Getting off of shift work
Found out yesterday that I will start my new role on Monday 9th August 2021 which means that next week is my last week on shifts 🥳
This means that I will be working mainly Monday to Friday for the first time in over 5 years! This also means that I can start to build up a normal weekly routing for the first time that I can remember, so I can finally create a training program and stick to it. The only downside is that I will lose my night allowance so I will be worse off financially but I feel that the benfits from returning to regular hours way outweigh the loss in earnings.
The biggest benefit other than the health benefits of not being on shifts is the fact that I can start building up daily routines to try and build healthier habits like walking and training regularly to lose weight and get faster on my bike. I will also have more time to grocery shop and prepare meals so I can eat healthier and also save money. As I found out at the beginning of the year when I was on holiday I seem to thrive on routines which was something that I did not know about myself before! In the 2-3 weeks that I was up at 5:30 am every day and walked for at 1 hour before getting home and studying new skills for a few hours. Along with this I ate way more healthily and was actually saving money. This unfortunately stopped as soon as I started back on shifts and Ijust drifted back into my old unhealthy habits and started living off of takeout as it was easier than cooking as I was constantly tired from the shift work!
This morning I found the program that my coach sent me 2 years ago and edited it for me now. I am going to train Tues-Sunday and have Monday as my rest day as I have found that I am the most tired on a Monday after Gates on the Sunday and also Monday has traditionally the busiest and most stressful day at work so it makes sense to have it as my rest day.
As my financial situation does not allow for paying for the Gym at the moment I plan to substitute gym sessions with bodyweight sessions at home for now. I have also decided to stop racing for the rest of the year to try and get my finances in order for next year!
My weekly schedule will be:
| Monday | Rest |
| Tuesday | Gym |
| Wednesday | Sprints |
| Thursday | Track |
| Friday | Road Bike |
| Saturday | Gym |
| Sunday | Track – Gates |
I also plan to walk 10000 steps when I wake up in the Morning every day as well as it really helps with my back and also my general wellbeing.
Added to my training I also need to learn new skills for my new job so I plan to dedicate 2 hours a day to this as well.
I am planning to wake up around 5am every day and then walk for an hour and a half and then get home and study for at least an hour then shower and start work. At lunch I plan to do my training and then in the evening I plan to do another hour of study and my house work etc before chilling out and resting before bed.
Along with this I also plan to start intermittent fasting again as when I did it before I lost a lot of weight and just generally felt better. Unfortunately intermittent fasting was not really compatible with shift work so I stopped doing it. My Plan is to fast until Midday and then eat from Midday until 8pm. I have been trying this this week and it seems to work well for me so I think that it may work well. The only thing that I haven’t tried this with is my walking in the morning so I plan to try this tomorrow and see how it goes. Along with intermittent fasting I am planning on switching to a more plant based diet as I did this at the start of the year and I felt way better for it and for the passed 2-3 months I have not been feeling myself so I figure swapping diets will help with this.
I have used this morning as a rest/planning day to recover from the last 4 days of shifts as I had a really heavy week! I plan to go to Bristol this evening for the last summer series race and see how I go on the 20″. I am not expecting too much as the gearing is a bit low and Bristol is a long track where you need to pedal a lot but we will see how I go. It is only for fun so not a big issue if I don’t do well!