Hello all, I normally work 1st shift but tomorrow (Sunday) I am working first, then coming back in for 3rd. How shall I count my calories, and for what day? I will be hungry on 3rd shift so i will be bringing food. So confused. If I count them for tomorow, then i will barely be able to eat anything all day, and same goes for monday. Any advice?

What worked well for me was keeping a meal schedule. I would eat dinner at 6 or 7 am, then go to bed at 9 am. I'd wake up about 5pm, eat breakfast, and then eat lunch at midnight. As far as calorie counting, start counting calories at midnight and stop at 11pm.

Will you be sleeping at all when you get home from 3rd shift? I used to work 12 hour nights so I would just count my calories per 24 hours. I would sleep a good 4 or 5 hours when I got home so my day time eating decreased since I was using that time to sleep. Honestly though I rarely ate on night shift. For some reason I get a horrible stomach ache when I eat during the night. But when I did eat I would just aim to keep my calories at 1500 in a 24 hour period whether or not I did the bulk of my eating during the night or the day. Hope this helps!

record from midnight to midnight just as MFP does. I always work weird schedules and this just fits the best. (i have tried other ways). Feel free to look at my diary. Its open to public.