3rd Shift Killing Me

Diet and Nutrition
1

Started working a great paying job but, it is 3rd shift and obviously this has my sleep schedule screwed up which has my eating cycle messed up. Also its a pretty strenuous job I guess I am on my feet for 8 hours walk up to 4-5 miles a night and constantly literally all night long lifting and placing bundles of cardboard from 20-60lbs. I am pretty much in a constant bulk mode. My goal is strength and size could less really how I look just wanna be massive but, this does not mean I am not serious about eating clean.

Just want some more experienced guys with nutrition to give my schedule a glance and see if there is anything to make it more optimal.

10:30pm-7:00am- Work ( can not eat at all until 3:00am )
7:30am-4:00pm- Sleep
4:30pm-10:00pm- Only time to really get in my food.

Basically this is what I am doing
4:30pm- Breakfast- 6 Eggs, Cheese, Greek Yogurt, 1 cup Oatmeal, Fruit
7:00- Dinner with Wife- 12oz of Meat( Ground Beef, Chicken, Pork), 1 cup Pasta, 1 cup Vegetable
10:00- 50g Casien Protein and Fruit before work.
3:00am- Usually same as Dinner or Large bowl of Egg Salad and Whole Grain Bread.
7:00am- 50g Casien or 6 Eggs right before bed.

Also drink a half gallon of 1% milk on off days and 1 full gallon on training days. I drink it all between 4-10pm.

2

I guess I’m not seeing the issue here. Are you progressing the way you’d like to? I work 10pm - 6am every day (every.day.) and get much less sleep than you while working a demanding manual labor job. I additionally only eat between 1:30 pm and 9:30 pm. I’m not trying to say “suck it up braw” but I’m not quite understanding what it is you’re looking for.

I hope you don’t believe you’ll magically lose gaiynz if you only eat 8/10/12 hours out of the day. You will be quite okay, I promise. Simple rules still apply… if you’re not getting stronger/bigger, eat more in that timeframe. If you’re getting too fat… eat less.

Again, maybe there’s just something I’m missing here.

3

I just don’t feel like I am getting in enough food before I was putting down much more but I had more time to eat. Now its been two weeks and I have lost 6lbs and I am eating everything I can in the few hours I am awake and actually able to have food. But I was mainly posting to see if there was anything extra I could or should be doing in order to make it as optimal as possible. I pretty mug only have 5 hours to get in everything and in that 5 hours I also have to train really only giving me 4 hours to put down a load of food.

4

I see, that makes sense. In my opinion, your Meals at 3 and 7 could have additional food.

Add some fats in there!

Nuts by themselves… peanut butter to your shakes. Even EVOO or EVCO!

5

Hats off to both of you for working 3rd shift. I only had to do it for 6 months and it sucked. Party because my wife worked 2nd shift and I had my son to take care off. It took a long time to adjust. I wouldn’t worry to much now since you just started. Give it time. My biggest worry is the big gap between 10pm and 3am. Is there no way to snack around 1am? Sneak something in, a premade shake?

[quote]SSC wrote:
Add some fats in there!
Nuts by themselves… peanut butter to your shakes. Even EVOO or EVCO![/quote]

Good thinking. Make sure your using oils.

Big fan of nuts. I have a big ziplock full of almonds,cashews,walnuts and pecans at work and at home. Peanutbutter is good and easy to spoonful after a meal. I’ve since switched to almondbutter.

6

I work in a plant that deals with 90% food packages and they are extremely strict on having food on the floor. Supposidly its a one time and your gone kinda thing. The place is extremely laid back about everything except food on the floor. But ill talk to the boss maybe he will give me like 5 mins to run to the break room chug a shake and run back.

SSC thank you for the advice never really thought about adding oil and the such will begin immediately.

7

It is necessary to have a schedule diet. Shift job is really frustrating and it directly affects your health by interfering with your internal body clock which is known as the circadian rhythm. And digestive processes will be slowdown in the evening and night. When this rhythm is interrupted by shift work, what you eat may be out of sync with what your body is able to process. If you start work in the afternoon, have your main meal in the middle of the day, rather than in the middle of your shift. If you’re working nights, eat your main meal before your shift starts, preferably between 5 and 7 p.m.

8

there’s room to add a lot more carbs in your diet. That might help

9

As above add a shot of olive oil to shakes. If possible Get some humapro or bcaa in pill form and pop them when you go to the bathroom.

Also destroy a buffet/have a filthy cheat meal on your off day

10

Thankfully I work the midnight shift while sitting at a desk :slight_smile:

Anyways, your job is new correct? It seems you are walking more than you did before. That could explain some of your weight loss. Don’t sweat it. Eat when/what you can. You’ll adapt. And may even find the calories you might add now will be too much later on. Believe me. My brother does the same thing you do (midnights in a food factory) and is a fat tub of shit :slight_smile:

11

[quote]TYR wrote:
My brother does the same thing you do and is a fat tub of shit :)[/quote]

I just told your brother what you wrote about him. Needless to say he’s pissed. Said something about getting revenge at Christmas. Watch your back!

12

[quote]Reed wrote:
Started working a great paying job but, it is 3rd shift and obviously this has my sleep schedule screwed up which has my eating cycle messed up. Also its a pretty strenuous job I guess I am on my feet for 8 hours walk up to 4-5 miles a night and constantly literally all night long lifting and placing bundles of cardboard from 20-60lbs. I am pretty much in a constant bulk mode. My goal is strength and size could less really how I look just wanna be massive but, this does not mean I am not serious about eating clean.

Just want some more experienced guys with nutrition to give my schedule a glance and see if there is anything to make it more optimal.

10:30pm-7:00am- Work ( can not eat at all until 3:00am )
7:30am-4:00pm- Sleep
4:30pm-10:00pm- Only time to really get in my food.

Basically this is what I am doing
4:30pm- Breakfast- 6 Eggs, Cheese, Greek Yogurt, 1 cup Oatmeal, Fruit
7:00- Dinner with Wife- 12oz of Meat( Ground Beef, Chicken, Pork), 1 cup Pasta, 1 cup Vegetable
10:00- 50g Casien Protein and Fruit before work.
3:00am- Usually same as Dinner or Large bowl of Egg Salad and Whole Grain Bread.
7:00am- 50g Casien or 6 Eggs right before bed.

Also drink a half gallon of 1% milk on off days and 1 full gallon on training days. I drink it all between 4-10pm.[/quote]

A few things:
You mentioned you had lost a little weight. You gotta make sure you keep the cals in with a labor job or your weight will change pretty easy.
Your breakfast is relatively filling for what you get.
Eggs are filling, yogurt is the devil (ok I lied, but it is too light for my taste when I’m bulking, feel like im wasting stomach space, just my opinion), oats are filling too, unless you make them like me (rolled oats+warm water, sit for 2 min or so, press water out w hand and microwave. It’s more like wet granola consistency than the norm of soupy oats)

I would try and add in some dense stuff while working. Even if you can handle carbs I doubt they will allow that in any form. Can you manage to get a thermos of coffee in there? If so you can literally sneak in any food you need to, just don’t get fired. If you only can do coffee without severe repercussions then do so. Get decaf so you don’t go mad and add in heavy cream and MCT/coconut oil plus good protein powder (or drop the coffee part, up to you). If you can get a mac daddy thermos you can jam in a ton of protein and fat in there, those are pretty good clean sources IMO.

Why the 1%?

13

[quote]CynthiaFoy wrote:
digestive processes will be slowdown in the evening and night… what you eat may be out of sync with what your body is able to process… eat your main meal before your shift starts, preferably between 5 and 7 p.m.
[/quote]

No