Night shifts...

No Snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Except on Days that start with S. Too simple for you? Simple is why it works. Look here for questions, introductions, support, success stories.

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Minkymoo
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Night shifts...

Post by Minkymoo » Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:25 am

Hi, does anyone have a tip or two on how to handle night shifts on the no S diet? I'm doing really well the rest of the time but I seem to come completely derailed when I work nights (about 4 times a month).

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:57 am

First, define "nights." Are you talking evening hours or overnight? I've worked both and how I ate varied with the hours I worked. Also, do you work them randomly (one at a time and it varies) or in a row?
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

Who Me?
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Post by Who Me? » Sat Oct 01, 2011 8:15 pm

I think that as long as you use common sense you'll be fine.

I know that when I work a lot of nights, I'm actually awake and active more hours in the day, and I get *way* hungrier.

Minkymoo
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Post by Minkymoo » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:19 pm

I mean overnight nursing shifts from 9 at night to 8 in the morning. I've tried eating an extra meal but having 4 small meals instead of three generous ones, or I'm thinking of allowing two snacks overnight. It's difficult not to eat overnight as I get really hungry when I'm tired and night staff always bring biscuits / cake / sweets to snack on.
Just wondering what has worked for other people, as this is the one area where I find the no s diet is hard to follow.

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Lily x
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Post by Lily x » Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:13 pm

Minkymoo wrote:I mean overnight nursing shifts from 9 at night to 8 in the morning. I've tried eating an extra meal but having 4 small meals instead of three generous ones, or I'm thinking of allowing two snacks overnight. It's difficult not to eat overnight as I get really hungry when I'm tired and night staff always bring biscuits / cake / sweets to snack on.
Just wondering what has worked for other people, as this is the one area where I find the no s diet is hard to follow.
I imagine it's the transition from being awake during the day to being awake at night (then back again) that makes this hard? In a way, it's easier to do a run of nights rather than the odd one here and there!

So you need two strategies, one for a run of nights and one for the transition days.

How about: on the day you have a night shift coming up, you eat breakfast, lunch and tea as normal, but also pack up a meal to have in the middle of the night during your break. Don't worry too much about making this pack up meal a small meal to start with - make sure it'll be enough to get you through the shift without snacking on the stuff that people helpfully bring in. Then when you get home, have breakfast as normal.

If you're on a run of nights, go to bed and don't eat again until teatime. Then once again, pack up a meal for your nightshift break and don't eat again until breakfast.

If you're doing a one off night shift, chances are you'll want breakfast before going to sleep for a few hours but you're still going to want to eat when you wake up (maybe mid-afternoon?) and you'll want to eat again in the evening. Well - so what? Go with it! All that will happen is that you have an extra meal every once in a while. Far better, I think, to have an extra meal than succumb to the snacking monster. :)

I think the key to making this work is legitimising that occasional extra meal when you're transitioning to and from a night shift. I wouldn't worry about making that occasional extra meal a smaller one and I wouldn't try to make the other meals during that 24hr period smaller either. You need to know that you're going to make it through to the next meal without snacking and that's more important, especially when getting the No S habit down. You can always experiment with meal quantities when the habit's established.

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:07 pm

I'm also a nurse and used to work night shifts occasionally. I always had a terrible time not only figuring out when to eat, but what. What makes it more difficult is not knowing if you go to sleep as soon as you get home, or if you're awake for a while and then sleep.

One of the things that helped me figure it all out was determining what I'd do if I worked the opposite hours: 9 AM until 8 PM in your case. I'd have something to eat before work, something to eat about the middle of the shift and then something after I got home from work.

Just before I stopped working my hours were 11 AM until 10:30 PM -- so even though I only got one meal break, I was technically there for two meals. I would eat shortly before leaving for work in the morning, then take lunch sometime around 2:30 in the afternoon. I'd have something light on break about 8 in the evening. It worked.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

Minkymoo
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Post by Minkymoo » Tue Oct 11, 2011 6:01 pm

Thank you for your advice, tips and experience! I hope I can make it work for me, it all seems very practical & sensible and you're right, an extra (planned) meal is far more No S than leaving myself vulnerable to the biscuit by skimping on the meals!

