Night shift workers-when do you count your calories?

sarahg24
sarahg24 Posts: 1
edited September 20 in Health and Weight Loss
Hello all:yawn: (I have just got up after a busy night!)
I am a midwife and so work shifts. I was wondering when other night shift workers eat and when do you count your calories? I usually eat my main meal ie 'dinner' before I go to work and then have cereal or a light sandwich through the night and something light when I get in from work before I go to bed. I am not fully sure if I should be counting my calories from midnight to midnight or if I should start from scratch when I get up in the afternoon. What do the rest of you do?

Replies

  • toots99
    toots99 Posts: 3,794 Member
    I'd say start from when you get up until you go to to sleep, whatever times that may be.
  • MommaPaz
    MommaPaz Posts: 46 Member
    I changed my food categories from Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner to 4 hour time periods starting at Midnight (12-4, 4-8, 8-12...) That way if I'm working overnight or if I'm off and sleeping at night, I always account for a 24 hour period. I've found that to be the easiest system...
  • thumper44
    thumper44 Posts: 1,464 Member
    I agree with other replies.
    Start counting calories from when you wake up, to when you go to sleep.

    Don't think of breakfast, lunch and dinner as regular meals at regular times, just change your mindset and/or categories to have 4-6 meals at whatever times.
  • wheresanita
    wheresanita Posts: 1 Member
    This is just what has worked for me...
    I'm an RN working a variable 3-12hr shifts per week schedule so my awake and asleep times are constantly varied. I count my calories from midnight to midnight. On the nights i'm working, the majority of my calories are consumed from 5pm-5am and on the days I'm off my intake looks more like that of a 'day shift person'. I find it also helps to look at daily average over a 7 day period. On a 'long awake day' I may have an overage, but if I'm working a few nights in a row I find myself under on my middle night - hence the benefit of looking at the weekly average!
    Good Luck!
  • terrieleeb
    terrieleeb Posts: 13
    Ok I see what you are saying here but what about the day after night shift and the day before. Since I flip flop days to nights every other weekend I tend to have two really long up times in there. Should I only eat the recommended calories or since I am up longer eat every 4 hours? unsure...
  • mbrowder30
    mbrowder30 Posts: 3
    I'm about to flip to night shift in my RN job, and am not thrilled about figuring out calorie counting! i've been flipping back & forth between night and day shift for about a year now, and ALWAYS when I'm on night shift schedules I am more irritable, bloated, starving, exhausted...etc...etc...etc...ugh. I am on a more structured exercise schedule I think i'll be able to work into my night-shift life...but I think I'm going to stick with midnight to midnight calorie counting. It's really easy once you're awake for 18-24...even 30 hours to have 5 full meals! Hopefully getting that in check will allow me to continue losing my lovely 1 pound a week :) We shall see...
  • MaddoxsMommy
    MaddoxsMommy Posts: 51 Member
    I used to work nights too. It makes more sense to count from when you get up to when you go to sleep.
  • cavemancop
    cavemancop Posts: 42 Member
    I count the first thing after midnight is breakfast, seems to be the least confusing way for me
  • truecaligirl
    truecaligirl Posts: 132 Member
    I count mine from midnight to midnight.
  • Jessifer123
    Jessifer123 Posts: 159
    I do midnight to midnight and have it broken down by times rather than breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's the only way I seem to be able to keep track.
  • Jdo79
    Jdo79 Posts: 13 Member
    I always count midnight to midnight so that every day is the same even if I'm not working. I tried to count from the time I woke up but it just got too confusing on the days I was off and eating like a "normal" person.
  • Cait_Sidhe
    Cait_Sidhe Posts: 3,150 Member
    I have my diary set up like this:
    8am-12pm
    12pm-4pm
    4pm-8pm
    8:pm-12am
    12am-4am
    4am-8am
    I record what I eat in the appropriate timeslot. Works for me.
  • pukekolive
    pukekolive Posts: 237 Member
    There is a 'nightcrawlers' group on the boards as well - check them out
  • onewithwings
    onewithwings Posts: 56
    I work 2:30pm until 12:30am four days a week. I go to the gym after work (early morning). I log my calories up until midnight but add my workout to the next day. It was too confusing to backtrack to the previous day to log my exercise.

    ~OWW~
  • zuchy
    zuchy Posts: 40 Member
    Sarahg24 I'm a third year student midwife, and I do six nights a month every month (as well as six long days), don't know what your shift pattern is, but we only have 12 hour shifts so my night goes from 8 pm to 8 am.

    My dietician told me to work it this way:
    breakfast > normal
    lunch > cooked rather than 'picnic'
    snack > normal
    supper > light not cooked (my diet usually contemplates a non cooked lunch and a hot meal for supper, so I invert this when I'm on nights), has to be eaten by 7.15 pm.
    11 pm extra snack > 100 calories in whatever form I like, could be apple and almonds or a mini kitkat (the 20g mini portion).

    So I get an extra late night snack.

    Plus in the morning cornetto&cappuccino are mandatory :D

    Go to bed, wake up lunch time, proceed as normal. This pattern is working wonders for me!
  • tracebugg
    tracebugg Posts: 2
    i am having a very hard time with this. I work nights 5 days on 4 days off then 3 days on then 2 days off. I always work the 10pm-6am shift.

    i go to bed at 7 and wakie up at 3pm or so my problem is this.. on the days i work do i count when i wake upand eat at say 6 or 7pm is that my breakfast, then when i take a break at 130 am is that my lunch and then when i get home eat my cereal is that my supper. or do i try to just get all my main meals in beforem midnight so that i have them all on the right day

    a few times i might not eat when i get up and will not eat until say 130 am becasue i am not hungry when i wake up so i put the 130 meal on for the next day and that leaves me somethines 400-700 calories short for the day before.

