12 hour shifts! HELP with diet please.

Pack a cooler.

Here are some ideas. Depends on your version of healthy. I don't know how much of a cooker you are. You name it, it can be made into a lower cal version if desired. Just portion it out the way you like.

Do you not like all veggies? The kids I know that hate veggies sometimes like celery or cucumber...

Fruit of choice

apple slices
almond butter

1 serving of m&m's
1 serving of chips

hummus
cucumber slices

peanut butter and celery

peanut butter and jelly sandwich
turkey and ham sandwich
roast beef sandwich

yogurt and granola


turkey and cheese roll ups

chili
lasagna
beef stroganoff

soup or stew

rice and beans

chicken soft tacos

pizza

water

ice coffee

helm an gives some bad advice. If you are going to cut out carbs, you can't cut fat. If you are going to cut out fat, you shouldn't cut out carbs.

You need either one or the other for energy. Protein is not an energy food even though it can be turned into energy.

A high protein diet that severely restricts carbs and fat is a risky diet for long term health. If you are going to consider it as an option you might lookin into the risks of choosing to eat high protein in the long term. Its all about the kidneys.

Frankly i don't think there is long term healthy diet that excludes vegetables. Adults are advised to eat 5 serves or more of different vegetables every day from a range of different vegetable groups.

If you don't like them you need to find ways to incorporate them into you diet that you can accept. Yes a lot of cooked vegetables are boring and not at all tasty. But that is to a large extent a reflection of the cooking they've undergone.

Another aspect of hating vegetables goes with the rest of the food you eat. When you eat a hyper flavoured diet most of the time, that is foods which are either high in salt + fat or foods high in sugar + fat, blander foods are quite unappetising and tend not to be chosen.

to get over your hatred of vegetables one thing that you should try to do is ditch all the hyper flavoured foods - these are nearly all junk foods anyway. Eat your meats plainly cooked either grilled, roasted or braised. Keep the greasy salty sauces and gravies to a minimum. Keep processed meats to a minimum. Do not eat cheese with any meal where you eat meat.

To improve the flavour of vegetables try eating meat less often and/or in smaller quantities as part of your meal. Put chopped meat into a salad. Put vegetables into meat stews. Eat roasted vegetables - i find it hard to imagine you don't like roasted vegetables. YOu can roast nearly all vegetables - onions, potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, capsicums, carrots, zucchinis, pumpkin, leeks, celery.

Try cooking vegetables in gratin dishes that is with cheese on top in the french style.

Serve garlic yoghurt with simply cooked vegetables.

Learn how to cook complex flavoured beans dishes a la mexican, middle eastern, indian and those done with herbs from europe.

Explore food from around the world and see what other cultures do with vegetables.

If you give up on vegetables, you will probably shorten your life span by a number of years. Watch this tv show on youtube about fibre and the value of it to good health.
Catalyst - Gut reaction Part 1 and 2.

Good sources of fibre:
fruit
vegetables
beans
chickpeas
lentils
nuts
seeds
whole grains.

Cook vegetables with cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and enough salt to make them tasty and rich flavoured. Use herbs. Use spices. Use cheese. Use some home cooked sauces.

To make salads taste good, use the abveo mentioned olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a ration of 50/50. Add some nuts. Add some feta cheese crumbled. Eat the salad with good quality bread. Try chopping in some ham or smoked salmon.

There is too much good food in the world being ignored by people who've grown fat on diets of maconalds, pizza and ice-cream and other take away foods. Its a losing situation for everyone.

i usually work 7am to 5pm. not 12 hour shifts but 10. i eat a modest breakfast of chocolate cheerios, a cup of milk, a thin bagel and some butter. 380 cals

for lunch i have a thin bagel, 3oz of chicken, slice of bacon, provolone cheese and garlic red taters. that is about 700 cals

mid after noon i repeat lunch minus the red taters. thats about 350 cals

dinner is a protein shake consisting of 1 scoop of cytosport chocolate protein, 1 cup of milk and one scoop of frozen low fat vanilla yogurt. 300 cals

i generally make my lunch on sundays and pack and weigh everything and put them in the fridge. sure it takes about 3 hours out of my day but it pays off in the long run

Pack a cooler with what you would eat at home on your good days. Then don't eat anything that doesn't come out of that cooler. Avoid the vending machines. I work 24-36 hour shifts, sometimes even 48 hour shifts. (Ah, the life of a paramedic in rural NW Montana.) and I swear by the cooler trick.

Hi. I have the same issue (although love veggies). I work 12 hour shifts with no access to a microwave. What I do is a pack everything in a cooler and only allow myself to eat what I brought. Chicken tends to stay very well. Many of my dinners have been chicken burgers with some cheese. I also pack cut apples, apple sauce, soy milk, corn, peas, rice, etc depending on my mood.