Working Nights and Nutrition (Advice Please)

eecruzmd
eecruzmd Posts: 119 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I work a graveyard shift. I normally get home at 3 in the morning and I go to sleep around 4 am... I just need advice on how to handle my diet-nutrition. Should I start with my breakfast when I get up at 11am - 12pm and continue throughout the day? Or what? I'm just concerned cause it is quite difficult for me to keep up with it. I'm losing sleep over it literally cause I stay up to have breakfast and then go to sleep 2 hours after...

I just need advice. Please help!!

Replies

  • butterflylady86
    butterflylady86 Posts: 369 Member
    Hello I work the same shift. By the time I come home. I'm hungry so I eat breakfast before going to bed. Have really found this works for me. Good luck Peace
  • spiritsattain
    spiritsattain Posts: 15 Member
    I'd say adjust your schedule to reflect your working schedule - eat breakfast when you wake up, lunch halfway and dinner as your last meal. Can you prepare things and keep them in a fridge @ work?

    I work variable hours sometimes, most of the time I work 9-5, but 2 nights a week I work 12-8. I stick to the same exact schedule everyday, and just either eat lunch at work, or lunch and dinner. I keep so much food here at work it's kinda funny.
  • Lauran845
    Lauran845 Posts: 71 Member
    Your day is "backwards" so your meal planning should be too. If you think about it, if you worked 9-5am, you would eat breakfast before you go to work and generally that would be a substantial meal. Just because it is not "breakfast time" doesn't mean you have to stick to what would be lunch or dinner food. If you worked until 5 pm you would probably eat "dinner" when you got home. So why go to bed hungry? If you aren't, then don't eat anything. No one can really tell you what to do, you just need to see what works with your schedule and the best you can do is try to make good choices with whatever you do decide.
  • VanessaHeartsMasr
    VanessaHeartsMasr Posts: 727
    I work night shift too. I've learned that it's way too hard to worry about what time of day I'm eating, so I've just basically been starting over each new day at midnight and split my calories up over a 24-hour period of time. I just give myself the freedom to eat my meals when I'm hungry and not worry about the clock so much. Way less stressful!! It's stressful enough having to work like an owl! :)
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    I work a graveyard shift. I normally get home at 3 in the morning and I go to sleep around 4 am... I just need advice on how to handle my diet-nutrition. Should I start with my breakfast when I get up at 11am - 12pm and continue throughout the day? Or what? I'm just concerned cause it is quite difficult for me to keep up with it. I'm losing sleep over it literally cause I stay up to have breakfast and then go to sleep 2 hours after...

    I just need advice. Please help!!

    Start by eating when you are hungry and see where you end up (numerically) by the end of whatever your 24-hour period is.
  • slkehl
    slkehl Posts: 3,801 Member
    Time of day doesn't matter. If you can stay within your calorie range, you're good.
  • Onaughmae
    Onaughmae Posts: 873 Member
    I work 12 hour night shifts. On my days off I flip back to a day schedule. It got too confusing tracking my meals the way MFP had it set to breakfast, lunch dinner...so I changed it to that the day is split up into blocks of time to total the entire 24 hours. That way if I eat during the day , its fine, if I eat at 3am its still fine. That worked for me.

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