Night Shift

Question

Hey guys! I need some advice as a night shift nurse. I know many of y’all work the graveyard shift and I work from 7pm-7am. And I get hungry at midnight and after usually. How can I keep the calories low so it doesn’t add up too much as I go home and have my regular 3 meals? Do they count for the previous day? Does anyone have experience with this and have lost weight? Thank you so much!

jerier · Answer

Both prior comments are very helpful.

I’ll add that I would treat midnight as my mid day meal which is also my largest meal.  “Breakfast” is my lightest meal so it would be eaten on my first break. “Dinner” is also a light meal which I’d have on my last break.

This is how I currently eat on my work days.  I’ve been having success using this schedule with clean Keto and intermittent fasting.

AnnPT77 · Answer

To Yirara's good comments, I'd add this:  It's fine to manage your calorie intake as a daily average across a week, i.e., higher some days and under by a similar amount on others.  Our bodies don't reset at midnight, even though MFP does.

Therefore, it doesn't matter which day you record food on, just record it where most convenient and helpful for you.

In the MFP phone/tablet app, you can use the Nutrition sub-menu, Calories tab, and set it to a weekly view to see your average daily calories.

yirara · Answer

How would you eat if you were to work 7am to 7pm? Any different? Do you have breakfast beforehand and don't eat during working hours (ugh, I know I could not)?

How you divide your calories across the day is totally up to you. You can also start counting at 15:00 and end counting at 14:59 the next day if you like. I think it's possible to rename the different breakfast, lunch, dinner headers in the diary to something that fits your schedule better. You can also add additional categories. I've added one for snacks (mostly after dinner) and sport nutrition for if I do a longer run and use gel.