Lose Weight On Night Shift

A healthy lifestyle is on every person's radar during these present challenging times. A balanced diet and routine have become increasingly necessary to combat all kinds of illnesses.

With globalization, about 26 to 38 million adults perform shift work, whether for a night job or rotate shifts during the week. As per American and European studies, around 15-30% of adult workers engage in some shift work, where 19% of the European population seemingly worked at least 2 hours between 22:00 and 05:00.

While, for some, it's a rite of passage in their careers, it's merely a financial obligation for others. However, shift work in a growing sense is taking a severe toll on their health.

The Nightshift Curse: How To Successfully Lose Weight While Working Nightshift By Melissa Prell, Paperback

Especially for a night shift worker, it is essential to have a well-balanced diet to sustain a grueling routine of night shift work.

Night shift generally refers to the last shift at any given business, although the exact hours referred to can vary from place to place. If a business is open 24/7, the night shift or the third shift usually goes after midnight, like the 11 pm to 7 am shift or the 5 pm to 2 am shift.

The length of a particular shift can vary anything from 8 to 12 hours. Examples of night-shift workers include emergency industry workers such as police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, dispatchers, doctors and nurses, and other healthcare support staff, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, bartenders, servers and other food service employees, security guards, truck or taxi or rideshare drivers, retail store workers, manufacturing and production workers, etc.

How To Lose Weight When You Work Nights

The interest in the effects of shift-work, especially night shift, on people has developed because several experts have blamed rotating shifts for the occupational health issues and 'human error' connected incidents such as air crashes and other catastrophic accidents.

Here is a study showing the number of accidents by truck drivers based on their shift times. The peak in accidents is past mid- night.

The rise of epidemiological and scientific studies on this issue verifies this risk factor's gravity on human health and well-being at both social and psychophysical levels.

How Can I Lose Weight Working 12 Hour Night Shifts?

According to Frank Scheer, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, There is strong evidence that shift work is related to several serious health conditions, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Other issues such as disruption of biological circadian rhythms and sleep-wake cycle and several psychosomatic troubles, including depression that further extend to impairment of work performance and family and social life, are also proven to be related to night shift cycles.

Night shift workers are sleep deprived, and when you lack enough good quality sleep, your health begins to suffer, leading you to issues such as obesity.

Want To Lose Weight On Night Shift? Here's How Shift Work Affects Your Body Goals. — Peter Roberts Coaching

The data from a 2015 health survey showed that 30% of shift workers were obese compared to 24% of men and 23% of women working regular hours. It is because working night shifts disrupt your body's internal clock or circadian rhythm.

Almost all human physical functions lead in a daily rhythm or a 24-hour cycle. This cycle is called the circadian rhythm. It regulates many essential aspects of the human body like sleeping, waking, temperature, blood pressure, digestion, secretion of adrenalin, and body pulse.

These cyclic processes usually are coordinated to allocate high activity during the day and low activity at night. However, shift work tosses this cycle off balance along with your body's metabolic and hormonal stability, including the critical hormones that regulate hunger and satiety.

Nutrition For Night Shift Workers

A disturbance in your circadian cycle intensifies your risk for weight gain as it decreases your resting metabolic rate. It releases the stress hormone cortisol, making you feel more stressed, less energetic, craving for high fat and sodium, and it all directly correlates with weight gain in the abdominal area.

Staying up throughout the night and sleeping entire day is not a physiological condition for diurnal beings such as humans, who force to adjust their psycho-physiological state.

According to surveys, health professionals who worked night shifts displayed more psychological and mental health problems than day workers. These include irritability, interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and paranoid disorders, which were significantly higher. These data signify that shift work harms the workers' psychological health and social life.

Night Shift Diet Plan: Meals To Be Included To Get Nutrients

As per the European Food Information Council, the night shift work links to increased risk of health issues like obesity, Type 2 diabetes, severe heart disease, and much depression. These workers have barely any opportunity for regular sun exposure, which is essential to get Vitamin D. The fat-soluble nutrient works with calcium to promote strong bones, cell production, immune functions and prevent osteoporosis and inflammation. Researchers have also found a connection between night shift work and increased rates of skin, breast, and gastrointestinal cancers in women and lung, colon, bladder, pancreatic, prostate, and rectal cancers in men.

