Need tweaking my odd, long work schedule eating

[KayJay]

I need some advice on timing and meals. I'm on Day 11, feel great, clothes getting looser, everything working. But I'm eating more often than I feel my body will require eventually on the days I work.

I work 2nd shift for ten hours, four days a week: 4pm to 2:30am. My typical day schedule is as follows.

• Wake up 11am.
  
• Leave for work 3:30pm
  
• First break 7:30pm (15 minutes)
  
• Lunch break 9:30pm (30 minutes)
  
• Second break 12 midnight (15 minutes)
  
• End shift 2:30am (home at 3), or sometimes as late as 4-4:30am.
  
• Go to bed between 4 and 5.
  

At work, I can only eat on my breaks and lunch, unless I stop off for a handful of nuts or something. I cannot have food on the factory floor, or in my pockets. The breaks are inflexible (and really 10 minutes but we stretch them out, lol).

I'm having difficulty figuring out a solid meal plan on these days that doesn't include some snacking, because I'm also hypoglycemic (for now, I'm hoping). I drive a forklift, so I need to proactively avoid dips in blood sugar and light-headedness. That said, my pre-first break dizziness I saw in week 1 has now gone away. I'm still hungry at 7:30 but not ravenous and in need of a handful of nuts at 6 to tide me over. So yay!

Here's my current "meal plan" for work days:

• Breakfast before noon (most days)
  
• Large lunch 3pm to make it to first break (been upping my fat here)
  
• 1st break snack: serving of nuts, carbs (like a few grape tomatoes), fat (olives or a quarter avocado)
  
• Lunch break: full meal
  
• 2nd break snack: fruit, nuts, sometimes carbs or fat (like 1st break)
  
• Haven't had to eat anything on coming home for a few days or been hungry, so that's good.
  

According to ISWF, I'm not giving my body enough time between meals to get on an even keel with my hunger hormones. But I don't know how to do this on work days. I'm toying with eating heavier at breaks instead of at the lunch break but I'm so limited on time I can't take my time eating.

I'd eat something on coming home but I just read in the book not to eat for several hours before bed.

Any suggestions would be very helpful.

Thanks!

[Tom Denham]

I like your plan to eat a breakfast and big lunch before coming to work. I would consider eating your work "meal" across your breaks and lunch period. Basically, having enough that you could eat some at 1st break, more at lunch break, and finish at 2nd break. That way you would be eating a real meal of food at each opportunity instead of snack foods. You would not have an opportunity to eat as much during the shorter break periods, but you could get some protein, fat, and veggies in at each "meal." That would make for 5 meals in a day, but I ate 4 to 5 and sometimes 6 meals per day when I first started eating the Whole30 way. And I did not have any particular demands on my time that forced me into something the way you do.

It is best not to eat within several hours of going to sleep, but if you are hungry when you get home, I would go ahead and eat something. Personally, I can't get to sleep when I am hungry. Some people can. I don't know if it is better to go to sleep hungry if you can or not.