Tag Archives: giveaway

Foodie Finds & a Quick Giveaway

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You guys know by now that I’m a sucker for delicious food. I want to start sharing some of my favorite foodie finds with you, because it feels criminal not to!!! Some of these items were provided to me for review purposes but some came out of my own pocket. Let’s start by talking about the thing that’s been kicking my “kravings” to the kurb (ha!) all weekend.

1) Krave Jerky. I’ve always liked beef jerky, but usually, I stay away from it because of the price tag. It’s also high in sodium, but as an occasional treat, I think it’s fine for people like me who tend to skimp on protein. Krave Jerky makes artisanal jerky from beef, pork and turkey – and by far, my favorite is the amazing lemon garlic turkey jerky. A whole pouch of this stuff is only 200 calories and 15 grams of protein, so it’s an awesome and filling snack. Because Krave kindly sent me several packs to try, I’m going to give you a chance to win one! Comment on this blog post after visiting their website and tell me which flavor you’d most like to try. Next week I’ll pick one random commenter to win a pack of Krave and a couple Soya fishes. Anyways, back to the Krave. As of today I’ve inhaled the lemon pepper flavor and the smoky grilled teriyaki. Both were insanely delicious, and I’m thinking about subscribing to their Jerky-a-month club so I always have a protein-rich, low GI snack on hand when I start my PCOS Diet (Countdown – five days! I’m seeing my doctor on Friday and once I get to go-ahead, will begin the new plan).

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2) Little Soya Fishies. I was browsing Cost Plus on a lunch break and instantly my eye was drawn to these adorable fish shaped packets of soy sauce! Soy sauce is a hot commodity in my household because we’re constantly using it to marinade meats. I bought these little fishies thinking they’d be perfect to have on hand for the days when we’re out of soy sauce and our meal needs a salty little kick. Little Soya’s fishies are MSG free and have a robust, more full flavor than most soy sauces I’ve tasted. Deeeeeelicious! The problem is, they’re so darn cute I don’t want to use them. PS: Visit their website and fill out the pop-up form to receive a free fishie of your own to sample!

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3) Chobani FLIPs. I got serious yogurt-envy when I saw some of my other bloggy pals had received Chobani FLIPs to try out, because I’d been seeing them mentioned everywhere and I could not find them for the life of me!! Thankfully, the kind people at Chobani recognized a serious craving when they saw one, because they sent over two FLIP flavors to try – the Almond Coco Loco and the Raspberry Choco Fix. I would have taken a picture of the Coco Loco’s, but um, they were all gone. These are seriously intensely awesome – at 230 calories, 12 – 15 grams of protein and the TEXTURE! Holy cow, the texture. The yogurt has these amazing coconut flakes in it, and when you dump in the chocolate chunks and almond slivers, it’s like eating sort-of-healthy ice cream. I had to seriously keep my hands off of them because they were that good. Now looking at their website, it looks like they’ve come out with some other new flavors, like Honey Bee Nana and Key Lime Crumble. Yum, yum, yum. Don’t eat that artificially-sweetened dessert yogurt junk when you can have something a lot closer to the real thing. I’ll definitely keep these around as a sweet-treat every now and then. Give it a try, you won’t regret it.

Lovin' my Chobani Flips

Lovin’ my Chobani Flips

Those are my top three favorite finds of this week – what new food products have you discovered? Share them here, I’m always game to try new and awesome things!

Diet to Go Tweetathon!