    UGGG why cant dieting on the night shift be easy.

    very confusing for me and yes i am losing weight but i dont feel its healthy way on my nights that i work

    any help on this would be so apprecitated
  • Losingthedamnweight
    Losingthedamnweight Posts: 536 Member
    I also work night shift. 8pm to 8am baby. At first i was trying to figure out when my meal schedule would be and totally over complicated everything. Why does breakfast lunch and dinner even have to be names in my day? I eat the total allotment of calories for the day. That's how it works. I get to work at 8pm and at about 9 I have my last meal of the day. Then it turns 12...then it's the next day so my calories reset and I eat again at 1 or 2am. That's it. It doesn't need to be anymore complicated than "what's today and how many calories have I eaten before midnight?" You eat your calories and it resets at midnight. Simple
  • Hellaine
    Hellaine Posts: 79 Member
    I have this issue--I have two kids and work at a bar double shifts on the weekend. So I will be up from like 9am Friday until 6am Saturday--a VERY long span of time, and I can only hope being active for twenty one hours burns off the bit of extra calories I usually go over by haha. I like some of the ideas I've read here and might actually switch my logging method but currently, I just log it all under one day and then usually find I have a pretty big defecit on the next day page that evens it out. I suppose because the next day I've slept in and slept half the day away and don't eat so much.

    I rather like the idea of cutting off at midnight and starting my next day's log though, I might start doing that just to make sure things REALLY even out.
  • mimiteh35
    mimiteh35 Posts: 486 Member
    So glad I found this! This has been something I've struggled with the best way to do! I am a mom of 3 and work midnights, and so on my days off, I of course want to/need to spend time with my family, which sometimes is TERRIBLE for my eating habits and very terrible for my sleep habits! Just last week I was off Saturday, but my friday night shift ended 7 am saturday morning, hour commute home, then time to start getting family up for sports they had that day, so then off to sports, then meals, time together, chores to do, etc.... next thing I know Im over my calories for the day by a couple of hundred...and I ended up being awake for 31 hrs straight...then the next day I slept sporadically because, once again, I have 3 kids and its hard to keep them quiet when I need to sleep...summer is worse when they are home all day, lol.... I've been using the midnight to midnight method, and some days I will be over by a few hundred! I like what someone posted about some days its over and those are usually the longer-awake days and they usually balance out by looking at the full week.. that might help me feel so discouraged on the days I'm over when I'm awake longer!

    and yes I know, 31 hrs is excessive, it actually sadly happens more often than not as if I try to take a nap of an hour or two in between activities, I end up being hard to wake up and end up missing the activities. That's happened as well. :/
  • MinimalistShoeAddict
    MinimalistShoeAddict Posts: 1,946 Member
    Hello all:yawn: (I have just got up after a busy night!)
    I am a midwife and so work shifts. I was wondering when other night shift workers eat and when do you count your calories? I usually eat my main meal ie 'dinner' before I go to work and then have cereal or a light sandwich through the night and something light when I get in from work before I go to bed. I am not fully sure if I should be counting my calories from midnight to midnight or if I should start from scratch when I get up in the afternoon. What do the rest of you do?

    try renaming your eating periods by time block
  • MinimalistShoeAddict
    MinimalistShoeAddict Posts: 1,946 Member
    I have my diary set up like this:
    8am-12pm
    12pm-4pm
    4pm-8pm
    8:pm-12am
    12am-4am
    4am-8am
    I record what I eat in the appropriate timeslot. Works for me.

    I do exactly this!!
  • xeyda
    xeyda Posts: 7
    I do midnight to midnight. I work from 3p to 11p, M-F and every third weekend from Friday 3p straight to Monday 7a.

    Whatever meal I eat first after midnight, no matter what time I wake up, is 'breakfast'. Next meal is lunch. Then dinner. Sometimes I only eat a snack after midnight before bed. Sometimes I go out with friends, and eat 'breakfast', then hit the hay.

    I like the idea of renaming the meals to hour blocks, though. I might do that, if I get persnickety. :)
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,153 Member
    I started out by trying to make one "day" one waking period, but because MFP automatically changes to the current calendar day, it started to get confusing (granted, at the end of my sixth straight 12.5 hour day, I am easily confused). I have therefore started putting food in on the calendar day I eat it, but applying meals out of order. I eat dinner at 7am, so I put that in first, but as dinner. Breakfast goes in at 4 pm and lunch goes in before midnight. It's been easier for me to keep track of that way.
  • Lyadeia
    Lyadeia Posts: 4,603 Member
    I'd say start from when you get up until you go to to sleep, whatever times that may be.

    Exactly this.

    I wake up around 3pm and go to bed around 9am. All the food from 3pm today to 9am tomorrow morning is logged "today."

    I've been working night shift for 5 years and have been having success doing exactly this.
  • lacroyx
    lacroyx Posts: 5,754 Member
    I have my diary set up like this:
    8am-12pm
    12pm-4pm
    4pm-8pm
    8:pm-12am
    12am-4am
    4am-8am
    I record what I eat in the appropriate timeslot. Works for me.

    I do exactly this!!

    Here's mine: 2199930_894.jpg
    Seriously though, I just track midnight to midnight.
  • jaderos
    jaderos Posts: 1
    Tracking midnight to midnight sounds so simple and doable.
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