The Sweet Life In Shifting Schedules?

I remember Coach Patrick Joson once told me that there are two types of runners: the Elite, who live their lives working their way to winning the races for a living, and the Professionals, who live their lives working their way to a successful career and training for races in between to achieve their desired fitness level, health or just to do the sport they love. Obviously, I belong to the latter but unlike other people, my work is a bit different from normal.

Sleepiness is the hardest part to control! (Image from BPO27)

BPO or Business Processing Outsourcing is in its peak nowadays here in the Philippines and they provide good jobs with good paying rates to their employees, and some of my friends are working for them. The downside part here is that mostly, their employees work on a graveyard shift and shifting schedules.

After working in a company with a regular office hours, it is indeed a challenge on my part to work for a company with a seemingly different office hours and shifting schedules. I started to work as a Customer Interaction Associate for a Gaming Company under a well known BPO Company just last week August.

Though the job seems to be easy (I am just answering emails), I was having a difficult time keeping my blood sugar low. I need to work from 9 in the evening until 6 in the morning most of the time. I tried not to eat the whole time but what I got is mild ulcer. I even experienced hypoglycemia while on training. Now things got worse, I need to eat frequently to prevent hyperacidity from striking on me.

Blood Sugar monitoring is very important and must be tracked. (image from InfoBarrel.com)

I visited my Doctor three weeks ago and she did saw the result of my blood sugar monitoring. When I saw the look in her face while reading my monitoring report, I knew I was out of control. I range from 120mg/dl up to the highest 180mg/dl and it's not good. She had to adjust my Insulin requirement dosage to +2 to keep up with the crazy rising of my blood sugar at night.

Tell me, how can I resist them???

What I noticed is that I'm gradually gaining weight. I know the Insulin adjustment is one of the culprit but the imbalanced eating did a huge contribution to it. My eating schedule was not followed anymore. Not to mention, the surprise Pizza deliveries that is so hard to resist. I am also having a hard time completing an 8 hour sleep and rarely experience a deep, refreshing one. To make it worse, my training for my first half marathon was sabotaged. The reason why it was a very hard 21K race for me.

Indeed true! Especially on the weight gain part. (image from Law and ICT)

Now that I am working on a night shift for a month I feel I have adjusted accordingly. My blood sugar spikes are lesser now and I make sure I bring a packed lunch to work so I can monitor my food intake. But ofcourse there are occasional food trips that I cannot resist, especially if your workmates starts to invite you to join in and eat out. The problem again will arise after the transition wherein I'll have a different time schedule, and need to undergo the same adjustment as I did before. Such a health hazard this can be!

Since I've already started my 21K journey, I am compelled to optimize the use of my free time in training and running so that I can last until the finish line. I already cancelled the target time for me on these events. The only important thing to me is to get used to the distance, finish injury-free and alive, and I think that's what really matters the most.

I am planning to talk to my boss about getting a permanent schedule at work so that there wont be adjustments in my Insulin anymore. Moreover, for my blood sugar to be always in control and to have a planned training I can stick with. Wish me luck!

Good Vibes everyone and Sweet Running! ^_^