Shift workers -When do you eat?

(Goldie King) #1

Hello everyone. I am new to Keto and will be starting in a couple of days. I am looking forward to something new because Lord only knows I have done everything else!!! Anyway, I work from 2.30pm till 11.00pm and get home around midnight. That’s when I am the hungriest!!! Will Keto work for me because I don’t eat at work really…I wait till I get home. Any suggestions??

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

I’ll let others advise re IF, which may be a solution for you. My opinion is, however, that eating at midnight just before going to bed is probably not the best time.

I also work shifts at Walmart, but my shifts vary day to day. I eat 3 meals per day and sometimes a 4th in late eve, if I need to bring up my macro/calorie totals for the day. My work shifts are always approx 8 hours, which includes a one hour ‘meal’ break. I always eat during that meal break. It’s never my main meal, but it is a substantial meal, not just a low cal ‘snack’.

I always eat before going to work, even when my shift starts at 6:30-7:00 am and I have to get up at 4:30 to do it. If my shift starts at 2-3pm I eat my main meal of the day at noon. I make sure my ‘shift meal’ is substantial because I do not eat after getting home at 11:30-midnight.

PS: I edited your title to try to get the attention of others with ideas that may be helpful even if they don’t relate to shift work. If you don’t like my edit, feel free to remove it.

(Goldie King) #3

Thank you, no problem! I will take all the help I can get. Lol. I will try eating before work, it’s really hard to make time to eat at due to the type of work I am in. It’s security work so it can be difficult depending on what’s going on. I appreciate you though.

Thanks!

GK.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #4

Do you mean it’s hard to eat at work? Meaning you don’t have a scheduled ‘meal break’ but just have to eat whenever you can? I have 3 suggestions for dealing with that.

  1. A mix of nuts and bacon bits. My choice of nuts are Brazil, macadamia and walnuts in that order. Brazil nuts have the least carbs but also a lot of selenium which renders them a once or twice per week option only. Macs have only slightly more carbs, but are way more expensive. Walnuts have a lot of carbs. Typical meal - Brazil nuts. Typical meal - macadamia nuts. Typical meal - walnuts. Each of these meals matches my daily macros, by the way.
  2. A round of soft cheese. Typical meal - Notre Dame Brie. Typical meal - Your Fresh Market 2x Brie. Typical meal - Boursin Bouquet of Basil. Advantages: each of these cheeses comes in a convenient container of specific weight. Disadvantages: the two bries contain significant carbs (3.3 grams per 100 grams). The Boursin Bouquet of Basil has zero carbs but requires a spoon to eat since it is very soft. None of these cheeses matches my daily macros, so I adjust my other meals of the day accordingly. Ideally, you should keep these in a fridge, but they won’t spoil if you have to keep in a desk drawer for a few hours. You could also eat any hard or semi-hard cheese as well.
  3. Pepperoni. Typical meal - 3 x McSweeney’s Originals. Does not match my daily macros, so I adjust my other meals of the day accordingly.

Objective is not to require any prep. Just eat. Hope this helps.

New to the Keto Diet first day
(Brian) #5

Before we went keto, my wife and I did some night shift work in an Amazon warehouse. Basically, it was something like 5:00pm to 3:30am, or something similar. We found that we did best eating our “supper”, our big meal of the day, maybe around 3:00pm or so, give or take a little. We would take a “lunch” for lunch break (I think around 9:00pm) but it wasn’t always a big meal. We occasionally got asked out for “breakfast” after our shift but quickly found out that we didn’t like having to stay up after sunrise and going to bed on a full stomach. That worked pretty well for us at the time. Even though it wasn’t keto, we still dropped a few pounds as it was pretty demanding physically.

Were we doing that today, I think we’d stick with the big meal before work and maybe something really light at “lunch break”. Then when we’d get home, it would be bed time, not chow time.

That’s how I think we would do it, based upon our past experience with night shift as well as our keto mindset today. Maybe others would think differently. ??

Good luck!

#6

Personally, I believe that when you are transitioning to keto you should just focus on eating fewer than 20 grams of carbs a day, and eat whenever you normally would eat. Once you make the transition fully, (weeks to months) you can begin to cut out snacking and adjust your eating schedule to whatever works best for you.

Most people find they no longer feel the need to snack and will even begin to eat fewer meals just because they forget to eat or aren’t hungry.

Others who work late shifts or night shifts can step in here and share what works for them. But, really, when you are just starting out, you are doing great to simply cut out all the carbs. That in itself will go a very long way toward healing your body and toward health.

Best of luck on your new way of eating!!