As per the National Academy of Medicine, ideally vitamin D level is a daily intake of 600 IU for all adults. Therefore, to protect your health and on-job performance, visit your doctor for a blood test and dosage recommendations.

Losing weight is a long-term process, especially for someone with a unique schedule. Finding a balance of what- when to eat while working the night shift is the key to this process! Following listed are steps that you can adopt for this process.

Slight Weight Loss Observed In Night Shift Workers Fasting During Overnight Hours

Eat the 'big meal' an hour before the night shift, preferably between 4-5 pm. It will help you to power up throughout the night with energy.

Carry additional snacks to munch on during the shift. Protein-rich small snacks that will keep you alert throughout your shift. Some of the favourite snacks for night shift workers include:

Make sure to sleep before sunrise and sleep in as much darkness as possible. Once you wake up around noon, have your lunch. You want to keep your lunch high in whole foods, with complex carbs, cruciferous vegetables, one protein source and a handful of nuts and seeds. Resist the urge to have anything between lunch and your 'big meal' which is an hour before your shift. Here is a sample meal plan for reference:

What Are The Best Foods To Eat During Night Shifts?

An overdose of caffeine leads to the distortion of the sleep and body cycle, which is severe if you are working night shifts. Stick to chamomile OR lemon balm tea towards the end of your shift, these act as natural sedatives. watch this to know more:

As such, water is the way to go! Drinking plenty of water will help you be alert, stay awake, ward off dehydration, constipation, bloating, gastric and keep you feeling good.

I do free consultations every Tuesday's and Thursday's. Either way you will get some actionable tips to reach your fitness goals faster.

The Secret To Losing Weight While Working Night Shift

Roshni Sanghvi is an Indian plant-based sports nutritionist and body transformation specialist. She is the first Indian to represent on a national bodybuilding stage being on a 100% plant-based diet. Roshni is a holistic nutritionist, graduated from the prestigious NutraPhoria college of nutrition in Canada.

She is also an ACE-certified personal trainer, certified PlantFed gut coach, certified Bodyshred, and Animal flow instructor with a specialisation in disease reversal through food and lifestyle modification.

Her approach is more focused on helping you in adopting a healthy lifestyle. With her result-oriented holistic methods, she has managed to transform and reverse lifestyle diseases such as PCOS, Thyroid, Diabetes etc for 12k+ clients worldwide.Losing weight is hard enough but tackling this feat can be even more challenging for those who regularly toil from dusk till dawn.

Pdf) Study Protocol For The Shifting Weight Using Intermittent Fasting In Night Shift Workers (swift) Study: A Three Arm Randomised Controlled Trial Comparing Three Weight Loss Strategies In Night Shift Workers With Obesity

Here are 10 tips specific to your schedule to help you keep the weight off and the ways that the night shift affects your body.

Be honest, are you really getting the recommended 7 to 9 hours each night? If you’re falling short on the shut-eye, put sleep down as a calendar item.

The selection at 24-hour eateries (think: gas station stops, fast food joints, and vending machines) are rarely healthy. Save some money and empty calories by bringing your own snacks.

What Are Intermittent Fasting And Workout Timings For Night Shift People?

Be sure to store any perishable food in the refrigerator at work or pack in a cooler with ice packs to keep it cold (and safe to eat).

If the choice is between sleep and exercise, go with sleep. However, making exercise a priority is critical for getting closer to your goal weight.

It also has the extra benefit of promoting good sleep. Since the gym (or sun) may not be in your favor, sneak in some indoor workouts.

Eating Before Bed Delays Fat Burning

Soda, candy, cookies, and the like are void of any real nutritional benefit and they lack any satiating power, which typically comes from fiber and protein.

On top of this, a study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that peak blood sugar levels were 16 percent higher and insulin levels were 40 to 50 percent higher when subjects underwent one night of shift work, compared to one day of a regular work schedule.

Elevated insulin and blood sugar levels suggest the body isn’t as equipped to manage foods high in refined carbohydrates and added sugars, and this could lead to type 2 diabetes over time.

Tips For Night Shift Weight Loss

Disrupting the circadian clock increases the risk for obesity because it alters metabolism by decreasing resting metabolic rate. But, light isn’t the only factor.

One of