Counting Calories and Working Nights
 

Anyone else out there work the night shift? I always struggle with how to count my calories when I work the night shift, especially if I didn't work the night before and had a somewhat normal day (which means a full day of eating!)

Do you count your calories and restart at midnight or do you count calories from the time you wakeup until the time you go to sleep?

Like today, for example, I woke up at 8 and had breakfast. I'll eat my normal meals, snacks, including dinner around 7 as I'm sitting in the report room at work (I'm a nurse). However, in order to get through an entire day I bring another meal, my "lunch", which would inevitably put me over my calories for the day, along with any snacks. It's easier when I work consecutive days because I often just count from when I wake up to when I go to sleep, but it can get kind of confusing.

I don't work nights anymore, but I used to work a swing shift. (2nd shift one week, 3rd shift the next)

It's tough! So I'd count from when I woke up to when I went to sleep. It can get confusing, but if you stick to a weekly budget rather than a daily budget it all works out.

Another thing that helped was planning my entire day (or night lol) ahead of time.

I do bar work which can end up being anything from 11am - 4pm, to 11am - 4am!! It's a bit sporadic too. I count from when I get up to when I go to bed, it just feels more natural. I tend to end up with lower/higher calorie days. Maybe look into calorie cycling, or zigzagging as I think it's called? I'm basing my eating on Intuitive Eating, and for what it's worth I ate that way naturally, depending on my activity level that day. I'm carrying this over into my more closely monitored diet :) That might be workable round your shifts and average out over the week :)

I work nights and count them for the day it falls on. So if its 2am on a Tuesday it gets charted for Tuesday. I usually will sleep when I get home that tues morning and not eat until I wake up that afternoon so I find that it balances out the best that way.