Night Shift Worker

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Redwolfe
Redwolfe Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all, new to this site.

A real problem with my eating habits is due to my working the graveyard shift, which in of itself is bad for my health. Adding to that is an unordinary eating schedule, which makes it difficult for me to accurately "track" my schedule.

So some suggestions needed.

My daily schedule goes something like this:

4pm - Wake up
5 - 6pm - Dinner
9pm - snack (some times)
1 - 2am - snack (often fruit of some sort)
4am - lunch
8am - breakfast
10am - go to bed.

The problem is where to start/stop my recording. If I start from "wake up to going to bed" then my meals branch over two days. If I choose just meals in a day, then I have a period of "sleep" and my meals go in the order of "Lunch, Breakfast, Dinner"

Not sure what to do exactly.

Also when calculating "water" consumption, does one add "Tea" to water. Since Tea is mostly water? Or does the tea leaves alter water in any definative way? I don't add sugar to my tea, and do add a small amount of 1% milk to my tea (if I have orange pekoe) other tea's I drink black.

Also is there any particular tea that is beneficial for weight loss? I have heard that Green tea aids in motabolism

Thanks

Replies

  • snkeller24
    snkeller24 Posts: 459
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    I work 12 hour shifts, at night; so this week (Sunday-Saturday) I worked Monday night, Tuesday night, Friday night, and Saturday night (then Sunday night). My shift is 7p-7a.

    I set my diary up into 7a-7p and 7p-7a. You eat roughly the same times I do, except I eat my dinner at work around 2am.

    As far as tea goes, can't really give you a straight answer; I do drink Diet Lipton Green Tea (buy the gallon jugs at the store) just to add something a little different but I don't log it at all.

    Hope that was somewhat helpful ... good luck!
  • wildcard29
    wildcard29 Posts: 322 Member
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    I also work nights but I get home between 3 and 4 am so for my diary my first meal is breakfast then my snack then lunch then snack then dinner and sometimes another snack...Sometimes I eat my breakfast at noon or one. I figure as long as I eat 4 to 5 small meals a day and have a couple hours in between I';m good. You can also change ur diary to time frames if that would help you.
  • ketchup80
    ketchup80 Posts: 1
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    I also work night shifts 7p-7a. However, I log my days from midnight to midnight. That way even when I change to day hours while I'm off of work, I can still keep track of my calories. Once I changed to this tracking method I saw much better weight loss results.
  • metulchik
    metulchik Posts: 59 Member
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    I also work nights (11pm-7am) but I switch to a "normal" daytime schedule when I have days off. So I log from midnight-midnight, and to stop the confusion of eating dinner for breakfast etc, I renamed my meals as time slots (12am-4am/4-8am/8am-12pm/12p-4pm/4-8pm/8pm-12am). That way I just record what I eat when I eat it.
  • mebrowngirlgetfit
    mebrowngirlgetfit Posts: 5
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    Welcome Redwolfe,

    I can relate with you, I use to work the night shift, and it was brutal on me. That is where I began my upward weight climb. However at the time I wasn't interested in watching my weight, so that resulted in my mindless weight gain. I apauld you in choosing to make a conscience effort in getting control. First of all just the daily monitoring what you eat keeps you accountable, accountability is the key to conquering this battle. Secondly, with myfitnesspal you can change your meal titles to something other than breakfast , lunch and dinner..change to 5-6 pm meal, etc. it shouldn't matter that your meal times are not necessarily on the same day, just keep monitoring, exercising and making adjustment where you need to. Lastly, if you could get some partners on the job to join you that would be helpful. On my job I help to organize a biggest loser competition. We each put in twenty five dollars and after 3 months whoever lost the most overall weight loss percentage combined with inches will win the pot. This will make your competitive spirit kick in, and make it more exciting. Anyway hope that helps, much success to you in your efforts.
  • Cait_Sidhe
    Cait_Sidhe Posts: 3,150 Member
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    I also work overnights. I do 12 hour shifts. I start recording for the new day when I wake up. 24 hours is 24 hours.

    The only thing I do different, is that I stay up the day after my last overnight of the week to rearrange my schedule. I start recording the new day when I get off work.
  • Redwolfe
    Redwolfe Posts: 2
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    Thanks for all the responses, and thanks for letting me know I could change the labels of the food diary. Also it's nice to see so many over-nighters on here. Often while working nights, you feel that you're alone. I work in an office building downtown, and from what I understand, in the 50 some odd floors, we are the only office that is 24/7, other then the security team that is there all night.

    I'm still figuring things out for the most part. Hopefully this will be something I stick with.

    The other thing I find difficult working nights, is finding time to do even basic exercise. When I get home I am usually too exhausted to do anything, when I wake up it's shower, get dinner ready. After dinner is clean up, spend time with kids, put kids to bed, get lunch ready, spend a bit of time with my wife, get my things together and head out the door to catch my bus. I'm going to have to fit 15 or 20 min in there some time.
  • loulabelle_07
    loulabelle_07 Posts: 2
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    My husband works the graveyard shift and it definitely changes everything.. I have learned that getting enough sleep will make you less hungry. Also, journal everything you eat/drink..believe me, it does wonders and you will see where you need to cut down or make slight changes. You can continue to have what you enjoy -- just of course in moderation. There may be a point where you plateau, I know it can be really frustrating..just keep positive and you will be fine -- add in a little exercise too. You don't have to do anything to kill yourself. My doctor suggested to me at least 10 minutes/day of activity... you can see how you feel, then maybe add some time to it. I know we all want results overnight, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.. Hope this helps you!!
  • dixedreg
    dixedreg Posts: 276 Member
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    I also work overnights. I do 12 hour shifts. I start recording for the new day when I wake up. 24 hours is 24 hours.

    The only thing I do different, is that I stay up the day after my last overnight of the week to rearrange my schedule. I start recording the new day when I get off work.

    This is exactly how I do it too. It seems to be working for me so far.

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