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You guys know I love Twitter. In fact, as a social media person, I love alllll social media, but my favorite is Twitter because it’s somehow less “noisy”. I don’t have to see pictures, ads, or videos… anything I see on Twitter is usually just short little snippets and updates from interesting and amusing people. Also, do you know how much stuff I’ve won on Twitter? Tote bags, DVDs, cookbooks, snack packs, even a pair of shoes one time! Anyways – Twitter + me = BFF. So what does Twitter have to do with this post?! You might have noticed when the re-design of this site launched that there’s a Diet to Go badge on the upper right hand corner of the page. (See it?) Exciting news – I’m now a proud Diet to Go ambassador! This means I can try new plans and update you all on awesome things going on in their world of common-sense healthy – the first being that this weekend Diet to Go is having their first ever TweetAThon, which is basically a weekend-long way for you to win prizes like $100 Amazon giftcards and free Diet to Go foods!

double chin diary diet to go twitter blogging weight loss blogger

Diet to Go is all about common sense healthy. What does this mean? It means no fad diets, no pills, no crazy routines, no BS. It’s all about making healthy, accessible choices – which is why I’m proud to be a Diet to Go Ambassador.

This weekend, you should watch my twitter feed and chime in with your own thoughts about weight loss and healthy eating by posting diet tips and tricks. If you want to tweet, make sure you use the hashtags #diettogo and #tweetathon.

The Tweetathon will take place for 32 hours on March 16-17, starting at 9:00 a.m. EST March 16, and ending at 5:00 p.m. EST, March 17. There will be random daily giveaways chosen at random – like a free week of meals (4 lucky people will score that one!) or 1 of 5 $100 Amazon gift cards. I hope you’ll join me with a tweet or two celebrating common-sense healthy living! Have a GREAT DAY!

 

*Diet-To-Go is compensating me for participating in this awareness activity. Don’t worry – I’ll never accept money or free stuff to lie about something I don’t believe in!

Puzzled and Polished Earrings Giveaway

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Hello, Double Chinners! I’m going to start off with a fact that may surprise some of you (it will at least surprise the people who don’t follow me on instagram). Here it comes…

I am slightly obsessed with nail polish.

The obsession started in junior high, when I wasn’t quite bold enough to put colorful streaks in my hair, but felt that blood red nail polish was edgy enough to freak out my mom. When that didn’t work, I moved onto sparkly greens and teals, chunky glitters shaped like hearts and stars. My nails became a 10-fingered salute to my growing creativity and self expression, often chipped and showing the hard life of a suburban teenaged girl. (Catch that sarcasm?).

I gave up on nails in college, because the maintenance got to be too much and I preferred my nails short and unpolished, maybe sometimes with a clear coat for shine. Somehow, over the past two years, my love for nail polish has been reignited. There are several people to blame, the first being KJ Pugs, a dear friend and lover of all things glossy. The second is my friend Jenny, who brought me to my first pedicure, where I fell in love with the 5 minute foot massage and delicate, white flowers painted on my big toes.

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Today, for the love of nail polish, I’m offering you this beautiful, hand-made pair of earrings from Puzzled and Polished, an awesome new business venture from my blogger friend Manda. I believe these earrings were made with Zoya Zuza, a lovely mermaid-esque teal. Manda’s son has autism, and she decided to combine her love of nail polish with her mission to raise awareness and funds for Cristian’s Cruisers, a Walk Now for Autism team. Here I am, wearing my pair. Mandy hand paints each piece with her choice of a special nail polish, and then fastens them to durable and high-quality jewelry findings. Combining nail polish with a super awesome mission? My cup of tea!

Don't let the giant wreath distract you (I know, I need to take it down!) from the beautiful Puzzled and Polished earrings I'm wearing!

Don’t let the giant wreath distract you (I know, I need to take it down!) from the beautiful Puzzled and Polished earrings I’m wearing!

If you’d like to enter to win this pair of earrings, all you have to do is “like” the Puzzled & Polished Facebook page and leave me a comment on this blog entry. I’ll pick a winner on Friday, so get likin’, before my nails dry! ;)

KalorieBox Review and Giveaway!

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I love getting mail. Especially now that I work from home, I wait in anticipation for the 4:30 shuffle of steps up my front stoop – knowing then that hopefully, the postman will deliver a bevy of boxes, a parcel of padded envelopes, or at the very least, a stack of letters and not just bills. Usually my mail days are a bust, filled with the mundane reminders of adult life – political flyers, cell phone bills and grocery store circulars. But on Saturday, I scored with the mail – because I received a Kalorie Box!

