Help! Need advice on nutrition/dieting while working nightshift

When I work nights things are all over the place. It's not really the night shift, it's the switching from day to night and back to day that creates havoc. If you just worked nights you would have no problem with a flipped schedule for eating and sleeping, right? Think less about meals and just run your food diary in 24 HR blocks.

I do 7pm - 7 am. What I usually do is get home, sleep from 9-2 pm, drink coffee. Exercise. Eat a big meal that usually looks like brunch. Go to work. Eat another meal around 10-11pm. Try to resist the things that are always at work at night (mainly chocolate cookies and chips). I bring a snack of Greek yogurt and berries usually. I find I'm pretty nauseated in the early am and don't want much. Another snack just before I go to bed helps me sleep usually. Usually this is an egg on toast kind of thing.

Then when I flip back I have a terrible day where I limit sleep post nights to a couple of hours and try to go to bed early (usually 830 pm). Typically I just ate at maintenance during nights because there was already so much disruption and stress. However I only work nights about once a month and for you it may not be feasible to go to maintenance if you do this often.

Also melatonin is helpful for the flip back.

lindaloo9331 wrote: »

I work nights. I get home around 6am. I sleep for about an hour til I have to get the kids up for school. Take one to school the other to the gym with me. Workout shower come home have lunch. Nap from 12:30-3. Pick up kid from school. Dinner at 530. Nap from 7-8. Get up and go to work. I eat a few small snack through out the night at work. Ive lost 113# since Sept 2014. 287-174. Honestly the little sleep I get doesnt affect my weight loss. On the weekends I go back to the usual stay up all day and then a quick nap before work sunday night.

Your sleep schedule looks very similar to mine. My lack of solid sleep hasn't affected much. I'm down 26.7 lbs since beginning of July. Only thing I focus on is food intake.

OP...Regarding scheduling of my meals, I just do what works for me. You have to really find what works for you I like to keep my logging from midnight to midnight. I will stop all eating at work at midnight. I have been making my husband his breakfast and lunch in the mornings when I get off of work. Since I'm already in the kitchen I'll usually have my breakfast. I eat lots of protein for breakfast so I usually am not hungry until about 3pm. At that point I'll usually have a string cheese. For dinner I like to make some sort of lean meat and veggie dish. I divide it in half and eat half at home and bring half to work. I bring snacks like hard boiled eggs, string cheese, etc to snack on at work. I just make sure it is all eaten up by midnight.

It is very important to not fall back on bad snacks too often. Try to find snacks hat will help keep you full. This shift sucks because it is easy to get tired and want to grab something to munch on. If you tend to like to snack, pre portion out healthy snacks. I like chips, so one thing I do is get some baked crackers like wheat thins and weigh out one portion. That seems helps my chip craving.