Meal timing

dolcebellaluna

I work Monday-Friday, 11-7 as a registered nurse. I have trouble with documenting my meals and feel like I eat too much, but I really only do eat when I'm hungry. Here's how I have my diary set up in MFP:

1.) Night meal
2.) Night snacks
3.) Before bed meal/snack
4.) Afternoon snack
5.) Evening meal

I'm pretty sure the snacks are where I could stand to lose calories but maybe I just need to better plan or adjust my meal times. For my night meal, I usually have a Healthy Choice dinner, diet soda and either yogurt or a chocolate thing of sorts (right now I have a thing for Moose Munch Bites). While I'm doing my rounds, I've got a 16 oz. tumbler of coffee with creamer. Sometimes but not always, I have a snack too (pretzel bites but I'm thinking I could sub a veggie in there, like carrots or sugar snap peas). Before I go to bed, I'll either have a yogurt or cereal and milk. When I wake up in the afternoon, I usually have some popcorn. Dinner is up in the air most of the time but I try to keep it under 500-600 calories.

I think the problem is that I'm really only getting two full meals consistently. Sometimes I just have a yogurt before bed but I'm usually really hungry when I get home at 8 am! I eat dinner (evening meal) anywhere between 5-8 pm and I eat my meal at work around 3 or 4 am.

What do you guys do?
How do you time your meals?
Do you eat before you go to bed?
Do you eat when you wake up?
When do you eat your meal at work?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

MpotRN21

I work 7p-7a three days a week and they're random so its difficult. I didnt change anything with mfp, i just basically do it whatever my #1, 2, 3 meals are and snacks. So today was my first night on so I ate breakfast when I woke up around 830am. I slept 12-4 so then I ate my lunch (my family's dinner) at 530. I snacked a few times at work 10-12 (canteloupe and a salad). I'm having my dinner now (330ish which is a little late, but I normally do it anywhere 2-4). I always snack on the drive home because I'm tired. It's key for me to have something good to choice because I will definately go to a drive thru otherwise. I also snack right before bed but I'm trying to stop that. Its weird for me because sometimes my drive home snack will be logged in as a different day (the actual day it is, not the day I started when I went to work), but since I'm sleeping the entire day when I get home it all comes out in the wash. Hope that helped!

MelissaDoc

I am currently working Fri and Sat 9pm-7am, but was working more during the summer.

I have my diary set up in time intervals instead of meals, so that when I am working or going to school, I know when I ate something. For me, this has helped me, because then it does not matter, it I am eating a snack, or to decide if I am eating "breakfast". I also know if I have gone too long with out eating.

As for timing during my overnights, I try to eat a big(ger) meal right before I start my shift, recently it has been a big salad, then some kind of a protein bar on my break at 1 am, another snack/fruit type deal around 4/5am and then breakfast before I leave for home around 7:30am. I usually try to hit the gym before I go home so my "lunch" is usually logged during the 8:00-12:00 time slot.

Hope this helps, and feel free to friend me

MpotRN21

I LOVE the idea of having your meals labeled in times. That is such a great plan!

BeanQueen3000

I've recently re-joined MFP after a long absence, but i've been working nights as a baker for the last eight years. One thing i've noticed is that my weekends tend to throw my schedule off the worst-- my diary for monday is a pretty prime example of this. I'm sure most 'normal' people spend their weekends catching up on housework and the like, but i almost always wind up staying up 24+ hrs on my first "weekend" day, just because it's daylight and it's easy to justify keep working at whatever instead of keeping the same schedule i've been on every weekday for the last eight years. So i wind up eating all day too... madness.

You're more than welcome to check out my diary to see how i've got things set up.

ETA: I sound whiny and i shouldn't; I'm deeply fortunate to have had a job for this long that's kept me at 40 hr/week, with standard weekends. I don't know how people on swing shifts ever manage to keep their heads or lives in order and i'm just blow away that people can really pull that off.

Lone_Feather

I work 7p-7a and this exact issue has been such a struggle for me. The first night im on is the hardest. I have a very hard time napping so I end up eating through out the entire day, then got to work (am tired so my body craves carbs) and I end up eating all night at work. I also had a hard time knowing what day to keep my food in. Im thinking Im no going to change any of the number of meals per day. so..
an average night shift
Breakfast 5pm
Snack
Lunch 10pm
Dinner 3 am

1QtwithaQ

This question is what bought me to this group...Today is the first day I am trying the following schedule (I work 1130p-8a):

10:30p - Green Tea
1am - Breakfast (yogurt)
4am - Dinner (broccoli, green beans and cabbage)
7am - Carrots

If I get hungry in between I have fruit salad (watermelon, cantaloupe and apple). Banana and a orange. Healthier choices than what I have been eating lol Soda, chips and candy bars lol

So I will update everyone regarding my morning tomorrow so that you can see if this works for you. I plan on eating one of the snacks that I listed above either before I go to sleep or after I ATTEMPT to go to the gym when I get off!!

kwiatrtdy

Generally I alternate between 2 weeks on days and 2 weeks on nights, but I find it easier to keep on top of my eating when I'm on nights. I tend to eat out of habit when I'm on days but because there's no normal mealtimes on night I only really eat when I'm hungry. I do 9pm- 6am so I'll have some sort of breakfast at 7pm, today I'm having salad with cous cous and quorn to fill me up. Then I generally have a feta and pepper wrap at midnight and then a snack again at 3am such as Rumblers oat clusters with yoghurt. I might have a naughty chocolate bar at some point too XD. Then if I'm not hungry I'll just go home and go to bed at 8am but if I am hungry I tend to slip up at this point. I'm not a great cook and I can never be bothered when I've finished work so I tend to pick something up. Before I started this diet it would be a pizza or Danish pastry box. Now I'm going to look at finding something else like a quorn cottage pie or something like that. I could quickly microwave some frozen veggies to go with it maybe.

trivard676

I start work at 6PM, but I generally don't have time (or the desire, really) to eat anything until around 9 or 10PM. Sometimes I get as late as 12PM without having eaten anything. I can always tell when I need to because I start feeling tired or in extreme cases, feeling stupid. It's at that point that I know that I've gone too long without eating and need to rectify the issue.

