most out of exercising.

Now, you might be a little wary of trying a product developed for an actor – and note the shameless pun in the name! – especially since it intimately involves and alters your body chemistry to some degree. But consider the name involved: GNC is one of the most respected names in the business. They’ve been churning out reliable health and nutrition products since the company was first established in 1935. Their commitment to product quality and ingredient safety – they are stringently truthful when it comes to their labels – certainly speaks very well of them. You can trust that pretty much anything they come up with will be safe and effective, and this goes for the MARKED Blast & Burn Pack as well.

While there is no doubting the fact that the Blast & Burn Pack works, you do, however, have to consider some of the issues associated with hardcore thermogenics supplements in general. These are not magical weight loss pills: they’re meant to help you burn fat more effectively, not burn fat, period. For them to be truly effective, you’ll have to match them with proper diet and exercise. (The label recommends that you also stack it with other products in the MARKED™ line, but that is, of course, entirely up to you.) You’ll also have to increase your intake of water while you take it since dehydration is a common side effect of thermogenic products.

To be extra safe, you should probably consult your doctor before you go out and buy the stuff, and, actually, before you start yourself on a hardcore thermogenics routine. As with any other diet program or product, it may be more effective for some individuals while being considerably less so for others.

The MARKED Blast & Burn Pack is sold in boxes containing 30 packs each. You can find it at GNC stores and the company website. Several leading dealers of health and nutrition products carry it as well. You’ll probably be happy to learn that your purchase won’t just go towards lining the pockets of a movie star and a multimillion-dollar company: part of the $34.99 you’ll pay for a pack will go to the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation, a charity that focuses on improving life for inner city youth. The same goes for all the other products in the MARKED™ line.