Lisa's Gluten-Free Advice and Healthy Living

Food and Health Carnival Feb. 27

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 02:33 AM PST

Do you have a Favorite Recipe, a Great Tip, a Great Resource or a Giveaway? Do you have a Giveaway Linky or Recipe Carnival on your blog? Or maybe you would just like to share your Food or Health Blog/Website.

Add your link to my Food and Health Carnival.

All I ask for in return is for you to add my blog button above to your blog and/or a link to my website. Lisa's Gluten-Free Advice and Healthy Living.  Another idea is that you could add my link to your blog roll. Thank-You.

Add Your Gluten-Free and/or Healthy Living Blog to my Directory.

This week I will share with you: People with Celiac Disease can Declare their "Gluten Free Food" as Tax Deduction

Be sure and check out my current giveaways located on my right side bar. Have a great week.

Triumph Dining Review and Giveaway

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 06:54 PM PST

This is a review and giveaway for Triumph Dining. Triumph Dining is being very generous they are giving away to three of my reader's their Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide. Look after my review to learn how to enter this giveaway. Thank-you Triumph Dining for this wonderful giveaway.

Since 2005, the Triumph Dining team has spent thousands of hours developing the most comprehensive gluten-free restaurant guide in North America, dining cards that help you order gluten free at restaurants where language barriers can make things even more difficult, and a popular gluten-free grocery guide to help you find the groceries you need — even if you're traveling and all that's available is a supermarket whose brands you don't know.

I had the opportunity to check out all three of Triumph Dining's products. I will give you a brief run down about all three products and what I think of them.

The Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide there has over 6,500 gluten-free restaurants. It has gluten-free menus from chain restaurants like P.F. Chang's, Outback Steakhouse and Red Lobster's. It covers all 50 states. It is a gluten-free restaurant data base where every listing is verified and updated every year. It is in it's 5th edition with over 460 pages. Every gluten-free restaurant I could think of that is in this guide. It is so easy to use. It has tips on how to get a gluten-free meal anywhere and a dining out checklist. It has the restaurants listed by state and locations. For instance Outback Steakhouse in Washington, it shows all the location's address and phone number's. On the right hand top side it has symbols, Outback Steakhouse shows a book. The book symbol means that this is a chain restaurant. I absolutely love this book, this is an essential guide that I want to carry around in my car. I give the Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide 5 stars out of 5.

The Gluten-Free Grocery Guide has over 30,000 brand name and store brand gluten-free products at grocery stores across United States of America. It has a color coded system that makes it easy to plan your menus and for finding your favorite foods. It is now in its 4th edition with 280 pages. This grocery is also very easy to use. It has great tips for grocery shopping and I love that it shows me which manufacturer's disclose information about cross contamination risks, dedicated production lines and facilities and gluten testing of their products. It makes it much easier knowing I am getting gluten-free foods that I am not going to get sick from. The foods are are color coded and listed in their own food group, so it makes it really easy to find certain foods. For example the frozen foods are listed in purple, so I just have to flip to the purple section. So I want to look up pizza & crust, it shows several brands. One of them is Amy's Kitchen Rice Crust Spinach Pizza, which is one of my very favorites. And it has a symbol with it, the symbol is a circle with an i and a check mark. These symbols mean, cross contamination and gluten testing. Which means that there is a possible cross contamination issue and that the company has tested its ingredients, finished products, machinery and equipment for gluten. This guide makes it so much easier to find gluten-free foods. I absolutely love this grocery guide, it is too an essential guide that I am going to keep it in my purse. I give the Gluten-Free Grocery 5 stars out of 5.

The dining cards are laminated and portable and you can easily fold them into your wallet. You can safely order from a restaurant in 10 different languages. The cards are tailored for toe each cuisine. It takes the chef less than one minute to read and to understand. These great little cards helps you to avoid cross contamination. The dining cards explain very simply that you have celiac disease and lists what you can not eat and what you can eat. As well explains about cross contamination. They are so easy an simple to use. I love these cards, they are going to stay in my wallet, very essential. I give the dining cards 5 stars out of 5.

Check out Triumph Dining's website, you can sign up for there news letter and check out their blog.

Now for the giveaway.

Three lucky winner's will receive a copy of the "The Essential Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide".

