How do night shifters track/organze meal times...?

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Cassrose9
Cassrose9 Posts: 2
in Food and Nutrition
Wadup myfitness crowd!???

So basically my question is in regards to those night shifters out there. How do you categorize your meals through out the week? In other words how do you set up your meal times? Do you use breakfast/lunch/dinner...12am-4am..? etc..

I only started night shift as a RN since Jan and I typically work 3-4 nights a week starting 6:30pm-7:30am

I struggle constantly figuring out how I should organize/track my meals since my sleep/wake cycle is all over the place!!! Sometimes I work 3-4 nights in a row..sometimes 2 then a couple nights off than i work another night. Basically a bunch of random nights. I live in two worlds... when I am not working overnight and sleeping during the day to prepare for my next night, I wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night.

Ok so any suggestions how to stay on top of myfitnesspal food logging as night/day crawler?

:yawn:

Thanks!!!

Replies

  • deksgrl
    deksgrl Posts: 7,237 Member
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    Why not just always call Breakfast the first meal after you get up, Lunch the second and Dinner the third, regardless of what time of the day it is?
  • thecatcarlos
    thecatcarlos Posts: 2 Member
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    Pretty much, I count my days from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, usually around noon to ~5:00 am or so, and have my "meals" as follows:

    Breakfast
    Lunch
    Dinner
    Snacks
    Drinks
    Late Night Snacks

    The first 4 are pretty self explanatory, Drinks is any alcoholic beverage I consume and Late Night Snacks for anything I consume after I get back home from work. Sometimes I will skip one of the full "day meals" and just opt for more snacks, like for example I'll eat lunch-type foods at noon like a regular person, skipping breakfast that day and have an extra snack later on instead of a 2nd or 3rd meal. Or I could eat a regular breakfast meal at noon then skip a lunch-type meal and just have a snack. Gotta be careful with "Late Night Snacks" as those will usually put me over my calorie budget if it turns into a full meal (happens at least once a week when we get out of work and go out to eat at some 24hr place.)

    If "skipping breakfast" is an issue to you, you could always just name your meals as "Meal 1, Meal 2, Meal 3" and avoid the names for the meals.

    Just count your days as starting from the time you wake up 'till the time you go to sleep and keeping track will be easy. Had a friend tell me last week "oh, you gotta mark this food as the next day because it is already after midnight" and I was like "you serious?" He was somewhat joking though I hope :)
  • babyluthi
    babyluthi Posts: 285 Member
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    Midnight to midnight every day, working or not.
  • thecatcarlos
    thecatcarlos Posts: 2 Member
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    Midnight to midnight every day, working or not.


    So... if you start consuming some meal (be it a midnight snack or going out drinking with some buddies) at 11:45 pm and finish at 12:15 am.. do you split the difference? ^_^
  • dragoness07
    dragoness07 Posts: 22 Member
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    Hi, I am a nurse as well and do quite a lot of 12.5 hour night shifts. I just reverse my days to nights :) So, before I go to work that's my breakfast etc. I have always done it that way and for me it has worked well so far.
  • Cassrose9
    Cassrose9 Posts: 2
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    Thank you all for your suggestions :)!

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