Shift worker advice

nursing_hopeful

I'm sure this has been asked many times, as I'm sure it's quite common for many people.

When you work night shift, do people use there daily calories up to midnight and then start there new allowance day beyond midnight? Or do you spread you're calories out until you go to sleep the following morning and start afresh on waking?

StaciMarie1974

Whatever is easiest for you - as long as you're consistent.

Kalikel

I count my stuff from Wake-up to Sleep, regardless of the times. Breakfast and lunch are still breakfast and lunch, even if they come at 9:30 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.

MFP will flip to the next day at midnight, of course, so you have to hit the arrow to go back to the day...but if you're working night shift, you should be accustomed to doing your one day while the rest of the world does two.

daynerz

as long as its within a day (24hours) that you take in the calories, then reset, the next 24 hrs

daynerz

yeah you can start midnight, its a new day, or 24hrs from when you last ate, or if midnight your still mid day (counting)... so say u had dinner at 6pm, ect

vismal

Kalikel wrote: »

I count my stuff from Wake-up to Sleep, regardless of the times. Breakfast and lunch are still breakfast and lunch, even if they come at 9:30 p.m. and 3:00 a.m.

MFP will flip to the next day at midnight, of course, so you have to hit the arrow to go back to the day...but if you're working night shift, you should be accustomed to doing your one day while the rest of the world does two.

This is what I do as well. A day for me is when I get up until when I go to bed. You can do it any way you want though. Fortunately the body doesn't "reset" at midnight so your calories don't need to either.

cameramanbj

I break my meals down into 6 hour periods instead of meals and snacks. Seems to work better for me, this allows me to see what times i am snacking the most and when on a normal schedule on the weekend

bren3jet

I start my allowance at midnight. So I actually finish my one day about 11:30 pm. Then my first meal of the next day is a couple hours later at 1:30am.

lacroyx

I log midnight to midnight

cincysweetheart

I work a graveyard shift too and I just log midnight to midnight. It helps keep everything straight for me.

boredfatman

Not much advice for you, but just wanted to say I'm a shift worker too and know how difficult it is to balance this weight loss lark with the awful hours we have to keep sometimes.

Fyi, I count from midnight to midnight...helps to keep some sort of normality to it!

Nicolee_2014

I used to just write the week off, as in. I didn't stress too much about counting the calories. It was too hard for me. Some days I was hungry, other days I wasn't. So some days I barely eat anything which made up for the other days if I ate a little more.

muffinsquee

I log for the hours that I'm awake. So for example, I wake up on a Friday - I'll log everything on that Friday even though I may have eaten a meal on the following Saturday. It works out fine for me.

SergeantSausage

How could it possibly matter one way or the other? 24 hours is 24 hours, no matter when you start the clock, right?

CaffeinatedConfectionist

I don't work night or split shifts anymore, but when I did I also would log from waking up until going to bed, regardless of the time of day. If the whole "breakfast, lunch, dinner" meal breakdown that MFP defaults to doesn't do it for you, you can change the names of your meals to match your actual schedule under "settings."