Looking for support with losing weight with an inconsistent worklife

emeraldvssilver

Just wanted to put this out there for anyone in the same situation as me. I'm gonna share my worklife, feel free to share your own experiences and offer up some good advice!

So, I work in a kitchen of a successful pub chain in England (Wetherspoons). The food there is typical high calorie, fast food/pub food type stuff (fish and chips, curries, burgers, hot dogs, steaks etc). Benefits = 50% off all food while on shift. Negatives = most of it is incredibly high calorie food.

My first problem - weeding out the healthy from the unhealthy.

My second problem - my shifts.

My work day spans from 7:30am to 12:30am with the length of my shifts being anywhere between 3 hours and 10 hours. For example, today I worked 3pm-10pm, my next shift is 12:30pm-10pm, after that it's 9am-3:30pm. So very inconsistent and very disruptive to routine. For example, today I had my dinner at midnight (Rump steak and rice) and my breakfast at 2pm.

So ... to sum it all up. I'm finding it hard to eat good stuff while surrounded by unhealthy but irresistible food and finding it impossible to settle into a decent routine.

Feel free to share experiences and advice!!

KTen6

I don't know how much help I will be but if you'd like to add me as a friend I will do my best to motivate and support you. I'm stateside (Florida) and I previously worked in fast food so I know how hard it is to work out and eat healthy when your hours don't make any sense.

I worked an overnight shift (ranging anywhere from 2 or 3p all the way up to 7 or 8 in the morning) so my days were completely backwards and occasionally (to switch people out and give them a break) I would work a mid shift (so a standard 9a-5p).

My first piece of advice would be don't worry too much about what TIME the meal occurs (breakfast at 2pm is totally cool lol). The biggest thing that helped me was not eating as much and eating better. I don't know about your job but I worked at a McD's and no outside food was allowed so we had to make due with what we had.

I don't know about you but I felt like I was ALWAYS hungry (because it seemed like I was ALWAYS awake) so I started making cutbacks and changing how I ate. Doing vegan/vegetarian meals a few times a week, making smaller meals (I'd make my meal like normal and pack away half and eat it later if I felt like it) and I always carried water. I made it a rule to NEVER drink anything except water at work (some nights I'd get through 6 or 7 Cokes).

And since exercising wasn't a main priority to me (sleeping was hahahaha) I started doing high intensity workouts (like plyometrics) and strength training and worked out for 30 minutes at LEAST every other day (every day is fine if you want but I'll be honest most weeks it was a push just to do every other day so don't be too hard on yourself) rather than the longer cardio based stuff I was used to.

Sorry this was so long but hope it helped.

laurieagain09

My schedule switches between days and nights. I think it definitely makes fitness more challenging. Feel free to add me.