How do you deal with 18+ hour days?

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mialsya
mialsya Posts: 188 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I recently started a new job where I have to work overnight shifts. These shifts are sleeping shifts, but they are back to back over the weekend (Friday overnight, Saturday overnight, through Sunday at 11pm). I will go to work at 9pm of Friday, not be able to go to bed until midnight, get up at 6am, leave work at 9am, go run errands and do my normal routine, and then have to be back to work by 4pm where I have to stay up until midnight (sometimes later). I've noticed that I am blowing my calories out of the water on these days because I am eating every three hours like normal but I have a longer period of time to cover. I work with disabled individuals and am lifting to do body transfers, like from wheelchairs to beds and so on, and I usually find time to go to the gym on my free time. Since I've been working this job and having such a fluctuation in calories from weekdays (1500 calories max) to weekends (sometimes up to 2200 calories), the scale hasn't been moving much.

Does anyone else have this issue? How do you cope with it? How do I get things "normalized" to continue losing weight?

Replies

  • katrinabergman
    katrinabergman Posts: 3
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    I've noticed that when I don't get enough sleep, it adversely effects my weight loss. The way I battle it is to take a nap. A long nap. I had the same kind of job as you (years ago) and I found this helpful. When I say nap, by the way, I mean an hour or two. You need to make up for what you have lost. Try it, see if it helps. If nothing else it will enable you to do your job better as you will be much happier :-) (I loose all patience when I haven't gotten enough sleep!)
  • _Jessica_
    _Jessica_ Posts: 216 Member
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    Oh hun I feel your pain.... I work days evenings AND overnights... when I work weekends it is 12 hr over nights.... so heres what I try to do:
    Instead of eating junk to keep your self busy or from falling asleep, I bring fruit, and home made proteine bars. I don NOT drink pop. I drink water, water and more water. once you stop drinking pop, you will see you actually have more energy and not crave the sweets as much becuase there is somehting in artificial sweetners that actually make you CRAVE MORE... so if you have to drink pop, then drink the throw back stuff with the REAL sugar in it.

    when I get a break, even if it is only 15 minutes, I leave the area and walk, if that means climbing the stairs in the hallway, or just walking around my units corridoor or what have ya get up and move it gets your body burning energy again.

    MOST IMPORTATLY: when you get up for the day/night, the first thing you should eat is something with hight protein and some complex carbs to get you matabolism jump started to start burning cals. if you skip the first meal, you body doesnt have fuel to start it motor per say. The high protien will make you feel fuller longer and the complex carbs ( not porcessed foods or breads, I mean fruits and vegies here....) will get the matablism going.

    as far as sleep, if you are trying to sleep during daylight hours, MAKE SURE you darken the windows in your room to trick your body that it is night time... really... You will sleep better and your body will be more rested... Also there is an over the counter vitmin supplement called Melotonin.... use it if you are not sleeping solidly. it will help you get that full 8 hours of sleep with out waking up to pee druing the hours of the day... (becaue natually you body does have a clock in it that says you are suposed to be producing unrin during the day light hours and not at night... but if you are on the oposit sched it does not know that you wake up to pee a few hours after you go to sleep.) I sure hope this helps you. Good luck! Add me if ya wish :)
  • mialsya
    mialsya Posts: 188 Member
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    Oh hun I feel your pain.... I work days evenings AND overnights... when I work weekends it is 12 hr over nights.... so heres what I try to do:
    Instead of eating junk to keep your self busy or from falling asleep, I bring fruit, and home made proteine bars. I don NOT drink pop. I drink water, water and more water. once you stop drinking pop, you will see you actually have more energy and not crave the sweets as much becuase there is somehting in artificial sweetners that actually make you CRAVE MORE... so if you have to drink pop, then drink the throw back stuff with the REAL sugar in it.

    when I get a break, even if it is only 15 minutes, I leave the area and walk, if that means climbing the stairs in the hallway, or just walking around my units corridoor or what have ya get up and move it gets your body burning energy again.

    MOST IMPORTATLY: when you get up for the day/night, the first thing you should eat is something with hight protein and some complex carbs to get you matabolism jump started to start burning cals. if you skip the first meal, you body doesnt have fuel to start it motor per say. The high protien will make you feel fuller longer and the complex carbs ( not porcessed foods or breads, I mean fruits and vegies here....) will get the matablism going.

    as far as sleep, if you are trying to sleep during daylight hours, MAKE SURE you darken the windows in your room to trick your body that it is night time... really... You will sleep better and your body will be more rested... Also there is an over the counter vitmin supplement called Melotonin.... use it if you are not sleeping solidly. it will help you get that full 8 hours of sleep with out waking up to pee druing the hours of the day... (becaue natually you body does have a clock in it that says you are suposed to be producing unrin during the day light hours and not at night... but if you are on the oposit sched it does not know that you wake up to pee a few hours after you go to sleep.) I sure hope this helps you. Good luck! Add me if ya wish :)

    I've gotten into the habit of only drinking water (I always have a 24oz refillable water bottle with me) and I pack plenty of snacks to get me though my night. I usually drink 3 bottles a day (sometimes 4). Usually from 10pm until midnight, I am doing paperwork. I work in my clients' homes so I have access to a full kitchen and such so food storage and meal prep is not an issue. I always have breakfast within an hour of waking up.

    My main issue is the number of times I have to eat. For example, yesterday I was up at 6:30am to get my first client out of bed and dressed by 7am. I had breakfast as soon as I got up while I was doing a little leftover paperwork. Last night was a late night because we took the residents out to a rodeo and didn't get back to the house until 10:30pm. Everyone was in bed an hour later and I was up until 2am doing documentation and paperwork. That was almost a 20 hour day. So, on a day like that, eating every 3 hours, I would need to eat 7 times (stopping 2 hours before bed). Assuming 200 calories per snack (800 calories), 400 calories for breakfast and lunch (800 calories), and a 600 calorie dinner, that's 2200 calories - 700 over my max daily limit.

    How do I deal with this issue? I've tried doing smaller snacks and meals to spread them out over the course of the day to stay in my limit, but when I do this, I am hungry all day long.
  • _Jessica_
    _Jessica_ Posts: 216 Member
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    ok... I see a nutrtionist, and i know it seems odd... but she does not want me eating every three hours. I eat my three meals a day, and usually have one snack ( apple, or protien bar) and that goes for even when I have the long hour days like you, sometimes I am up for 26-30 hours at a crack.... I still try to keep it to the tree meals and one snack but I still eat high protien at all of my meals (they say you shouyld get AT LEAST 60-70grams a day) so I track that in my food, and I try to stick to low carb ( not atkins style but limit y bad carb intake) The high protien will keep you fuller longer. the carbs will make you feel full right a way and may be less cals, but you will burn through them quick wanting more sooner. I may be just repeating things you have already heard since you work in health care ( im a nurse) but that protien thing really does help :)

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