Night shift, how are you tracking your food?

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Doesntplaynice82
Doesntplaynice82 Posts: 119 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I work night shift, my day starts around 2 or 3 pm and ends around 7am the next day. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to track my foods because if I'm not paying attention and add something it adds it to the wrong day. What do y'all do or what have you found easiest?

Replies

  • kittyconni
    kittyconni Posts: 62
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    I am a night-shifter as well (7p-7a). I start tracking my day from when I wake up. I found it is easiest for me to pre-log my food and edit when I need to. When I get home at 8ish, I cook my breakfast that I pre-logged the day before. My dinner is around midnight, so I log that under dinner. I sleep smooth through lunch, so I never eat lunch. Odds and ends throughout the day go under snacks. Hope that helps!
  • jhuver
    jhuver Posts: 13 Member
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    I work night shift as well... from 6pm to 6am. I usually preplan my meals out. What I'll do is when I wake up track my first meal as breakfast. Then when I eat at work track it as lunch. When I get home I log it as dinner, and the snacks in between. I usually will pre-log everything I eat so I know what I can eat as well. It helps me to know what I'm allowed so I don't eat mindlessly throughout the night.
  • Aleluya17
    Aleluya17 Posts: 205 Member
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    I end my day at 9am in log, which means I have to be careful to make sure I turn back to the day I started on to keep logging until I go to bed. for example, when I woke up it was 8/19/2012, and even though MFP turned my log to the next day, I finish logging for the 19th until bed even though it is actually 8/20/2012. When I go to sleep today, I won't start logging on the 20th until I get back up at night time.
  • bradphil87
    bradphil87 Posts: 617 Member
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    Night shift here too...I'm at work right now haha. I do wake up to sleep as a day. Even though it usually doesn't end on the same I just log everything for the day before until I go to sleep.
  • lisa28115
    lisa28115 Posts: 17,271 Member
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    i work 10pm to 6am
    mon - thurs


    i start my day at 0000 and end at 2400

    checkout other nightshifters at the official nightshift thread
  • allie7383
    allie7383 Posts: 865 Member
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    I work 11p-7a, and start my "day" at midnight, so the first thing in there is what i eat on break at work. i have my diary set up form midnight-8, 8a-4p, then 4p-midnight, then snacks as all day. for me this has been the most helpful as the format works for being on and off work.
  • rai8759
    rai8759 Posts: 296 Member
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    I track midnight to midnight.
  • tryclyn
    tryclyn Posts: 2,414 Member
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    I work 11:30 to 10 and set my diary up in blocks of 6 hours starting at 00:00. I don't eat meals at set times so it is easier for me to add it in a range instead. Works well for my nights off as well.
  • lisa28115
    lisa28115 Posts: 17,271 Member
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    I work 11:30 to 10 and set my diary up in blocks of 6 hours starting at 00:00. I don't eat meals at set times so it is easier for me to add it in a range instead. Works well for my nights off as well.

    thats pretty much the way I have mine set too
    that way it works well when you are off work too
    seems easier that way
  • furg36rn
    furg36rn Posts: 1
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    I'm at work right now, a bunch of people I work with use this app and we have been charting our day from midnight to midnight.
  • thefitcompanion
    thefitcompanion Posts: 15 Member
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    I am grateful I saw this, because I have been wondering the same thing myself. I work from 10:30p to 7:10a, so it has been interesting to see how everyone else tracks their intake. My current system of tracking my food (~7p = breakfast, ~3a = lunch, etc.) doesn't seem to work for me, and my days off tend to muddle things a little since I over-track with my days at work. Moreover, I can run into problems when I stay up instead of going to bed on my days off following being at work during the morning. Since I am so new at this journey, I might try to incorporate the pre-tracking I have seen mentioned here - seems like a good idea, and I am glad some of you have mentioned it.
  • susanmax
    susanmax Posts: 33
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    I work shift work...2days then 2 nights. I found what works best for me is midnight to midnight, that way it doesn't change when I am on days off. I was struggling with it until I started doing that!

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