Can Medifast meals be premade?

Sometimes I hear from people who are trying to make sure that the Medifast diet is as convenient as it sounds. A big draw to this diet is that you don’t have to do much preparation or cooking. So people want to make sure they can take small liberties to make the small amount of prep work that is needed as convenient as possible.

I recently heard from someone who said “is it possible to prep your Medifast meals ahead of time, especially your lean and green food? I don’t have a lot of time during the day to prep meals, especially at work. But if I could prep a lot of my meals in the morning or even the night before would be much better. And if I could pre-make the lean, green meals, preferably in a crock pot, this would help me a lot. Is this even allowed?”

This wannabe dieter was pleased to learn that you can absolutely prepare Medifast meals ahead of time, though many of them require no preparation at all. For example, he doesn’t need to do anything with bars, ready-to-drink shakes, and chips. I prepare many of my meals in advance. I’m not really a morning person, so I don’t want to face the day worrying about putting everything together. You can very easily prepare eggs, brownies, pancakes, pudding, fruit drinks and soft serve ice cream in advance. You can simply put them in Tupperware to keep them fresh. You can also make the soup and chili ahead of time and put it in a thermos. Sometimes I will do this. But, since you really only need hot water for soups and chili, sometimes I just use hot water from the water cooler at my work for those items.

As for the lean and green food, you can make it ahead of time if you want or need to. And you can certainly use a crock pot or anything that makes it easier or more convenient. (I like to use a small countertop convection oven for my lean and green meals because it quickly drains fat from meats and roasts vegetables. You can cook all the foods together in less than 15 minutes.

If it helps to think of it this way, the lean green meal is really just 3 to 5 ounces of lean protein and three servings of vegetables. There are many foods that will meet this requirement. There is no requirement that the food not be prepared in advance or even frozen. I know people who use carefully selected frozen dinners or even takeout or restaurant meals, as long as they keep the ingredients and content in mind. Make this easy for yourself. The diet is designed to be flexible and convenient. If preparing food ahead of time helps you with this, it is my opinion that you should feel free to do so.