how to eat during loooong days?

ashesfromfire

The longer my days are, the harder I find it is to stay within my calorie goals - and balancing work and school can equal some long days. For instance, tomorrow I work at 5am - 2pm, then head to class until 5pm, and then have homework, reading, general chores, yadda yadda, all in all, I'll wake p about 3:45am, and get to bed around midnight - resulting in an over 20 hour day and a whole lot of super hungry me. I bike to commute, and work on my feet so I'm fairly active. I also have found that I'm happier, feel better, and am more focused and productive if I eat before leaving in the morning, so breakfast comes early sometimes. How do y'all get through long days with a calorie goal? What do you eat and how often?

ejb060793

Are you my twin ??? My schedule for September is all over the place! Tomorrow I have to be up by 7AM to shower, eat breakfast, and get ready for work. I drive to work, which takes me about an hour one way. I have to start work at 8:45 (9, but boss wants 15 minutes early) and I won't get out until 6PM, which normally means 8PM. When I get home, I have a paper due, which I'm working on today. I also need to squeeze in at least 30 minutes of exercise. Wednesday, I'm working 11PM to 7AM.

What I do is start in the morning (I'm counting morning as about an hour after I wake up) with a multivitamin and either a bowl of oatmeal or a SlimFast. For lunch (what, I get 30 minutes, but I rarely take that long, so I usually have a SlimFast or something quick like a large salad or high density/volume low calorie foods.

Some examples are:

• spinach
• lettuce
• [apples
• strawberries
• grapes
• blueberries
• watermelon
• popcorn
• toast with peanut butter
• bran flakes
• chicken breast
• turkey
• eggs
• soup

http://biggestloserresort.com/high-volume-low-calorie-foods/

shadowfax_c11

You really need to do something about this schedule. Being massively sleep deprived will contribute to your hunger.

ashesfromfire

Hey, to clarify, this is my schedule about half of the time, I aim to get a minimum 6 hours of sleep a day, more if I can swing it, so my life is kinda like Compressed day, long day, compressed day, long day, on and on. The shorter days are no problem for me to eat within my means, but the long days are a struggle. Thanks all for caring about my general well being!

KateTii

I feel you! I have one job where I can start as early as 4am and another where I can finish as late as 1am.

On the long days, maybe aim for maintenance or only a little bit under. Even if it's just so you can fit one extra meal in.

Francl27

Oh wow I'm sorry. A long day for me is waking up at 5am and having breakfast at 6am and it's already torture.

For me the key those days is a lot of veggies and fruit and eating when I'm hungry. And avoid sugar as much as possible or it makes the hunger and carb cravings worse. This morning I was up starving at 5.30am and I had eaten over half my calories at 9am, but somehow I was able to stick to my goal anyway, but some days I don't get hungry for 2-3 hours and it makes the day much easier. So my advice is to wait until you're actually hungry and have something then...

I'd skip the chores on those days though and focus on getting as much as possible done when you have lighter days.