Night Shift Workers

peggyb63

Hi All, I am a night shift RN. My problem is getting in all of my calories. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to eat a dinner meal in the middle of the night. It just doesn't seem right to eat a hot meal at 0200. Anyway, I have now begun eating breakfast at 1700, lunch at 0200, and dinner at 0800. Prior, I would eat dinner at 1700, snack on fruit overnight, and eat a yogurt around 0500, come home and go to bed and sleep until 1645. I am just looking for suggestions for getting enough calories in. Thanks.

Rachagnes

Hi,
I'm a night shift worker (RNLD) and have just started loggin my weight and fitness, with an aim to lose 2st!

I don;t have any issues with eating during the night (although I eat less than when I worked days) for me it's the days off, so eating on a night shift, then not knowing when to eat next.

I've decided to take a 'day' as midnight to midnight, getting in the right amount of calaories within that period........as I'm doing the 5:2 diet, the fasting days will be interesting!! :laugh:

lmckillo

I too work the night shift. I work 12 hour shifts. I get up and workout, eat supper when I am supposed to eat my supper, then when I am at work I eat light snacks through out the night, fruit, dry cereal, veggies. I will eat my last light snack a few hours before going home. I find works the best for me. Now getting enough sleep while on the night shift that is a whole other problem.

Healingnutritionsolutions

When I work nights I tend to eat lightly with multiple 100-200 calorie snacks, during the night. I try to nap or sleep until 1400-1600, then will eat supper at 1800, shift starts at 1900, snack at 2200ish, snack at 0200ish, snack at 0500ish, or somewhere there abouts... then eat a little bigger, maybe 300 cals or so before bed around 0800. Of course that depends on time, usually I can snack when charting, etc. Not obviously when involved in a code or in the LD case a delivery... Oh, and I knock off all caffeine by 2am...

Healingnutritionsolutions

Sleep debt definitely accrues after a few nights

lmckillo

I cut out caffeine by 12 am, still damn lucky to get 5 hours sleep.

ecanales52

Hi there, Long time night shift ICU RN here. Working nights and eating healthy can be a real challenge. I usually get up around 3p, have my coffee and WW English muffin , perhaps an egg or two. During the night I try to eat q4h, going for lighter fare. Cottage cheese with fruit or avocado slices, or plain yogurt with fruit or granola. For my main meal, its brown rice, veggies, and chicken or fish, or, perhaps, bean and vegetable soup/stew. If you are having trouble getting in all your calories, try snacking on some nuts/seeds/raisins/dark chocolate. Good luck, feel free to friend me, if you like.

dababydollmami

If you don't want to eat a huge hot meal in the middle of your shift you can try adding some higher calorie snacks to eat during your shift.
Dates, raisins and dried figs are high in calories.
Adding avocados or guacamole to your diet is a great way to increase your calories.
Dip your fruit in peanut butter, nutella or some other type of nut butter.
Eating nuts, seeds and trail mixes is a great way to get more proteins and calories in your diet.
Lastly you can take some crackers, lunch meat and sliced cheese with you and snack on.

mamadon

Night shift here. Twelve hour shifts 7 to 7. I am very regimented in my meals at work lol. I have breakfast at home at 5 pm. I have a piece of fruit at 9:30. At midnight I have my main meal, in my heads it's my dinner. I have a snack at 1:30 , another at 2:30 and then my lunch at 4 am. It works pretty well for me. I eat 1200 calories. Breakfast is around 250, dinner is 400, lunch is 300 with around 250 left for snacks.

robinaddison

I worked nights for years. The first thing I did was rename my meals. Instead of breakfast etc, I named them meal 1, meal 2 etc. This gets me out of the "breakfast in the morning' mentality as I always switched back to sleeping at night on my days off. I then decided that my 'day' was the period of time from when I woke up til when I went back to sleep. This means that frequently my day crosses over the calendar date but that's not a big deal. I hit the gym after work.
In terms of what to eat,I always eat a 'Breakfast' when I woke up. Regardless of whether it was 7am or 7pm, breakfast type food was what I'd have. Now that I think of it actually - I pretty much ate breakfast type foods all night too! I've always found it hard to love salad at 3 am...but oatmeal is filling, comforting and low cal at that time! Drink lots of water - it's really easy to get dehydrated on 3rd shift. I find that drinking non caffeinated herbal tea (mint is my fave) throughout the night helped a lot - something warm without the coffee jitters.
Hope that helps