<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Her great idea: Lillien e-mails a daily newsletter full of fun \u2014 and frank \u2014 reviews of the latest packaged foods and treats for the weight conscious. Letting her taste buds do the talking, she tells thousands of subscribers what she thinks about, say, that new low-sodium soup or fat-free ice cream. Her online identity: a sassy character named Hungry Girl. How she got started: After decades of struggling with her weight, Lillien shed 30 pounds by giving up pasta and starches and eliminating junk food. Once her diet was under control, Lillien, now 39, decided to allow some of those foods back into her life \u2014 but cautiously. &amp;quot;I scoured the supermarket for healthy foods that would satisfy my cravings,&amp;quot; she says. And she itched to share her findings. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;d see someone in the grocery store choosing a low-fat frozen dinner, and I&amp;#039;d have to tell her my favorites.&amp;quot; Spreading the word: Lillien invested $10,000 of her savings to launch an electronic newsletter and a Website (she&amp;#039;d already had experience working with dot-coms) and sent her first news blast in April 2004 to 200 people. Today, the &amp;quot;goddess of grub&amp;quot; has about 100,000 subscribers. Each day&amp;#039;s e-mail has a different theme; on Fridays, for example, &amp;quot;Girls Bite Out&amp;quot; offers weekend survival tips. A disclaimer: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not a nutritionist,&amp;quot; says Lillien. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m just hungry!&amp;quot; The bottom line: Subscriptions are free; Lillien sells ads to earn money. She made a profit of about $60,000 last year and hopes to quadruple that in 2006.  You make your money by selling ad spots on your free daily Hungry Girl e-mail newsletter about diet-conscious food and living. How do you find your advertisers? So far, advertisers have come to me. Then I decide whether or not I like their product enough to accept their ad dollars. Now that we&amp;#039;re growing, however, I plan to hire a small ad sales staff to help. What&amp;#039;s your advice to Web entrepreneurs who want to draw in advertisers? Focus on building traffic and getting more and more eyes to see whatever it is you&amp;#039;re doing. Getting advertisers is much easier once you have lots of traffic. But remember, building traffic is a hard thing to do. If you build it, they will not necessarily come. You have to promote your site constantly. Hungry Girl&amp;#039;s content is spread virally through e-mails. What&amp;#039;s a problem you&amp;#039;ve faced that&amp;#039;s unique to running a Website? One of the hardest things to do is to make sure there are no technical glitches. Servers crash, for example. My advice is to never assume anyone else is looking out for your Website. Be proactive in anticipating problems and try to set systems in place for when they do arise \u2014 because they will. What are your top three start-up tips? 1. Keep your business plan very focused. The number one problem with most start-ups is that they&amp;#039;re trying to be too many things. 2. Do not spend a lot of money. Be smart. Be lean. 3. Love what you do and be prepared to work extremely hard at it. Your business shouldn&amp;#039;t be a fast way to make money. It should be a chance to grow something you&amp;#039;re proud of, that people can benefit from. How do you make your site unique? Hungry Girl is unique because it&amp;#039;s fun and funny \u2014 a rarity for diet and nutrition content. It&amp;#039;s also unique because I offer different information every day. It&amp;#039;s important to set yourself apart from the rest. Sensible Foods Crunch Dried Fruit and Vegetable Snacks Organic Supersweet Corn (1 bag: 70 calories, 1 g fat, 17 carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 190 mg sodium, 7 g sugar, 0 g protein) Made of only real sweet corn and sea salt, these dried veggie treats are perfect as stand-alone munchies or as salad toppers. Available