Graveyard shift! help!

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hayleyrue
hayleyrue Posts: 34 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I work night shift at a hospital... I was curious, those of you who work overnights, how do you log your food and exercise? Do you start over after midnight? or do you continue to track on the previous day?

Replies

  • FixIngMe13
    FixIngMe13 Posts: 405 Member
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    I work at a local hospital also 12 hour shifts, and what I do is eat my dinner around 3am from the previous day. Then a really light snack before I go to bed so I'm not going to bed hungry. ((I don't get to bed til 9am)) Then... when I wake up, around 4pm, I eat my breakfast and go from there... it has worked very well for me, because unfortunately, as you can see... I can't sleep on my nights off!!! lol.
  • hayleyrue
    hayleyrue Posts: 34 Member
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    I work at a local hospital also 12 hour shifts, and what I do is eat my dinner around 3am from the previous day. Then a really light snack before I go to bed so I'm not going to bed hungry. ((I don't get to bed til 9am)) Then... when I wake up, around 4pm, I eat my breakfast and go from there... it has worked very well for me, because unfortunately, as you can see... I can't sleep on my nights off!!! lol.

    Ok! So when it automatically switches your diary over to the next day after midnight you still put your dinner on the previous day, right? If that makes any sense.
  • nicoleisback
    nicoleisback Posts: 184
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    You could change your time zone setting to better match your working day. Being in Australia (GMT+10) I know the different time zones work well on here
  • cstoney2013
    cstoney2013 Posts: 167 Member
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    I used to work 8 pm to 8 am and it would work out good except if I had breakfast when I got home at 8 am... then it would add about 600 calories onto day # 2. Anyway morning watch pretty much sucks.... I just did it to get Friday 4-12 off woo hoo!!
    :laugh:
  • jdad1
    jdad1 Posts: 1,899 Member
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    i log midnight to midnight. It really is more simple that way. I created a section that i called "at work/nights". If i eat half a cookie at 11:59 it goes on that day and the other half goes on the next day. I have been on graveyard for 6 years and i have tried other ways, this is, for me, the most simple and easiest to understand.
  • Bluizflame
    Bluizflame Posts: 151 Member
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    I work the night shift from 10p - 6a. My day starts when i wake up, and ends when i sleep. I don't always eat at the same time each day, so from midnight to midnight never worked for me. One day i might wake up late, and not be able to eat anything till 1a or so...and the next day i'll wake up around 6p and eat a meal and be able to snack at work. So days would have WAY too many calories where other days would have very little. Easier for me just to start when i wake up, and end when i go to bed

    Ex: I woke up on Thursday at 530p because my kids had an open house. I ate "breakfast" around 7p, then went to work. I snack throughout the night, but all the stuff i Log is still on "Thursday". I don't start logging on Friday until i've gone to bed and woke up again.
  • tryclyn
    tryclyn Posts: 2,414 Member
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    I log midnight to midnight because it works best for me. I renamed the diary meals to time blocks and it works well for my days off also. Diary is open if you wish to take a look.
  • lacroyx
    lacroyx Posts: 5,754 Member
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    i log midnight to midnight. It really is more simple that way. I created a section that i called "at work/nights". If i eat half a cookie at 11:59 it goes on that day and the other half goes on the next day. I have been on graveyard for 6 years and i have tried other ways, this is, for me, the most simple and easiest to understand.

    This is what I do as well. Midnight to midnight.
  • aquarabbit
    aquarabbit Posts: 1,622 Member
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    I thought about what constituted my "meal times". So 7:00 pm was my breakfast time, 11:00 pm was my lunch, 3:00 am was dinner, and so on. Then I thought about where in the world it was ACTUALLY breakfast time. For me, it was Istanbul. It was 8:00 am there when it was 7:00 pm here. So I just changed my settings to Istanbul. That way my whole day is a day but it's my particular schedule.