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KalorieBox is right on par with the new monthly subscription type boxes sweeping the nation – As a current BirchBox member (if you sign up use this link and we both get credit!), a monthly premium beauty sample box for $10, I was eager to check out a box filled with low fat and nutritional goodies. The first thing that struck me about KalorieBox is that it has a charitable angle to it. For each box they sell, they donate meals to hungry children. Pretty cool – I like the idea of losing my weight caused from TOO MUCH FOOD to help out people who don’t have enough (which is why my DietBet winnings this month will go to No Kid Hungry!)

Upon opening the box, I was impressed with the amount of stuff they pack in it. I scored a full sized box of Cheese Thinables, a Zevia lime cola soda, a bag of pirates booty, a fiber one cookie brownie, Peeled dried mango, a Pacific Grove Almond milk drink and a $1 off coupon for Zevia. This was a pretty hefty score, and one I’m still exploring. (Love the Zevia!!!) I have definitely been curious about almond milk but didn’t want to commit to a whole gallon, so I’m jazzed to try this out in a sample size. Also, the Cheese Thinables are pretty darn decent for a large 60-calorie serving (you get a huge handful! They taste just like Cheez-Its!)

KalorieBox

My KalorieBox loot – look at all those goodies!

KalorieBox has a few different options for subscribing – if you order one month at a time, it’s $25. If you order three months at a time, it’s $21 a month, or if you order 6 months at a time, it’s $17 a month. I definitely might check this out for a few months, because I love trying new foods and don’t always have the time to hunt them down at the store. Because seeing is believing, KalorieBox has generously offered one of my readers a sample box! There’s a ton of different ways to enter this giveaway, but I ask that you leave one comment letting me know why you want to win, and “like” KalorieBox on Facebook. This is a RaffleCopter giveaway, so for each action you complete, just hit the “I Did It!” button to the right for your action to be accepted. This giveaway will end next Wednesday at 12 AM PST and is US Only, 18+. (Don’t worry international – I have a giveaway coming up for you soon, too!)

Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Why do you like Chike? Giveaway!

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Hellloooo Double Chinners! I’ve missed you! I’m back from my trip to Thailand and while I have TONS to tell you about, I wanted to kick off the new year with a great giveaway! Chike, tasty high protein shakes, is offering one of my readers a BPA Free Shaker and Ball and a set of their best flavors. Read my review and then enter by following the instructions at the bottom of this post.

20130106-183108.jpgI had initially heard of Chike through some of my favorite bloggers who focus on bariatric surgery. When you have weight loss surgery, you can’t eat as much, so quality high protein drinks like Chike are desirable to fill you up but also give you vitamins, protein and calcium. Since I’m a fan of anything quick and tasty, I definitely wanted to try these out as they’re not just for people who’ve had bariatric surgery.

The first one I was going to try was the protein packed iced coffee…but my husband got to it first. This is a big deal, Chike, because most of the “blog stuff” that comes to our house he won’t touch as it’s more often than not something weird like mushroom noodles. Matt’s review? “Very good! I was skeptical of a high protein coffee but with ice and water this had the caffeine I wanted and it filled me up.” Matt didn’t realize it was a meal replacement until I told him later that day when he didn’t want dinner! Haha!

photo 1I decided to try the chocolate flavor, and went all fancy by using cold milk in the shaker instead of water. I added some calories and fat this way but I prefer a creamier tasting drink and love that cold milk foam you get on top! After a couple hearty shakes, my drink was ready to go. I was also very pleasantly surprised, because most weight loss powdered drinks taste like chocolate flavored chalk. Not this one. It also didn’t have little bubbles of powder in it still, which is a plus if you’re a huge freak about texture like I am. Nice!

