Fellow Night-shifters?

strangethingsdone
strangethingsdone Posts: 22 Member
edited November 2024 in Getting Started
Hello, other night owls!

I work nights, and been playing around with how best to log my food. I work from 6:45pm to 7:30am, and unless I have more than two or three nights off, I stay on a nocturnal schedule even when I'm not working. So obviously I don't really eat at normal times.

I've re-ordered my diary into first meal, second meal, third meal, and I typically eat my first meal around 1am, second meal either at 4am or when I get home from work around 8am, depending on how hungry/busy I am, and then third meal after I wake up, before I go back to work around 4:30 5pm.

How do you do your meals? I always feel a little like I'm cheating, somehow, since third meal and first meal are often more close together. I mean, I've been doing pretty well staying under my calories each day, which I guess is really all that matters, right?

Anyway, fellow nocturnal people, how do you do your meals?

Replies

  • MsHarryWinston
    MsHarryWinston Posts: 1,027 Member
    edited May 2017
    Helloooo. I just throw them in how it makes sense to me. I used to make the first meal of the evening breakfast but this time around I seem to go: 9pm is logged under Lunch (even though it's actually my breakfast). Midnight is Dinner (even though it's my lunch). Everything else is under snack, so protein bars or popcorn whatever. When I get home the next day, if I eat in the morning (sometimes I do, sometimes I don't) I log that meal as that calendar day's breakfast.
    It's a different system from when I first started but things evolve and it makes sense to me *shrug*.
    At work I eat at 9pm, 12am, 3am, 5ish-6ish am.

    A lot of shift workers switch the names to Meal 1, Meal 2, Meal 3.
  • Buff_Daddy_Regie
    Buff_Daddy_Regie Posts: 73 Member
    I work 8 pm to 8 am but those times I don't eat I just drink water I eat my breakfast when I get home then go to the gym after that then eat lunch around 12 to 1pm includes my post workout then sleep then 6 pm will be my dinner..
  • manwaffles
    manwaffles Posts: 24 Member
    I'm currently working shifts between 6PM - 6Am. I'm also overseas serving on deployment so I'm about 11-12 hours ahead of my loved ones back home. Therefore their morning is MY morning, so it's easy for me to log my first meal of the day (around 6:30PM) as breakfast and so on, until I eat my dinner around 6AM. It was hard at first but since I talk to family/friends during these hours and they're having their same respective meal at that time it makes it easier to track that way.
    Ultimately it doesn't matter too much how you track, or even where under the Meals you put your food, as long as you're tracking everything you put into your body. I'd consider a day the time between your sleep, but that would just be my suggestion. Either way it will work out the same at the end of the day! :)
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