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March 2010 archive

See You After The Half! For Now, a Twitter Contest.

I have so much I want to write — and my NYC Half Marathon on Sunday — but work has been so busy and stressful that I just don’t have the energy right now. I did want to tell you all about a very cool content that Dick’s Sporting Goods is holding on my favorite website of all time, the Twitters. I don’t even have to write this, they wrote it all for me:

Enter on Twitter for a chance to become a member of Dick’s Sporting Goods “Starting Lineup.” If you are one of 10 winners, you get to test out new products for Dick’s Sporting Goods!

FAQs:

What does it mean to be on the “Starting Lineup”?

  • A chance to try out and preview new products
  • A spot on an online panel of experts for one season (for approximately 3 months)
  • Access to exclusive online surveys
  • A chance to sound off on all things sports

How does someone try for a chance to be on the “Starting Lineup”?

  • Follow http://twitter.com/dickssportcmo.
  • Vote for yourself (or someone else) by telling @dickssportcmo who should be on the “Starting Lineup” and why. Sample Tweet: “@dickssportcmo my vote is for @TwitterID because…”
  • Recruit others to do the same.
  • You can only vote for the same person once per day, but you can vote for multiple people in the same day.

*Make sure you’re following @dickssportcmo or your vote won’t count!

The 10 nominees with the most votes by March 31, 2010 win. More details on their Facebook page. This is a very cool contest, so I hope you all have some fun with it. As far as I’m concerned, everything is fun on Twitter. Time to crash.

Disclaimer: I received a $50 Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card in exchange for this promotion

The next time you hear from me, I will be a full year older and a half marathon wiser.

The Lite Choice – Taste the Difference Tour

  • Food

A few weeks ago I got to tour a company I think is fantastic — The Lite Choice! I took the tour with Katie from Lil Veggie Patch and was happy to have a friend with me. I went to the tour right after a 9 mile training run, which included the NYRR Run for Haiti! Needless to say, I was starving. I also only had 5 minutes to change clothes, so please excuse my appearance.

The Lite Choice seems like frozen yogurt or ice cream, but really they are considered soft serve. They don’t contain the cultures necessary to be called yogurt and they don’t contain NEARLY enough fat to be called ice cream! A few years ago, I noticed that many Tasti Delite locations turned into The Lite Choice. I assumed it was the same thing but did not realize that The Lite Choice (TLC) started as a healthier alternative to Tasti Delite, which uses artificial flavors and fake sugars. Blech to that.

The Lite Choice (to take Katie’s well written explanation), has 70 readily available flavors, 51 of which are USDA-certified organic.  64 flavors are gluten-free, and they’re working on improving those last 6 flavors.  The soft serve is sweetened with beet and cane sugars; no extra sugar is added.  (You can find the nutritional information for each flavor online.) They have 30 locations, with 16 of them being in NYC.

I do want to make a note that I try not to eat dairy much. I generally purchase coconut based ice creams, but I will have dairy every now and again. And of course for this tour, it was no question!

I always thought that the only flavors I could get at TLC were the ones on the board each day:

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But really, you can get any flavor at any time! They use natural almond and peanut butters, which they grind right in the stores, for flavoring. They also have a selection of organic and natural syrups. Everything is low in calories as well. Even better? They use green (environmentally friendly) cleaning practices!

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And they are certified Kosher for all you religious Dori’s Shiny Blog readers.

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In addition to soft serve, you can get milkshakes (OBSESSED with my oreo milkshake), Vitamin B shakes, Protein shakes (made with whey protein, a dairy protein) and coffee freezes. I seriously plan to get an oreo milkshake next time I am there again, it was THAT good.

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They make yummy hot fudge sundaes and hot chocolate as well. LOVE the hot chocolate, especially one that is so low calorie and tastes chocolatey and amazing. I’d get this more often if I passed a TLC on my commute.

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TLC also has a wonderful toppings bar with pretty much anything you might want. Katie even got Puffins on hers! I opted for my favorite topping, peanut butter chips. Mmmmm…

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In their freezer section we sampled bars, ice cream cakes, flying saucers and pints of soft serve. Yes, we sampled EVERYTHING. I particularly loved the almond butter flavor, which was made by blending vanilla soft serve and their freshly ground (right in front of me!) almond butter. Heaven.

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You can follow TLC on Twitter for daily discounts and promotions. I do!

Oh — Hi Missy!

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Here I am with the founder, Ron and the operations manager, Claudia, and of course Katie:

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It was a really great tour. So great I stayed and sampled and learned for 2 hours! Everything tastes so good, fresh and REAL. Which of course cannot be said for all of their “low calorie” competitors. If you’re in NYC I definitely suggest you try out The Lite Choice!

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