I haven’t tried them all, but my next favorite is strawberry. It doesn’t taste exactly like a sun ripened strawberry, maybe more like strawberry ice cream. I’d love to maybe one day see this shake from Chike with some small dried strawberry pieces. Then it would totally be like a milkshake! Chike also sent me vanilla, creamsicle and banana, but those are chillin in my pantry waiting to be eaten for breakfast! :)

I think you’ll really like these if you give them a try, so please enter the giveaway. Once again, just like Chike’s Facebook page here and write on their wall why you would like to try Chike. You can just copy and paste something like this – “I’m Jane and was sent over by the Double Chin Diary. I would like to try Chike because I want one of those snazzy shaker ball cups!”

photo 2Then just come back here, tell me you commented, and you’re good to go! If you want an extra entry, send a tweet about the giveaway and tag @lyssacurran or @doublechindiary and @chikenutrition with this link: http://wp.me/p2kXVY-ym .

Once again, leave a comment letting me know you did. You guys rock!This contest will end on Monday, January 14th at 12:01 AM PST. I will randomly pick a winner. GOOD LUCK!

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to read about how one of my new year’s resolutions is already off to a strong, itchy and quite-a-story type of start! (It involves: severe weather, mosquitoes, jungle treks and getting lost. Whee!)

Homemade Harvey Review and Giveaway!

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Homemade Harvey Crushed Fruit

Hi Bloggies,
You can tell we’re getting close to the Holidays because it’s giveaway central over here lately! Today, the folks at Homemade Harvey are offering you a chance to win a $50 whole foods giftcard, and a bunch of their super yummy crushed fruit. Read on for why you’re going to want to get your hands on this sweet fruity snack!

Happy Girl likes Homemade Harvey’s

When I saw Homemade Harvey in my Facebook news feed, I was intrigued. I always like trying healthy, low cal snacks and sharing them with you. The company sent me some free samples – and holy moly, I was blown away! Here’s the beauty of Homemade Harvey – it’s nothing fancy. It’s simple. It reminds me of a yummy smoothie or some fresh apple sauce – because all it really is is crushed fruit. There’s no chemicals, no preservatives and no weird added flavors – just fruit all crushed up and smashed in a handy little pouch for you to slurp up.

When I first got them I had a fear of the texture. I like smooth things, but would sucking something from a pouch make me feel like a toothless toddler? Thankfully, the answer is no, and I kept thinking what a great snack this would be for kids or for anyone on the run in need of something fast. My only complaint is I ate the packet too fast and would find myself squeezing for one more last drop. But uh, that’s a problem with my appetite – not the product.

Homemade Harvey comes in four different flavors -
Mango Pineapple Passionfruit
Blueberry Strawberry Apple (My favorite)
Apple Pear Oats Ginger
Banana Strawberry Kiwi (My second favorite)

Check out the ingredients list on my fav flavor – Organic strawberry, banana, apple, kiwi and lemon peel. That’s it. Love that.

The texture of Homemade Harvey’s is smooth and soft – no yucky gunk here!

Because I’m a weirdo, I was curious what the paste looked like. I expected brown gunk like day old guacamole, but instead this delightful and cheery smooth orange puree came out of the package. Looks like baby food. Totally edible, and not yucky looking like I was fearing. Even better, calorie-wise, each one comes in under 100 calories – the lowest is the blueberry with 80 calories. Considering this is at least two servings of fruit crammed into each pouch, this is a snack I feel good about slurping up. You can find it at Whole Foods and at some Ralph’s stores – you can check the website for a store locator.

So – now you definitely want to win some Harveys and a $50 Whole Foods gift card, right?! It’s easy to enter – first thing you have to do is leave a blog comment saying which flavor you’d like to try most – and second thing is just mark “I did it” on rafflecopter. You can score extra entries by tweeting, “liking” on FB, etc. Just make sure you check the box “I did it!” each time on Rafflecopter. This giveaway will last for one week, which means it will end at 11:59 PM on Wednesday, November 14th. US only, please. GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway