I work nights. 12-hour shifts, 4 on, 3 off. Sleep is trash. Eating used to be worse. I hit 34 pounds down in 11 weeks.
Scale stalled for two weeks, which annoyed me. Yesterday I grabbed a medium work polo out of my locker just to see. It fit. Not tight. No gut pinch. I actually wore it all shift.
I haven’t worn a medium since maybe 2019. I know the scale is a liar sometimes. Clothes don’t lie as much.
Anyone else have clothes change before the number does?
Night shift 12s here too. My two-week stall turned out to be water from the 3am vending pretzels + a “free” granola bar that was 400 cal.
I switched to weekly average weights, not daily, and it stopped messing with my head. I also grabbed two clearance medium work polos for $12 each just to lock in the size.
Sharp question: which weigh-in do you trust — after your first off-day sleep, or right after a shift? My after-shift numbers run 3–4 lbs heavy every time.
That medium polo win is huge—clothes are honestly a better signal than the scale when sleep is trash. I work a similar rotating schedule, and my two-week stalls always line up with the 4-on stretch: more sodium, less water, and I mistake night-shift fatigue for hunger.
Something that helped me was tracking waist at belly button and how my rings fit first thing after
night shift gremlin here too. the scale lies during 4-on stretches for me — i think it’s the salty 3am food + trash sleep holding water. what helped me was a cheap tape measure once a week and taking pics in the same locker room lighting. my waist moved before the scale did. also i swapped my 2am
Tbh scale stalls lie for a couple weeks when you’re recomping. Are you tracking waist at navel or how a shirt sits? I had a stretch where the scale didn’t budge but my work polo got looser and my belt notch moved. Night shifts can also mask water drop with sleep debt. Curious: do you lift before or after your 12s?
That recovery piece matters more than most people admit when you’re doing 4x/week.
night shift here too. The medium polo is a huge NSV—congrats. One thing that helped me during a stall: I stopped weighing after a run of shifts and started tracking my sleep and sodium instead.
My “whoosh” usually came after a solid 8-hour sleep on my first day off, not a diet change. Also, I keep an emergency protein shake + hard-boiled eggs in my locker so I don’t hit the vending machine at 3am. What’s your 3am meal look like? That was always my danger zone.
night shift gamer here. i do the sharpie-on-the-tag thing with goal shirts—every time it fits a little better, i mark the date. dumb but it makes stalls less annoying.
medium still fights me in the shoulders like a raid boss, so i’m curious: what size were you before? and does the medium polo fit in the shoulders or just the gut? that’s usually the last part to cooperate for me.
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