Night shift nightmare

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I'm juggling 3 jobs right now.

One of them is an on call dispatch job and it mostly happens to be night shifts.
So I bounce often from days to nights schedules, a sort of 3 days/2 nights/2 days type of weeks.

It screws up my eating and sleep schedule very badly, so some of my days I'll have up to 4 meals with barely no sleep and others over 12 hours of sleep with barely 2 meals.

Anyone else dealing with night shift changes like that?
How do you manage your meals and eating schedule?

Replies

  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
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    One of my previous responses to a similar question : I strictly work nights. What I did was changed my meals from breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks to 0000-0600, 0600-1200, 1200-1800, 1800-0000, so that all my days are 24hrs regardless of when I go to sleep, wake up or work. It seems to work well for me and the 24hrs match up with my Fitbit burn.
  • kar328
    kar328 Posts: 4,156 Member
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    elphie754 wrote: »
    One of my previous responses to a similar question : I strictly work nights. What I did was changed my meals from breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks to 0000-0600, 0600-1200, 1200-1800, 1800-0000, so that all my days are 24hrs regardless of when I go to sleep, wake up or work. It seems to work well for me and the 24hrs match up with my Fitbit burn.

    I do the same thing. I also prelog the whole day and that helps me see my "menu" and how much wiggle room I have to play with.

  • aliceocean2
    aliceocean2 Posts: 35 Member
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    I just changed my diary to the numerals like you are suggested. Thank you very much for the tip, it will actually make my life much easier indeed, since I'll se to make sure I feed myself properly on a more regular Schedule.
  • lemonychild
    lemonychild Posts: 654 Member
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    You need to focus on weekly deficit as opposed to daily. As long as u have 3500 cals cut for the week, doesn't matter how u got there
  • RodaRose
    RodaRose Posts: 9,562 Member
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    On days when you can, get as much sleep as possible
    Prioritize the sleep.
  • EmilyEmpowered
    EmilyEmpowered Posts: 650 Member
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    I feel your pain! I, too, am a night shift dispatcher. I work 6 pm to 6 am... Well, actually I work whatever and whenever they need me lately, so my shifts have been all over the place. I agree with those saying treat your diary like a 24 hr period instead of Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks... the standard MFP day doesnt work well when your schedule is abnormal. The hardest part for me is switching from being up all day to all night and vice versa, those days it is quite a challenge to not overeat.
  • DeficitDuchess
    DeficitDuchess Posts: 3,099 Member
    edited April 2016
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    This is how, I have mine:

    12:00 A.M. ~ 03:59 A.M.

    04:00 A.M. ~ 07:59 A.M.

    08:00 A.M. ~ 11:59 A.M.

    12:00 P.M. ~ 03:59 P.M.

    04:00 P.M. ~ 07:59 P.M.

    08:00 P.M. ~ 11:59 P.M.