Eating correctly while working shifts

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inspiration18
inspiration18 Posts: 8
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi everyone,

Any tips and tricks for eating properly while doing shifts? I'm a nurse and often flip back from days to nights. Days my eating habits stay good, nights is more hard. I know people often gain weight while on nights but I really don't want to go backwards!! Any tips or tricks would be appreciated.

J.

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  • kar328
    kar328 Posts: 4,152 Member
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    I do 7P to 7A nights three times a week. I use the midnight to midnight time period here and restart the calories at midnight. I changed my settings to six hour blocks, rather than "breakfast, lunch, dinner." I eat a real dinner at 5PM on nights I'm going to work. It's a busy labor and delivery unit and meals are not guaranteed. I usually have enough calories left to eat something light before midnight. I don't eat the hospital food anymore. I used to bring another meal to work, but now I find I'm better bringing smaller things, like eggs, cheese sticks, yogurt, veggies and I grab something every few hours. This way if I don't have to come back that next night, I haven't eaten hundreds of calories by 7AM. I go home, eat something small and go to bed. If I'm working that next night, I get up at 4 and eat a full dinner at 5 again. This works for me.
  • mercurywinks
    mercurywinks Posts: 104 Member
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    I'm an all the time night shifter....I flopped around trying to figure out what way works best with eating and for me the rule is, when I wake up my eating day starts, when I go to sleep it ends. That's it. I treat the hours I'm awake as if they were a normally functioning period in a 24 hour span. When I wake up, I have my breakfast food, then a snack, around dinner time for most I have my lunch. That leaves me with a snack, dinner, and another snack to eat at work. Good luck!

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