Meal planning advice for overnight shifts?

mollymarie0801

Hey there!
I'm curious as to how those of you who work 3rd shift or have jobs where you might stay awake for 24 hours at a time plan your meals without going crazy?
I'm a student and also work overnights or late nights 2-3 times per week and man, do I get hungry! I always am craving high calorie food by the end of my shift, but it messes with my nutrition and goal calories badly.
I try to bring healthy snacks to work to avoid eating poorly, but I'm not sure how often I should be eating or how to balance my meals throughout the day so that having snacks at work doesn't throw me off.
Also, do I need to be eating more calories because I'm sleeping less?
Any advice or knowledge is appreciated!

OyGeeBiv

I've never been one to relegate "breakfast food" to morning and "dinner food" to evening. If you're like that too, then possibly change your MFP meals from Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner to 2 hour increments (or 3 or 4, whatever works for you). If you know your daily calorie goal, then it doesn't matter what time you eat those calories as long as you don't go over. Try not to think about the time you get up as the start of your eating day, just use midnight to midnight. It'll take a little while, but eventually it'll all even out.

Eating more calories shouldn't be tied to how much you sleep, although it could be tied to how much you move when you're awake. Are you tracking your sleep, calories, steps and exercise?

rejectuf

Sleeping less does not mean eating more calories. If anything, it means you would eat less. Less sleep could cause your metabolic rate to decrease a bit.

Meal/snack frequency is entirely up to personal preference.

Your situation is definitely not ideal, but you need to keep the focus on maintaining your calorie goal.

tomatoey

Sleep deprivation does increase hunger, and sleep deprived people do tend to eat more than they strictly need - which in contrast to what poster above says, is *increased* by lack of sleep - you are moving etc. for an additional 8 hours.

Do you have a fitbit or similar device? If so, maybe figure out how much extra you're burning and add that amount of calories on those days.

(I sometimes stay up ~24 hours - I would NOT be able to make it through in any comfort without an additional meal.)

If you want to knock off some calories, maybe do an extra cardio workout or two during the week (if you don't want to cut calories on other days).

http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/502825

this was interesting:

"Thus, less than 1 week of sleep restriction can result in a prediabetic state in young, healthy subjects. Of note, the adverse impact of sleep deprivation on glucose tolerance demonstrated in laboratory studies is consistent with the finding of an increased risk of symptomatic diabetes with short sleep in a cohort study of women.[14]"

If that's the case, a lower carb diet might help, at least around those days.

mollymarie0801

Wow, all very helpful! Thank you all so much. I track calories and exercise, but I don't track my steps or sleep. I've been looking into getting a fitbit or something similar, and I will start changing my meal plan on the days when I expect to stay up later- great suggestion 64crayons.
And yes, I'm an emergency vet tech, so I'm very active when I'm awake at night. I usually don't add extra calories from work to MFP so my calories on those days have been no different than any other day if I didn't work out, but I think having a fitbit would help me keep better track of that. I don't want to decrease my metabolism further.
Thanks for the great article tomatoey! I love being able to see the science for myself, being medically minded, and I will put that knowledge to good use.
I'm hoping lots of small steps in the right direction will add up to the body I want in the long term!