Hungry girls unite!
NUTRITION | The pied piper of 'tastes great, less filling' movement
If most of what you find in your in-box is considered spam, then think of a Hungry Girl e-newsletter as a chocolate rice cake topped with fresh strawberries and fat-free whipped cream: light, but satisfying.
Monday through Friday, subscribers to the free service receive a diet wakeup call with tips, ingredient swaps and nutritional breakdowns of restaurant fare. (For shame, IHOP!) A perky "Bewitched"-style cartoon gives the lowdown on which 100-calorie packs will get you through the day and how Fiber One cereal can change your life.
Bill Figel rides a bike to save
Meet Lisa Lillien, get your book signed, win raffle prizes -- and most important, indulge in guilt-free snacks
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Borders, 1500 16th St., Oak Brook
Phone: (630) 574-0800
• • Subway's 6-inch subs with 6 grams of fat or less
• • Taco Bell's Fresco Style menu
• • Wendy's chili and baked potatoes
• • Panera Bread's You Pick Two menu
• • Burger King's Tendergrill Chicken and BK Veggie Burger
From Hungry Girl
Now comes the book version. In Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real World (St. Martin's Griffin, $17.95), the emphasis is on "real" -- you won't feel like you're dieting if you're drinking her Magical Low-Calorie Margarita.
Lisa Lillien, the woman behind the cartoon, is an L.A.-based entertainment executive who calls herself a "foodologist"; no fancy degree, just an obsession with food. The 5-foot-1 redhead lost 30 pounds about eight years ago, and kept it off (holding steady at 118 pounds, if you must know).
"I'm literally the person at the grocery store who stares at you and tells you you're buying the wrong thing," says Lillien. She started Hungry-Girl.com because -- well, what do women enjoy more than anything?
"Gabbing about food that they like with their friends," Lillien answers her own question.
"I couldn't find any umbrella diet plan that was truly a lifestyle brand from a regular person perspective," she says. "Girlfriend to girlfriend."
Now her e-newsletters have close to 400,000 subscribers, and Lillien's presence has exploded. She's had columns in the New York Daily News, at weightwatchers.com, at yahoo.com and in People magazine, and she makes appearances on "Extra." Her growing empire now includes six employees. And if being Hungry Girl means occasionally being the bearer of bad news -- for instance, that the Hardee's Monster Thickburger has 107 grams of fat -- then Lillien is up to the responsibility.
Sometimes her cult following can be relentless, though. "I'll try to be funny, and some people take it a little seriously," says Lillien. A recent e-newsletter that joked, "Everyone knows cukes are WAY better than celery!" prompted a deluge of e-mails. "People wrote in, 'What does that mean? I eat celery all the time, is that bad?'" Fear not, celery lovers. Hungry Girl says it's just a matter of preference. "To me, cucumbers taste better," she explains.
She is not, repeat not, infallible. "I'm like a regular person," says Lillien. Friends are afraid to order food around her, but "I'm like a regular person. I'm certainly not perfect when it comes to eating."
Lillien says she maintains her weight loss by following the Weight Watchers Points plan, and living by the "80-20 Rule." Eighty percent of the time, she's very good. Twenty percent of the time, she'll have a few bites of dessert.
And though she claims she's no chef ("I'm barely a cook," Lilllien says. "The first time my husband saw me cook, 'Extra' was in the kitchen."), it can't hurt to have a pal who'll share her hard-earned recipe for Fettuccine Girlfredo. "I struggle with the same things everyone does," says Lillien. "I want to eat food that tastes great and doesn't make you gain weight." She's always in pursuit of foods that she can guiltlessly eat more of.
Some of her go-to staples: broth-based soups, House Foods Tofu Shirataki noodles, Vitalicious muffin tops and Fuji apples.
Lillien's Monday visit to Oak Brook should be lively; she says Chicago is one of her biggest Hungry Girl subscriber cities. "I think so far 550 people have RSVP'd for that event," she says. "It's a big Weight Watcher city, a big chatty-share kind of place."
Amen and pass the butternut squash fries.
