When I was jotting down my post last week on spring cleaning your pantry and fridge, I realized that I had a lot of opinions on how your food storage can set you up to succeed with your health and fitness goals! I’m not going to sell you any tupperware, don’t worry – I’m just going to challenge you to re-organize your food storage…with prizes!

The basics, in case you don’t like reading a lot:

• Take a “before” photo of your pantry and/or refrigerator and freezer
• Spring clean, making a note or two of the biggest thing(s) you notice or learn along the way
• Take an “after” photo
• Submit your before and after photos, along with your takeaway idea(s) to info@tinyfitnesshouston.com by June 15, 2018
• As long as we receive at least 3 entries, I will post the photos (with no identifying information) on social media (including but not limited to Instagram and Facebook), where the winner will be determined by popular vote. (If we don’t get at least 3 entries, or if no one votes, I will judge for myself! Additional terms and conditions may apply but let’s not get too serious.)
• First place: 10% off your next personal training package at Tiny Fitness OR three free group fitness classes. Second place: One free group fitness class OR $10 off your next personal training package from Tiny Fitness.  Third place, runners up, and honorable mentions: the reward of having done some spring cleaning to make healthy eating easier.
• Bonus prize…all the way at the bottom of this post.

Back to all the words….

The majority of my clients are “too busy” or “too tired” to cook most of the time.  I’m not condemning takeout, but I am personally acquainted with overwhelm, exhaustion, and frustration.  I know the feeling of having a refrigerator full of food but “nothing to eat”, and I know what it’s like to have a bunch of nearly complete meals with protein, vegetables, and the whole nine yards almost ready to go…but eat string cheese and a cold tortilla for dinner instead because heating things up from their different containers seemed like too much work.

Organizing makes it easy.

I’m not suggesting that you need to buy new canisters and a bunch of cutesy chalkboard labels to make your food storage system work for you. I think you need to arrange your food so that you’re excited about the healthy options that you see!

Crazy idea, right?

Your solution will be beautifully unique to you.  Pinterest can be great for inspiration, but ultimately you need to arrange what you actually own in a way that makes it easy for you to live the life you intend.

This is what makes meal prep services so lovely….

Services like Blue Apron make meal prep so easy because they do all of the decision-making for you.  I’m not knocking those services, but they are pricey after a while…so it’s helpful to know that you can reduce your own food decision fatigue substantially just by putting the food that you intend to eat where you are likely to see it.

If you have to fight past a bottle of hot sauce, a jug of vinegar, and a bag of raw, bulk lentils (as was the case in my “before” pantry) just to see what you can make for dinner now, that’s a lot of energy spent saying, “No, that’s not the thing I need.”

If your fridge is full of wilted vegetables that you thought you were going to eat, bits of mystery leftovers, and an overwhelming number of salad dressing bottles, it is probably so stressful to look at all of those past decisions that you don’t notice the food you do have.

All of those things are taking up physical space and mental space in your life and making it seem way too hard to just pop into your kitchen and make a snack.  (Unless your sink full of dishes is making it too hard to use the blender to make that smoothie you’ve been meaning to get to…in which case you had better get on to washing some dishes, too.)

So…it will be easier (and cheaper) to grocery shop because you’ll know what you already have, it will be more relaxing and faster to cook, and your whole kitchen will be more peaceful…and you’ll actually be eating for your goals because you won’t have to fight past clutter to get to what you planned to eat.

Challenge accepted?

I bet it will take you less than 30 minutes to declutter and reorganize your food storage (and 5 minutes to take your before & after pics and email them to me per the instructions at the top of this post)! No need to get a bunch of new bins, decant your cereal into plastic containers, or print cutesy labels, unless you’re honestly into all of those things – shoe boxes, Amazon Prime boxes, and tupperware-like containers you already have can help you keep odds and ends together.

Need more steps to follow? Here’s what I’m going to be doing:

• Removing all of the food from my “baking” and “snack” shelves for evaluation
• Repurposing half of the baking shelf to also become the “sauces” shelf
• Rearranging the snack shelf
• Rearranging the “dinner” shelf now that the sauces are out of the way
• Rearranging the refrigerator
• Rearranging the freezer
• Taking my unwanted but still-good non-perishable food to the Food Bank bin inside the door of Kroger
• Mayyyyybe painting the pantry door (bonus project – it’s only been on my to-do list for 5 years!)

Are you totally stuck?! A bonus giveaway!

If you live within 5 miles of 77006 and are totally paralyzed by the thought of having to organize your food storage, email me and tell me your story…I just might come over to help one of you get the job done!