Shift work - keeping up weight loss while dog-tired

djfldjfl

Hi all.

I'm doing pretty well with weight loss. Not as well as I could be doing, but I'm certainly losing weight. Discipline/not eating bad food and portion control are my 2 biggest challenges. I'm getting more discplined with these and am doing really well.

I do shift work that includes midnight shifts. These shifts affect me more than they affect other people...I say this objectively after conversations with coworkers and after studying shift work/workers. I'm essentially a zombie for the rest of the day, even after sleep. Generally, a day after a midnight shift is a lay-on-the-couch day. The problem I'm having is I find it nigh impossible to be disciplined after a midnight shift. I am hungry and want to eat larger portions of generally worse food. I'm not really able to exercise either, which could make up for the extra calories I want to eat. Any ideas for keeping under my calories when I'm too tired to even want to want to? I realize this is in large part a discipline problem, but I'm having problem with discipline here.

Thanks all.

jwdieter

Maybe try planning your meals ahead of time, so that you aren't making eating decisions when mentally incapacitated.

Also, fresh fruit and vegetables provide food volume and good nutrition with generally lower calories.

QuilterInVA

Also exercise gives you energy. If you are laying on the couch all day, you aren't burning much for calories. As the previous poster said, plan your meals ahead of time, schedule some exercise (doesn't have to be a big block of time, can be as little as 10 minutes several times a day.

AmiAlcocer

I made peace with the fact that I need to do things super easy. Automate the weight loss, if you will. Why? Because when things get tough I resort to the easiest option. If the easiest option happens to be bad or good depends on me.

What I do is either portion things out ahead of time or buy things that are pre-portioned. Sliced cheeses, meat that's pre-portioned & cooked/takes little to cook (burgers, chicken thigh that's prepped, sausages, meatballs, etc). I also use canned/frozen veg.

Fresh veg has to be prepped for me. I buy broccoli & cauliflower already cut up, bagged salads, etc. Sometimes I feel like I have extra energy I want to spend cooking, so I'll get the regular versions of these and cut it up myself. Honestly though, between work and 2 young kids, I prioritize relaxation.

I also batch cook. So I will cook up a bunch of chicken, some turkey burgers, etc for the next few days. Pack those away in the fridge and the longest part of cooking is taken care of at once, with minimal extra time added on, and only during one day.

For snacks, I weigh out my nuts and put them in baggies along with a square of dark chocolate. This way when I feel 'snacky' I just grab a bag.

This means that for meals, all I have to do is warm up the meat, steam the veg if it's raw (I put what I want in a bowl, put cling wrap on top & poke a few holes, then microwave for a few minutes until desired doneness) or toss some salad in a bowl, grab a slice of cheese, if I want, and go. Aka, food, for me, takes 10min max to make.

Some of it is repetitive, but I'm okay with that. Chicken can be made different depending on the spices, and since I like cheesy broccoli, all I have to do is switch out the cheese I put on it to make it a different dish, for example. Simple can still be yummy and not boring.

Easiest option means I can just set myself to autopilot and go. This way, on weeks when I'm not particularly motivated, I will still lose, just not as much as I would if I were 'on point'.

djfldjfl

This is great advice. Thanks a lot. I'm going to premake food in my fridge, and label the container with the appropriate amount of calories. Then I can just grab and flop. Cheers all.