Hi! I just received my first shipment of Medifast meals. I am anxious to get started, but am going to wait a couple of weeks until after I am back from vacation. In the meantime, I was looking for suggestions/ideas on how to organize the meal packets. I really don't have room for all these boxes in my pantry! I've seen the idea to use an over the door shoe organizer, and also to separate them out so you have 5 meals per ziploc baggie. Anything else that works for you?
I put all similar packets in a gallon size ziploc. One each for soups, cream soups, oatmeal, soft serves/puddings, eggs/pancakes, cocoa/brownies, shakes. Bars and puffs stay in their boxes. All that stays on the bottom shelf of an upper cupboard. It's neat and out of the way.
Welcome to Medifast. I love it. I hope you have great success!
The best recommendation I received was to put all of your Medifast packets in a shoe organizer. I bought a clear one that hangs over a pantry door for $6 at Walmart. The packets can be put in the pockets by type. I go so far as to put the ones that expire first in the front of the pocket. It's easy to see what you have and out of the way.
I split up all my meals into days, so I have 30 piles of 5 packets each. Then I put each day in one of the boxes and just line 'em up where all my fatty foods used to go. I use zip locks too. But I suggest organizing them by day first. It's always a nice surprise to see what I get for the day.
Organize? Why organize? I keep my MF meals in the original shipping box in my home office. Each day, I pull out the meals I plan to eat that day. It's usually whatever is on top. As I work through all the food in a box, that box gets thrown away (actually, I use the extra boxes to take the day's meals to work, then throw them away there.)
If I put it in the pantry, the kids might use the foods (bars) as a snack. Or they might get passed out to their friends. Inaccessible is good.
Organizing by the day gives me variety and doesn't cost any time.
Like Sequi 2008, so far we are just keeping them in the shipping box under a chair. We decide on a meal-by-meal basis what we're going to eat--no planning whole days. We do have options for the Lean & Green planned out, though.
I have a bookcase in my home office, I put all the boxes in front of the books on the shelves. Not much of a bookcase But it sure helps me see what I have in "stock." Repeats of boxes (like if I had 2 boxes of brownies) go in the original shipping box in the storage room to keep them out of the way.
I cleared a shelf off in the pantry and consolidated the bars and shakes as soon as I could into 1-2 boxes of like items. I store the desserts in the back. Then the night before I pull out at least 1 set of meals to pack in my purse for lunch. Love being able to grab and go and not have meal prep. I do make up the soup and a shake as soon as I get to work and store them the refrige so it's ready to go. Good luck!
I'm only partially organized. All the boxes are in the original delivery box. Once a week, I pull it out and pull out the packets for each day and pack a day's worth in a ziplock, creating 7 ziplocks of meals. (BTW DH and I are doing this together.) Each morning, I pull out that day's ziplock, take out the soup (lunch) and fix it on the stove in the morning and then put it in a leftover container to take to work. Depending on the breakfast, I'll either cook it at home and put in a leftover container (pancakes and eggs) or just fix it in the microwave at work (oatmeal). I take shakers for our shakes and we're ready to roll!
I am only semi-organized, also. I keep 5-6 boxes of shakes in the cupboard I used to keep my previous protein shakes; bars are in the basket where the Luna bars used to live; everything else is in the shipping box on the kitchen floor. If only I had more cupboard space.
I take all my MF boxes, rip the top flaps off, and consolidate like a mad woman; I can get rid of about 1/2-2/3 of the bulk of the packaging. My pantry has about a 2.5 feet from the floor to the lowest shelf, so I got a canvas bin with a handle on the end of it that fits well in the space, and I play tetris with my boxes to make them all fit in the bin. Whenever I need a meal, I pull my bin out from under the shelf, grab what I want, and shove it back. And when it's not being used, everything stays hidden and looks organized.
Really didn't think I would need to organize them. I thought I would just keep everything in the big box. But I had fun planning my days by putting five packets in a quart size zip lock bags and tossing them in a basket in my pantry. So now I just start my day by grabbing a bag and that's what I eat for the day. No more thinking about it because my month is all planned out.
My "organization" strategy has changed over time. It's still random, but now I stow some boxes of puffs and/or bars in the car, and bars/shakes/puffs at the office as well. When I run out of food in one of those locations, I refill with random flavors.
It's not about planning what meal I'm going to eat. It's about planning to ensure there's a meal available wherever I happen to be (no skipping or temptations to go off-plan because I'm starving.)
My "organization" strategy has changed over time. It's still random, but now I stow some boxes of puffs and/or bars in the car, and bars/shakes/puffs at the office as well. When I run out of food in one of those locations, I refill with random flavors.
It's not about planning what meal I'm going to eat. It's about planning to ensure there's a meal available wherever I happen to be (no skipping or temptations to go off-plan because I'm starving.)
I think I will do this too.
Just in case I find myself separated from my food.
Organizing Meal Packets
I've seen the idea to use an over the door shoe organizer, and also to separate them out so you have 5 meals per ziploc baggie. Anything else that works for you?
But it sure helps me see what I have in "stock." Repeats of boxes (like if I had 2 boxes of brownies) go in the original shipping box in the storage room to keep them out of the way.