Because I'm in a car for a good part of my shift, it's easy to forget that 'hey, I gotta eat!' and I think that's true for a lot of times that you're not in a typical office environment. I'll eat something else at around 4:30-5:00, then at around 7AM and then off to bed for 8.

kikstand

This group is SO me! It's reassuring to read all of your posts in most of these threads after so many years of dealing with an unbalanced schedule. My first real job had me living out of a seabag and pulling guard duty or driving at odd hours because some high-ranking officer wanted his aircraft defueled in the middle of the night so it could be serviced. My second job had me driving all over Florida with hazardous chemicals in an 80,000 pound desk on a 15 hour dispatch. After going long haul for the same company, I found it much more satisfying to drive at night when I had the choice. And now on my present job I work on 12 hour swing shifts. I've NEVER had a good eating routine.

I do like the timed meals mentioned before during nightshift. Although that wouldn't always work for me because I run a reactor and they wait for no man. When it's time to heat or cool, that's what it better do! It's frustrating at times when something as important as a head call has to be delayed for a sample prep, much less a hunger episode. I have an assistant that is doing other jobs that could be put aside so that he could cover me but I have never felt right about doing that.

On a side note, I have a coworker that was always bringing in cottage cheese and I've never been a big fan of it, but he suggested mixing yogurt and fruit with it. Wham! At 0300 in the morning it's like having a big bowl of ice cream! Hahaha!
I have skipped a step and started buying the yogurt with fruit already in it and it works just as well.

I've also just in the past couple weeks started splitting up my lunch into two or three separate smaller meals when time permits and that seems to be better. Wow, after 35 years I'm finally getting that! I used to see guys eating what seemed to be all night and wondered why they weren't the size of a small ship, but they were probably doing exactly what I'm finally doing now.

mommy_witcurls

Thanks all for the awesome TIPS! Think I will try the scheduled times for my meals. Also, I'm thinking on the days I work (Mon-Wed; 18:45-07:15) my first meal will be on counted as a new day when I wake up for my shift. With the exception of Mondays that day is always hard because it my first day back so I average maybe 4 hours sleep and seem to go over my calories that day- this is the day the schedule will really come in handy.

arainiday1

i work shift work.... 5:30pm - 5:30am .... about 14-15 days a month.. the days i work, the first meal i eat at home is "breakfast" even though its usually 2 or 3 in the afternoon. then i eat dinner with my family when i go on my lunch break at 9pm so i log that as my dinner usually. then i usually get hungry again by 1am so i eat something else, usually a sandwich and fruit or soup and vegetables and thats my snack. or lunch. whatever strikes my fancy. i don't think it really matters lol

the days im off i pretty much do it the same way. i tend to really only eat two meals a day and snacks

oh and my day goes from when i wake up to when i go to bed. new day is when i wake up.

Ryan_Case

My diary is open, people are welcome to look and comment. I work 1900-0730, usually seven days in a nine day stretch with four to seven off after. I have my meals in MFP by times, midnight, 0400, 0800, noon, 1700 and snacks.

When I am working it is hit and miss whether I eat at 0800 when I get home from work. I sleep through noon, and get up and go to the gym before the 1700 meal. Depending on where I am for calories for the day I may have two scoops of whey protien in coffee as a snack when I sit down to chart. I start all of my calories over at midnight every night and log my large meal, usually left overs of some sort from the 1700 meal with my family there. I bring some sort of snack with me to work and if I am hungry eat it near 0400 and log it there. (usually a cup of fage total zero with flax seed and a little honey).

When I am off work I usually eat something in the morning at 0800, but it tends to be smaller as I don't have a regular breakfast appetite. I may or may not eat "lunch" at noon. I have the 1700 meal with family, and then I eat at midnight after returning from the gym. Where I get into trouble is snacking when I am home from work and awake in front of the television while the family is asleep.

Kayray45

I'm so glad I found this group. I work 10p - 6:30am Tues thru Sat nights. I have struggled trying to figure out how to eat my meals...when to eat them and what to eat at what time. I LOVE the idea of putting in times instead of breakfast, lunch, etc. Right now, I usually eat a small snack before I leave for work to tide me over til meal time. My job provides free meals, however, they aren't always the healthiest and I'm TIRED of salads. So I started making bento box lunches. This seems to work, so far. I usually eat a meal/bento around 12:30 or 1am. I might eat a small snack between 3 and 4 am. Then I eat some sort of protein...scrambled or hard boiled eggs and a banana before I go to bed in the mornings. I am working on the clean eating plan but I do have a small amount of creamer in my coffee. My one cheat of choice. I am so looking forward to hearing more ideas from all of you.