Night Shift-ers

KellBell925

Is anyone else out there working night shifts and trying to eat healthy? I've been working night shifts at a hospital for about 2 years now, and have consistently been gaining weight. I've noticed most people I work with on the night shift are overweight as well. Does anyone have any tips on eathing healthy on a night shift schedule? It seems like even when I am eating healthy and excersizing, it's much harder to lose weight.

chinkybrown

I also work the nightshift...unlike other nightshifters I try not to eat heavy throughout my shift. I eat my big meal before my shift, eat a snack, and then eat breakfast when I get home. And I work 12 hour shifts... I see waaaaayyyy too many people gain wait from being on the nightshift,,,because they eat to supposedly "stay awake."

Marazene

Every two weeks Im working nights (yes im a swinger...lol). I work 7 to 7 and I usually eat a decent size meal before I go to work, have a snack between 9 and 11, eat a decent meal at 1am and then a light snack between 3 and 5. When I go home I dont eat anything and go to bed. Its been working pretty good for me and my weight loss.

baroley

I work day and night shifts about 7 nights and 6 days over a 4 week rota and I find it hard to keep track of what I eat over 24 hours especially when switching between days and nights. I have just started using myfitnesspal and i find it really useful. I cant eat a big meal just before starting a shift, so have started taking a salad, fruit and yogurt to eat during the night with a banana at about 5 am. Just recording what I eat is helping me keep it under control. The hardest thing is avoiding all the chocolates we have on the ward!

idivadi

I have been working 12hour shifts for over 20 years. I worked the DDNN(two 12hr days followed by two 12hr nites) for most of 16 years and the past 4/5 years I have worked NNNN(four 12hr nights). I did not gain my weight until peri-menopause. Not sure if it was the slower metabolism or the unhealthy choices I was making for foods. Eating to stay awake is a bad idea at any time. I am now struggling to get myself back to healthier choices for my meals and my night snacks. I do find I cannot work the twelve hour night shift without food. That would be like asking a day worker to get up and not eat throughout the day while working. I have discovered(lol) that potato chips are not a healthy food choice. It is really difficult to find any helpful information for eating healthy and doing shift work. All the articles I can find seem to be directed at the day worker or the tips do not work when applied to my work schedule. If you find any good sources of info please feel free to pass them on to me. Thanx

MaggieP86

@Baroley, snacks in the workplace are the worst!

I work the front desk of a hotel on the overnight shift and have for two years. It's rough going, thankfully i'm about to switch to days.

During my first year of working my weight went from 200 to 255 without my realizing. I thought I'd put on maybe 5-10 pounds. Since I discovered that a year ago I've lost 40 pounds. I've been bad since March and haven't lost much weight, but I also know exactly what factors are playing into that. Over my time workign nights and trying to get weight off, what has been most successful is:

Counting EVERYTHING I eat and being dead honest
Finding a support group/supportive person to talk to (aka boyfriend/mom/etc)
Working out consistently
Finding substitutes for favorites (i.e. frozen banana or frozen yoplait instead of ice cream)

The best advice I can give someone is to keep food close by that is actually GOOD for you, not just stuff that you want. I.E. Fill your fridge with grapes and carrots, instead of chocolate and chips -- then when you have the munchies the choice isn't between denying yourself or being bad, you have a healthy option

kellybones

There is an official night shift post over in the General Diet section - I'll go bump it in a second since I'm not sure if I can put links in a post or not.

That being said - I work 3 or 4 12 hour shifts in a row and I basically eat the same amount of food as on a normal day but the spacing is entire different.
Non work day = eat breakfast at 5am, lunch at 11am, snack around 1pm, dinner around 5pm and a bedtime snack around 7pm

Work days = eat breakfast around 7am, sleep until 330pm, lunch before work, snack around 8pm dinner around midnight and my final snack around 3am.

So far, I'm still losing after about 6 weeks on night - so it's working for me.

alyssa92982

its hard!! i feel hungry all the time it seems, and sometimes eat just to stay awake!!! ive been on night shift at the hospital for almost a yr and a half now. what i do is eat dinner at 9pm before i go in at 11pm, then eat light snacks at 2am then a coffee with another light snack at 5:30 am. i might eat again before bed in the morning (light snack again). then sleep till 4pm and eat something light before dinner that evening. so far so good, ive held my maintaining weight

sunraze

I work nights and I do ok. I workout just before work and eat something like a hard boiled egg or a yogurt. Then I bring all foods that make small little meals. We never actually get a break so I have to eat on the go. I bring yogurt and cut raw veggies, hard boiled eggs, baby blue bell lite little cheese thing, a salad with grilled chicken or fish, a can of soup, a banana, a lean cuisine sometimes---stuff like that. . I eat all of my calories on the shift for the day and usually stop around 4am but eat about every 2 hours--something small. The downfall is the crap people have lying around as you well know---chocolate, cake, etc but I am converting my coworkers into better eating. The other thing is while at work I log my food into MFP and that helps keep me honest and I can see my progress as well. Good Luck.

lp0007

Hi,
I work night shifts every month in a hospital too. I make sure I exercise before my first night which gives me more calories for the shift. Then my routine is this :
8:30am breakfast 300cals (ish)
Sleep all day
6pm 400 cals
8pm 400 cal dinner before shift starts
1am 400 cal second dinner :happy:
And then I don't get time to eat until I am home at 8:30am and it all starts again :yawn:
I try to get a bit of exercise in if I wake up before 6pm but I am usually too tired to do any. I just make sure I exercise on my days off.
Hope this helps a bit!

Liquid741

work swing shift 12hr days at a steel mill....when im working nights i treat it like any other day. breakfast for me would be at 9pm, dinner around 1am, and i eat around 5am for a snack....i dont eat when i go home and i dont eat when i wake up...i usually just eat when i get to work.

i think it helps that i also drink around 5gal. of water every night due to the temp in the mill being around 135.

UTDodger

I work night shift as well. I find it difficult to find a good balance in what to eat and when. All these suggestions have been great and I would appreciate any others that anyone has, as to help me with this

Lecypage

I work nights (2300 - 0700) at the blood bank and I go from nights where I'm super hungry and then other days I only eat like 400 calories a day because I'm absolutely not hungry.

I do the same as most people have already said and have a big meal before work but I find the hardest thing is to fit my eating in around the day shifters in my life. Ie I'll get home from work and not be hungry but that is my boyfriend's breakfast time and he'll insist I eat something. I think the best way is to just eat when your body is hungry and not worry about when other people are eating. I have some trail mix nut type stuff that I snack on at work.

I also found that a lot of my eating was boredom based. I don't know if your job is hectic or not but when I'm sitting by myself at work bored I tend to want to eat but I'm not actually hungry. This is when I end up eating all the night shift junk food lol. I found that if I make a big glass of ice and water and munch on the ice it gives me something to 'eat' per se. Maybe I am just orally fixated hehe. I'm not advocating eating ice instead of food haha but it helps me not boredom eat.

neenaj33

I take a light snack to work with me but mostly focus on drinking water oh and coffee!