awake 24 hours

vikilynndunn76

So im a night nurse and im up 24 hours on some days. Lets face it im still going to eat. Im going over on calories on these days. What to do!?

TimothyFish

Eat at the same frequency, but choose foods with fewer calories.

Showcase_Brodown

You could go over on some days and under on the others. I prefer to look at my weekly total to have a bigger picture of where I am at.

mymodernbabylon

Think about your calories as a weekly thing versus a single day thing.

SueInAz

If you're awake and moving around during the hours you would normally be sleeping you're also burning more calories. Of course, wouldn't you then be sleeping more hours of the next day since you were up the entire day previous? If so, by extension you'd be eating less calories on those days so it should all even out.

Why don't you try just looking at calories on a weekly basis rather than daily? There's no magic "reset" button at midnight so there's no real reason for calorie counts to all reset at that point.

Laurend224

Look at your weekly calorie goal, and stay within that, so you can go over some days when your doing a 12 hr shift and eat less on days off, or your sleep days.

PS. I'm also a night shift nurse taking a few year break to raise my babies. I am so going to miss my sleep when I go back to work.

vikilynndunn76

Good point on the weekly. Didnt think of that thanks! And no I dont sleep more the next day, if I do i get my sleep really screwed up. Lol

SueInAz

vikilynndunn76 wrote: »

Good point on the weekly. Didnt think of that thanks! And no I dont sleep more the next day, if I do i get my sleep really screwed up. Lol

If you're one who's bothered by being "in the red", you can create diary entries with negative calories for your carryover from one day to the next. On a day where you eat more because you were up longer, you can enter negative calories on both that day and the next day so you'll know where you stand. You'll know if you're running into trouble near the end of the week if the negative calorie amounts start to get too large. You can decide how to handle it at that point; either eating less or working out more.

Soon2BeMrsSherriff

What about trying to do more vegetables and and lean protein on those days? You can eat more of those type of items to feel full, but stay in your calorie goal.