Hungry Girl Book Review - GIVEAWAY

A little over a week ago I had the opportunity to attend a book signing and blogger meet-up with Lisa Lillien, the best-selling author and founder of Hungry Girl.  Hungry Girl started as a site that provides tips and recipes for people who love to eat and also want to keep it healthy.  I've been a fan of Hungry Girl for years so of course I jumped at the chance to attend.

Lisa loves Laughing Cow cheese!

 The blogger meet-up was at Wegmans.  If you live in the North East US you know that Wegmans is the be all end all grocery store.  If you have never heard of Wegmans well then I feel sorry for you.  Lisa took us all on a tour of the store and talked about all of her favorite products on the way.  In the short hour I was on the tour I learned about a million new tips and tricks.  Here are some of my favorites:

• Lots of veggies make great pizza crust alternatives: eggplant, portobello mushrooms, bell peppers.
• One stick of light string cheese in a blender is the perfect amount of cheese for a personal sized pizza.
• If you want to make homemade french fries there are lots of veggies that work great besides potatoes: turnips, carrots, butternut squash.  (I will definitely be trying these out!)
• Don't always assume that "lean" on a package means healthy.  Did you know that lean ground turkey usually has more fat than lean ground beef?

We couldn't resist the chance to get a roc blogger pic with Lisa!  L-R: Me, Melissa from Hungry Food Love, Lisa, Tracy from Rah Cha Chow, Amanda from Amanda's Dish, Sarah from Mindfully Frugal Mom, and Becky from The Fluff Report

In addition to meeting Lisa this event gave me a chance to meet some fellow bloggers (some of whom I have been following for years)!  Check out their blogs (listed in the caption above).  They are a bunch of amazingly creative and talented women!

It's almost like she knows me!

So now to the meat of it, the book.  The Hungry Girl Diet starts off with a 4 week plan designed to help you lose 10 pounds.  There are meal suggestions and recipes galore for each day in the 4 week time span, and helpful tips and tricks to help keep you motivated and on track.  Even if you're not on a diet the first section of the book can teach you a lot.  Then come the recipes (some with pictures!), and then my favorite part: "Life After the Four Week Plan."  This last section of the book is full of suggestions for how to live your life normally and still keep you health in mind.  My favorite piece of advice is the 80/20 rule (something frequent readers of hungry-girl.com should already know well).  Here's Lisa's description of the rule in a nutshell:

"It's all about a realistic approach to eating smart.  If you make good choices most of the time, you can be a little more flexible other times."

Now that you know all about Lisa and her new book how would you like a copy of your own?  Hungry Girl and Flatout are giving a sweet prize pack to one of my lucky readers!  (If you follow me on social media then you've already seen the swag.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!  Check back on Tuesday, May 27th to see if you're the lucky winner, and in the mean time check out my last blog post for an idea on what to do with all that Flatout flat bread if you're it!