Entries:

1) Order any of the Triumph Dining products off my link. (10 entries)

2) Follow me on Google Friend Connect. (1 entry)
3) Subscribe to my RSS Feed, E-mail and/or my Newsletter (in the blue box on the right hand column). (1 entry each)
4) Follow me on Twitter. (1 entry)
5) Tweet about this giveaway daily and/or post on your Facebook. (2 additional entries a day) You can use this for an example,
"#Win The Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide (3 winner's) @superglutenfree from @TriumphDining #giveaway http://nblo.gs/dvEVG, Ends 2/12/2011".
6) "Like" my blog on Facebook and/or Networked Blogs. (1 entry each)
7) Blog about this giveaway and link to Lisa's Gluten-Free Advice and Healthy Living and to Triumph Dining. (3 entries)
8) Add my blog to your blog roll. (2 entries)
9) Add my button to the side bar of your blog. (3 entries)
10) Follow Triumph Dining on Twitter. (1entry)
11) Check out my Squidoo Lens and/or create your own Squidoo Lens. (2 entries each)
Please leave me a comment while you are there as well leave me a comment on here telling me you checked out my Squidoo Lens.
12) Vote for my Blog on these Blog Directories by clicking on each of the following buttons. One additional entry per click. You can do this every 6 hours. Top Mommy Blogs can only be voted for once a day. Make sure to make a separate comment for each button you click on.





That gives you several entries for this giveaway. Enter as many of them as you want. Leave a comment for each entry.

This Giveaway is available for USA Only.

Giveaway goes through till February 12, 2011.

Giveaway Rules: All entries must be received by 11:59pm PST on February 12, 2011. A winner will be chosen by random.org. I will notify the winner by February 13, 2011 via email (please respond within 48 hours). I will also announce the winner on my blog. Leave a comment for each entry. Be sure and leave me your Twitter user name and Blog URL of your post. Leave me your e-mail address or make sure it is visible on your blog so that in the event that you win this giveaway I can contact you.

DISCLAIMER: I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample of this product for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.

Curves

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 03:00 PM PST

 

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Easy Swaps For Your Diet That Deliver Big Results

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 02:05 PM PST

As you go about your fat loss diet, rather than aiming to make an entire diet overhaul and change practically everything that you're eating, try and focus on just making minor alterations that can have a big influence on your total calorie intake and the progress you make.

Those who do attempt that big diet overhaul tend not to fair very well because they are quick to fall off the program entirely and just feel overwhelmed during the process.

By taking small steps and making one or two adjustments here or there, it becomes that much more manageable and something that you can easily stick with.

Let's take a quick look at a couple changes that you can make that will help push you forward towards greater overall weight loss.

Choose Oats Rather Than Cereal

The first simple swap comes at the breakfast table. Rather than going with a commercial variety of cereal, which still may be a decent option as far as health and weight loss is concerned, earn top fat loss marks and go for oatmeal instead.

Oats are very low in total sugar content and incredibly high in fiber so will fill you up and keep you satisfied throughout the entire morning.

Oats are very easy to prepare and take just two to three minutes as well so being busy is no excuse to forgo these first thing in the morning. (oats are gluten-free, you just need to make sure the oats you buy are not cross contaminated with gluten products).

Have Eggs Rather Than Sausage

The second smart swap you can have at breakfast is trading in your sausage for some egg whites instead. While if you're choosing turkey sausage it will likely provide some protein and will be lower in fat, nothing beats egg whites as far as a fat loss protein source is concerned.

These contain just 16 calories per egg white so will be able to easily be integrated into your plan regardless of what your personal calorie intake target happens to be.

Eggs are also quick to prepare and are reasonably cheap to purchase, further providing a reason to start adding these to your meal plan.

Choose Quinoa Rather Than Rice

One grain that so many people completely forget about in their diet is quinoa. If you want to see better overall fat loss results and maintain your energy levels to keep up with those intense workout sessions, this is definitely a grain that you should consider.

Rice is usually the top pick among most people and while rice is still considered healthy, quinoa contains a complete source of protein so will be even healthier yet.

Plus, quinoa is also loaded with fiber so by eating it you can help ward off cravings shortly after the meal. Quinoa can be replaced in any recipe that uses brown rice quite easily, so there is really no shortage of ways to work this into your daily diet plan.

Choose Greek Yogurt Rather Than Regular

Moving along, one food that not enough people are eating regularly is Greek yogurt. Instead, regular yogurt tends to be the food of choice and while this is healthy, Greek yogurt packs in so much more protein than the regular variety does.

Greek yogurt is also very low in sugar content and is a good source of calcium so you really can't go wrong with including this food as part of your diet plan.

It will taste slightly different than regular yogurt so if you need some time to adapt to it, consider mixing half Greek yogurt with half regular for the time being.

Choose Nuts Rather Than Chips

Finally, if you're craving something salty to snack on and feel like having a bag of chips, opt for a few salted nuts instead.

While both will be higher calorie choices, the benefit of having the nuts is they will provide a great source of healthy fats and will contain some protein as well.

Chips are essentially devoid of all nutrients and will only serve to damage your health, so something that you just don't want to be going for.

Nuts, when eaten in moderation to keep calories in check, can be a healthy part of any diet plan.

So there you have some quick and easy swaps to consider making in your diet plan. If you can do these along with any others you might think of then it's not going to feel as much like a total diet change and will be much more sustainable long-term.

This article is contributed by Lima, an avid traveler who owns a website offering high quality adjustable dumbbells for sale.