    Edit for typo!
  • KMMRN
    KMMRN Posts: 104 Member
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    I log from 0001 hours to 2399 hours.....I find MFP lets me change the date of my entries.....so I I drink a boost at 2230 and don't have time to log it for a few hours, I can still put it in the previous day entry.

    I have more trouble figuring out WHAT to eat, and WHEN. Especially since I am not on permanent nights.....I go back and forth between 12 hour days, 12 hour nights, and 8 hour evenings. I do change my calorie requirements based on the exercise of work (on our busy med surg unit pedometers showed that we averaged walking 1 kilometre per hour worked......on all shifts). Since I only work .6 of full time I log this only on the days I am working. So if I am working 1900-0700 from Friday into Saturday I log 5 kilometre walk on the Friday, and 7 kilometre walk on the Saturday.

    We rely heavily on Boost, and Quest Bars.....the norm is NOT to get time to sit down and eat.

    What about where you work?
  • jdad1
    jdad1 Posts: 1,899 Member
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    I thought about what constituted my "meal times". So 7:00 pm was my breakfast time, 11:00 pm was my lunch, 3:00 am was dinner, and so on. Then I thought about where in the world it was ACTUALLY breakfast time. For me, it was Istanbul. It was 8:00 am there when it was 7:00 pm here. So I just changed my settings to Istanbul. That way my whole day is a day but it's my particular schedule.

    Edit for typo!

    This is al fine and well. However what about the strange days. Being on nights you will find that some days you just are not able to sleep the same hours as you would like. If this works for you then all the power to you, just find a way to adjust when graveyard throws those wrenches in your plans.
  • sunsetzen
    sunsetzen Posts: 268 Member
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    It doesnt have to be that complicated, changing time zones and stuff. Just log your meals as if you werent working graveyards; do it like you were working days. Or log it so your breakfast is dinner, lunch is breakfast and dinner is lunch. Either way your calories add up for the day, and more importantly, for the week.
  • aquarabbit
    aquarabbit Posts: 1,622 Member
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    I thought about what constituted my "meal times". So 7:00 pm was my breakfast time, 11:00 pm was my lunch, 3:00 am was dinner, and so on. Then I thought about where in the world it was ACTUALLY breakfast time. For me, it was Istanbul. It was 8:00 am there when it was 7:00 pm here. So I just changed my settings to Istanbul. That way my whole day is a day but it's my particular schedule.

    Edit for typo!

    This is al fine and well. However what about the strange days. Being on nights you will find that some days you just are not able to sleep the same hours as you would like. If this works for you then all the power to you, just find a way to adjust when graveyard throws those wrenches in your plans.

    It's never been a problem for me. It's been 3 months on graveyard, 3 months day alternating for about 2 years now. I stick to the exact same schedule on my personal days as my work days. I never have a problem with staying on my schedule. Even if there's a day where I have a doc appointment or something like that, it's very easy to get back on track with some extra coffee or a quick nap. No wrenches so far.
  • Abztagoatem
    Abztagoatem Posts: 8
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    I had problems with this too and my friends leaving negative comments. So what I do is from midnight to midnight as one day. It seems to be working.
  • Abztagoatem
    Abztagoatem Posts: 8
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    It doesnt have to be that complicated, changing time zones and stuff. Just log your meals as if you werent working graveyards; do it like you were working days. Or log it so your breakfast is dinner, lunch is breakfast and dinner is lunch. Either way your calories add up for the day, and more importantly, for the week.

    This is exactly what I do!
  • daimere
    daimere Posts: 31 Member
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    I changed to MFP because MFP allows me to skip to the next day. I may wake up on thursday but I consider that Friday. Sometimes I'm only up for 2 hours on "Thursday." I consider all my eating to the next day since I spend the bulk of my day on the NEXT day, It may be confusing to some but oh well. Actually I've started fasting sometimes and I don't eat till midnight on those occasions.
  • hayleyrue
    hayleyrue Posts: 34 Member
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    Thank you guys for all the awesome tips!

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