Biggest Loser alumni holiday chat! (All are welcome!)

[pjlla]

Originally Posted by pjlla

QOTD just for fun: What is your favorite holiday decorating color scheme? Do you go traditional red and green, sparkly silver, or some totally non-traditional?

I've always like blue at Christmas time. Last year I went with a blue and silver snowflake design for my place settings for Christmas Eve dinner. But most of the time my tree stays pretty traditional with all of our usual ornaments. One year I bought some GREAT wrapping stuff at Target that was blues and turquoise and some hot pink! That was so neat! But of course, it didn't go with any of my other stuff!

This year I was going to do a traditional red and green table, but I found a great bunch of silver snowflake napkin rings at the thrift store (new in the package from Pier One!) and so I might return to last year's silver and blue theme. Or perhaps a silver and gold table? Still thinking on it.

Originally Posted by pjlla

Unofficial QOTD: So we all know how important breakfast is... we hear/read it over and over. But many of us STILL don't eat breakfast (or at least the RIGHT kind of breakfast). If you had to give a friend 5 healthy (and relatively quick) breakfast options to help him/her stay OP, what would you suggest?? Do you include protein and carbs and fats? Do you suggest totally "traditional" breakfast food items or untraditional things as well?

Five quick and healthy breakfasts:

Crockpot steel cut oats, side of fruit.

Greek yogurt with berries (and maybe granola too).

Whole wheat english muffin (or low carb bread) with natural nut butter.

Make-ahead egg white burrito or sandwich (from the freezer to the microwave in no time flat!).

Smoothie (could include fruit, yogurt, silken tofu, milk [soy, almond, dairy], juice, protein powder, nut butter, flax seed, etc).

Originally Posted by pjlla

Bonus unofficial QOTD: How aware are you personally of your environmental impact/carbon footprint? Do you do things to reduce your impact?

I am becoming more and more aware of it. But I am still a slacker sometimes. I ran errands last night and had left my reuseable sacks at home. I HATE bringing home plastic bags, but there was no avoiding it last night. We keep our heat low and use a clothesline whenever possible (lots of financial incentive to those things). We recycle everything that is allowed in our town (which isn't much, sadly). I reuse containers whenever I can before throwing them out/recycling them. I use lots of cloth in the kitchen instead of paper (dish towels, cloth napkins). We rarely use paper plates or plastic utensils or paper/plastic cups.

I try hard to NOT buy things that are grossly overpackaged (Lunchables come to mind first). I buy used quite often to help keep packaging out of the landfills and to help my budget. I have a Soda Stream to eliminate plastic soda bottles, we ALL use refillable water bottles every day. (I usually buy less than a case of bottled water per year.... and those would be to have on hand for emergencies like power outages.) We also use refillable coffee cups every day and make our own coffee at home most of the time.

I try to buy in GLASS instead of plastic whenever possible.... second choice after glass is steel. I use Glasslock containers at home instead of Tupperware or Rubbermaid whenever possible (trying to transition to all glass instead of plastic, but it is hard!). That is more a HEALTH issue than an environmental issue, but I figure it helps.

I do all of my laundry in cold water, hang on the line whenever the weather allows. I use my dishwasher on the shortest cycle possible without heat dry. I also try to wash some dishes by hand when time allows.

I compost whenever I can, but have to be careful during the fall and spring because of bears.

That is all I can think of for now..............P