Carlyle Thornton Blog

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WHAT'S INSIDE MY FRIDGE + HOW I ORGANIZE IT

My Top | My Jeans | My Shoes

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This past weekend I asked what type of blog post you were wanting to see from me next and the 'What's in my fridge' post had the most votes! Today i'm going to show you what is in my fridge and how I organize it...

Finding that perfect balance between eating at home and eating out used to be a major struggle for me. I found that in college I was spending way too much money on fast food and it was getting to be a bit ridiculous. Once I graduated college and began working full-time, I made it a priority to eat at home as much as possible to save money. On top of that, I really wanted to start eating cleaner. In the beginning I struggled with the thought of this, because buying healthy groceries is super expensive, right? Preparing healthy meals at home is extremely time consuming, right? Wrong! The truth is that this lifestyle doesn't have to be either of those things. The key to doing this is to be organized and prepared. Not to say I don't enjoy eating out or eating a tub of ice cream every once in a while, because I do. It's all about BALANCE people!

A few months ago I went on a 14-day meal plan that you can find here. This meal plan helped me learn how often and how much I should be eating throughout the day. It also taught me simple and quick breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner ideas! Although i'm now finished with that specific meal plan, I still find myself referencing it as I continue trying to live a healthy lifestyle. I branched off and found other substitutes that are around the same calories and still give me the same nutritional value. At night before bed I prepare all of my meals for work the next day including: breakfast, snack #1 , lunch and snack #2. Keeping my fridge organized using clear containers has helped me out tremendously. It is extremely easy to see everything I keep in my fridge and it has made meal prepping go a whole lot faster.


What's inside my fridge

The top shelf is where I keep most of my drinks including white wine, la croix, coconut water and almond milk. I drink so much almond milk- Such a staple in my fridge. I use it in my daily smoothies, in various recipes and in my favorite cereal. I have found that keeping cans in this soda can organizer and my wine in these stackable wine holders saves a tremendous amount of space on my shelf! I also found this water bottle holder that I would also add to my fridge to save space, if only my fridge wasn't so teeny! ;) I also keep my larger clear containers on this shelf because I really don't have room for them anywhere else. These OXO pop containers are seriously life changing, I love being able to see what's inside and they keep everything SO fresh. You can find an entire set (all different sizes) of them here!

In the small drawer pictured above I keep my deli meat and cheese. Laughing cow cheese has been my go-to since I started my meal plan because its very low in calories and still super tasty! On my middle and bottom shelves I keep tons of pre-cut and pre-washed fruits and veggies. I always keep these small pop containers stocked full so I can just quickly grab things when I'm on the go. Some of these are for snacking and some are for meal prepping, they usually change weekly based on what exactly I'm wanting to eat. PS- It's way easier to grab a healthy snack instead of a junky one when your fridge looks like this! I also keep eggs in this clear egg holder at all times because I use them for so many different recipes each week. On the bottom shelf I keep this fridge bin because it's easy to pull it out and see everything displayed rather than things getting lost on the back of the shelf or really having to reach back there to find things at all. 

In my bottom left drawer I keep all my meat which usually consists of organic chicken breasts and ground turkey. I have also been loving Trader Joe's pre-cooked turkey sausage lately and usually throw a little bit of that in with some quinoa pasta and pesto sauce. You can find all of my Trader Joe's favorites in the highlights section of my Instagram profile. WARNING: These delicious foods are soooo ADDICTING! Then as you can see, In my bottom right drawer I keep my extra drink cans and bottles of water.

Thanks for reading!

Please comment on this post and let me know if you would be interested in seeing me share some of my favorite quick & easy recipes that I use daily!