Andie
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Post by Andie » Tue Oct 11, 2011 11:59 pm

I'm glad you brought this up, because I was going to myself. I'm also a nurse, I work 12 hour shifts from 8 to 8, two days, two nights, five off. I'm currently on maternity leave, and will be going back to work in about a month and a half. I haven't really done no s seriously while working shifts, I had troubles with snacking. When I was successfull (and I think this is what I'm going to try to do when I go back ) is this:

Transition day: 3 meals as usual, dinner before I go to work.
During the night shift: One balanced dinner sized meal at 2. (meat, starch, veggies, NOT popcorn, lol). One glass of 100% juice before morning rounds at about 6am. Breakfast when I get home after my shift before I go to bed. I sleep until about 4, and this is where it gets tough, because I'm usually really hungry and tired at this point and I used to eat sweets etc. to get through it. I'm going to have a glass of milk when I get up to hold me off until dinner, and then have a regular dinner before I go to work, then repeat as per the first night shift.

When I get home from my second night shift, I have bacon and eggs as a sort of celebratory meal. (it's MY friday after all) I usually get up at about 2 in order to transition back to regular life, and I used to snack the day away at this point as well. I think I'm going to allow myself a fruit smoothie at this point, and then a regular dinner at dinner time.

I keep my S days on saturday and sunday because this is what seems to work, and I haven't decided whether or not to try and keep up my plan when my nights fall on s days. Eating junk makes me feel worse...

Anyway, please let me know what you decide to try, and update how it's going. I'll do the same when I go back to work,

Cheers!
Back after a long hiatus.

Andie
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update

Post by Andie » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:17 pm

Well, I've been back to work for about a month and a half, and I haven't had a green night shift yet. I find it harder to eat a big meal in the middle of the night, it doesn't sit well in my stomach. And once the sun comes up in the morning, I'm ravenous! When I get home I feel like inhaling the contents of the fridge, and usually end up eating about two breakfasts worth of food before I go to bed. I haven't had much of a problem when I wake up after my sleep, I'm usually not hungry until dinner.

My new game plan is I'm going to schedule three small healthy mini meals during my night shift, and eat a large filling breakfast when I get home (I have been trying to have one english muffin with one egg and a sausage patty, but I think I'm going to try oatmeal with fruit and nuts with two eggs on the side instead).

Anyone else struggling with shift work? Any tips?
Back after a long hiatus.

snapdragon
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Post by snapdragon » Tue Jan 24, 2012 1:25 pm

I would think as long as I had a consistent plan for night shifts it would be ok. You have to find a strategy, and the goal is to avoid random unhealthy eating.

vmsurbat
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Post by vmsurbat » Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:13 pm

Here is a recent posting by a nutritionist I respect on this very topic:

http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips. ... rkers.aspx

HTH,
Vicki in MNE
7! Yrs. with Vanilla NoS, down 55+lb, happily maintaining and still loving it!

Andie
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Post by Andie » Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:08 am

Thanks for the link, I'll try these!
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r.jean
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Post by r.jean » Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:21 am

I did not post this before because it is not practical for most people, but here is what I did on night shift. I slept second shift. That meant I ate breakfast when I got up at 10 pm, ate lunch during my shift and ate dinner at noon. I was not overweight at the time and was not trying to lose weight. However, I did lose weight and was at my lowest adult weight during that time, I also worked weekends which cut down on weekend indulging.

This also meant that there was less of a shift in my sleep on days off.

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~hf
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Post by ~hf » Mon Feb 13, 2012 5:08 pm

I finally had to quite working the night shift. I found that I wasn't adjusting well at all. I ended up eating 4-5 times on the day that I worked the night shift, then I would be so tired from working that night shift that I slept way too much for several days after (in a failed attempt to recover) which reduced my activity level. The end result...I regained everything I had lost, and then some, and am now back at square one. My hat is off to anyone who can successfully pull it off.

I've been back to day shift for 2 weeks and I'm almost feeling like myself again. Now that I'm feeling better, I'll be going back to the basics with my No S.
SW 236.4
10/26/11 restart date
1st goal 21 day club !accomplished! 11/24/11
2nd goal 10% loss
3rd goal...????

Sugarpuff
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Post by Sugarpuff » Tue Feb 28, 2012 8:21 pm

I work nights - Breakfast is at midday, when I get up, Lunch is at 5pm or 6pm, and Dinner is at around midnight.

Splitting your dinner into 2 smaller meals may work as a mod, especially if you pack one. So you could have say, a sandwich at 10 or 11 pm, and the rest at 3-4 am?
You'd be eating the same amount as you would in one meal but spread apart...

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