at sensible foods.com; $1.79. House Foods Tofu Shirataki Noodles (1 package: 40 calories, 1 g fat, 6 carbohydrates, 30 mg sodium, 4 g fiber, 0 g sugar, 2 g protein) Heads up, pasta lovers! These noodles have 40 calories per 4-ounce serving \u2014 much less than regular pasta, which has 440 calories. Sound too good to be true? The Good Housekeeping Research Institute sent the noodles to an independent lab for testing and found they are as low-cal as they claim! Try the noodles in soups, stir-fry dishes and with low-fat cheese sauces. Available at house-foods.com, Whole Foods, Wild Oats and health food stores nationwide; $1.29 to $2.29. Guiltless Gourmet Baked Potato Crisps (1 ounce: 100 calories, 2 1/2 g fat, 15 carbohydrates, 380 mg sodium, 3 g fiber, 3 g sugars, 7 g protein) These tasty, baked chips have just 100 calories per serving and come in four flavors: Au Gratin, Pico De Gallo, Memphis BBQ and Sea Salt. Even if you break down and eat two servings (which is a lot of chips), you&amp;#039;ll have consumed only 200 calories and 5 g of fat. Not bad! (Though I recommend sticking with just one serving.) The best part is, the snack won&amp;#039;t taste like diet food! Visit guiltlessgourmet.com; $2.99 for a 4-ounce bag.  Figamajigs Dark Chocolate Covered Fig Candy Drops (1 bag: 150 calories, 4 g fat, 29 carbohydrates, 3 g fiber, 21 g sugar, 2 g protein) I don&amp;#039;t like figs that much (sorry, figs!), but these chocolate- and candy-coated drops are my newest obsession. Not only are they delicious, they&amp;#039;re packed with antioxidants. Available at figamajigs.com; $1.49.  CocoaVia Chocolate Covered Almonds Snack Bar (1 bar: 80 calories, 3 g fat, 12 carbohydrates, 60 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 6 g sugar, 2 g protein) CocoaVia has managed to create rockin&amp;#039;, rich and creamy snack bars that are low in calories and high in antioxidants, vitamins and calcium. It&amp;#039;s hard to beat that! Available at cocoavia.com and select Target and Wal-Mart locations; $5.99 for a box of five. Vitalicious Deep Chocolate VitaTops (1 VitaTop: 100 calories, 1 1/2 g fat, 24 carbohydrates, 220 mg sodium, 6 g fiber, 12 g sugar, 3 g protein) These VitaTops will kick your cake, brownie and chocolate cookie cravings to the curb. Moist and packed with chocolate chips, they&amp;#039;re healthy and delicious circles of joy \u2011- loaded with vitamins and fiber. Available at vitalicious.com; $14 for a dozen.  Gnu Foods Cinnamon Raisin Gnu Bar (1 bar: 130 calories, 3 g fat, 32 carbohydrates, 30 mg sodium, 12 g fiber, 8 g sugar, 4 g protein) These are currently my favorite bars on the market. They&amp;#039;re packed with 12 g of fiber but taste just like chewy, home-baked oatmeal cookies. Available at gnufoods.com; $1.89 for one bar. Hint Water (1 bottle: 0 calories, 0 g fat, 0 carbohydrates, 0 g fiber, 0 g sugar, 0 g protein) This new water comes in a slew of tastes and is made with nothing but purified water and natural flavors. It&amp;#039;s unsweetened, yet still has enough &amp;quot;zazzle&amp;quot; to make it way better than plain old water. My favorite varieties are pear and apple. Available at hintwater.com; $44 for a case of 24 (includes shipping).  Crispy Green Crispy Peaches (1 bag: 38 calories, 0 g fat, 9 carbohydrates, less than 1 g fiber, 0 mg sodium, 7 g sugar, 0 g protein) I love these! They&amp;#039;re light, airy, crunchy and tart peach snacks, made with nothing but peaches. Perfection! Available at crispygreen.com; $7.99 for a pack of six.  Galeo&amp;#039;s Miso Caesar Dressing (2 tbsp: 28 calories, 2 g fat, 1 carbohydrate, 112 mg sodium, 1 g fiber, 0 g sugar, 1 g protein) If you love creamy, decadent dressings but hate all the calories that go along with them, you must get your hands on Galeo&amp;#039;s Miso Caesar. Available at galeoscafe.com; $3.49 for an 11-ounce bottle.  For more of Lisa&amp;#039;s food finds, tips and tricks, sign up for Hungry Girl&amp;#039;s free daily e-mails at hungry-girl.com. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a16743/entrepreneur-lillien-0606/?src=shelter_footer>