Shift workers

[kadlmt]

I'm a police officer and I am in my patrol car approximately 8.5 hours a day. I work 3-11 p.m. The trouble I'm having is that I get up around 9 a.m. and eat breakfast within an hour or so of getting up. I may or may not eat anything before I go to work depending on how hungry I am. By 5 p.m. I'm ready to eat. I always prepare my meals before I leave for work and I take a small cooler with me with my meal in it.

Here's my problem: sometimes things get so crazy that it may be 8 or 9 p.m. before I am able to stop and eat my dinner. I can't seem to regulate the times I eat because of my schedule. Then there are days that I have time to eat a quarter or half of my meal at about 5 but then I won't have time for the rest of the meal until 8 or 9.

Will this cause problems with the program? I feel like I'm having results but have stayed away from the scale (which is killing me, by the way) and do not know if I've lost any weight or not.

Help! I have been sticking with whole foods and feel pretty good right now. I don't want to fail!

Oh, and I'm on Day 4.

[Tom Denham]

Not eating for 10 or 11 hours is not ideal, but I don't think it will ruin your Whole30. To try to reduce the chances of experiencing that long gap between breakfast and 8 or 9 when things slow down, I would try to eat at least a little around 2 before your shift starts. That way the gap between meals if things are busy is a more modest 6 or 7 hours.