One preparation to finish in the morning for those whose dinner is past 9 PM due to picking up children from cram school
At 6 PM on weekdays, I take the car out to pick up my child from cram school. In the few minutes before they come out of the classroom, I realize I haven't had dinner yet. In the past, I would just eat out or stop by a convenience store.
Days of choosing the Matsuya Uma-Toma Hamburg steak set meal continued, and I wouldn't finish eating until after 9 PM. The stomach discomfort and weight gain wouldn't stop. The cause wasn't a lack of willpower, but a lifestyle structure where I couldn't decide my own meal times.
If you also have to pick up children from cram school, I think you understand the pain of reaching the evening without being able to decide what to eat on the way home.
In the car while waiting for pickup, my child says, 'Today's class was tiring.' While nodding along, I'm only thinking about my own hunger in the corner of my mind. There were more than three days a week like that.
The reason dinner gets pushed to 9 PM
Cram school pickups are unpredictable. Some days class runs late, and some days it ends early. That's why it's hard to plan dinner in advance.
Two years ago, the year my younger child started going to cram school, I put off all dinner decisions until after the pickup. While waiting for my child in front of the classroom, I would start thinking about what to eat that day. I had no energy left to make decisions.
Honestly, there are days when I don't want to decide anything by that time. Decision fatigue is a real thing, isn't it?
At first, I thought it would be fine if I chose by looking at the calorie count. But when I actually tried it, no matter what I chose at 9 PM, the portions felt too large, and I ended up overeating. So now, I've changed my method to deciding the time before the content.
In the end, there were many days I stopped by the nearest Matsuya. The Uma-Toma Hamburg steak set meal is 830 yen with 28.5g of protein, so the nutritional balance isn't bad.
The problem was time. When I finished eating after 9 PM, bedtime would approach without the food being digested. I suffered from morning stomach heaviness and a gradual increase in weight.
Even changing the content of my meals out did not reverse the decline.
The cause was not the content, but the time.
When I broke down this problem, I realized the cause was not 'what to eat' but 'when to eat.' As long as I didn't change the time I ate from 9 PM, I would keep repeating the same thing. So, I decided to create a system to move the dinner time back.
Dividing the options after pickup into three
Dinner after pickup can be broadly divided into three categories: eating out, buying at a convenience store, or preparing it in advance. I lined these three up and checked which one was easiest for me to choose.
For eating out, there are places like Matsuya or Sukiya nearby, which are fast. However, after 9 PM, the portions felt heavy, and I often ended up overeating.
I also tried meal delivery once. I ordered nosh for three weeks, but there were few menus that suited my child's preferences, so it didn't last.
What remained was the method of preparing it the day before or in the morning. This is what I finally settled on.
If dinner is already decided before I go to pick them up, I can eat at 9 PM without having to make any decisions. The reason is simple.
I stopped choosing between Matsuya or a convenience store altogether. The reason I started this preparation was that I wanted to eliminate decision fatigue.
Re-evaluating three options every single time is the most exhausting part. So, I decided to set the order in advance: basically preparing meals on weekdays, and only choosing Matsuya on days when the pickup finishes early.
Before I go to pick them up, dinner is already decided.
The order of preparation that can be done in the morning and the day before
I simply changed the order of preparation to a morning routine. In the morning, I put the ingredients and seasonings into a pot and bring it to a boil. After that, I just turn off the heat and put the whole pot into a thermal cooker.
I often choose ingredients that absorb flavor the more they are simmered, such as chicken thighs, sweet potatoes, and daikon radish. Since it's just a matter of cutting them and putting them in the pot, 10 minutes in the morning is more than enough.
On weekday mornings, the time I can stand in front of the stove is limited. I looked for a cooker that finishes cooking using only heat retention without needing a flame, and I ended up with the Thermos Vacuum Insulated Thermal Cooker Shuttle Chef 2.8L.
In the morning, once I put the ingredients in the pot and bring it to a boil, I just leave it in the thermal cooker. The preparation takes less than 20 minutes, and for around 9,000 yen, it has completely changed my weekday evenings.
It has now become a weekday staple for me. If I leave it for about 4 hours after turning off the heat, both root vegetable stews and chicken stews turn out tender.
I made sure not to skip dinner. Regardless of whether I had prepared anything, I created a system that allowed me to avoid skipping it. In other words, this was a way to shift how I approached dinner from focusing on the 'content' to focusing on the 'time'.
To see if you can keep it up, just check if you can manage to prepare something for at least 3 out of the 5 weekdays.
For dinner, prepare it before you have to make any decisions.
If you are going to do it today
If you are going to do it today, start by deciding just one thing. Decide what you will prepare for dinner on the day you have cram school, either the night before or during the morning.
The only two things you need to decide at first are the day you will prepare it and the ingredients. Do not try to change three or four things at once.
Next, fix the location where you store the prepared dinner. If you decide to place it in the same spot in the refrigerator, all you have to do is open the fridge and look inside after you get back from picking up your child. By creating a flow where you always put it in the same place, you can take it out without hesitation.
When storing the prepared portions, having containers that can be heated directly in the microwave will further reduce the effort required after you return.
Since you can put the container directly into the microwave, it saves you one dish to wash. It also allows you to save stews you have prepared in advance without breaking them up, and you can even carry them over to the next day.
By deciding that green containers are for the children and clear containers are for yourself, you will no longer mix them up.
About a month after I started this preparation, I noticed that stepping on the scale wasn't as scary as it used to be. It's not that the numbers stopped moving, but at least the feeling that they would keep increasing has stopped. Just that alone has made me feel lighter about the pickup time.
Write down the time and content of your dinner in a notebook for tracking. Just doing that makes it clear which days of the week you are prone to slipping up.
If you're going to order something today, one Shuttle Chef is enough. For around 9,000 yen, you can eliminate one decision you have to make on weekday nights.
If you have concerns about your health or if you experience rapid changes in weight, please consult a medical institution or a professional.
Just by reducing the number of times I stop by Matsuya, I feel like I've gotten a bit of my evening time back. Honestly, it's a huge help.
As I continued the same preparation, the number of times I stopped by Matsuya dropped to once or twice a month. I want to continue finishing dinner preparations in the morning on days I have to do pickups.
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