Back on night shifts two weeks after keyhole gallbladder removal. How did you manage eating at 3am without paying for it?

Some of you will remember me as the three stones man. Well, they are gone, along with the gallbladder, keyhole on the 1st, all fine. Thank you to everyone who talked me down over the past year.

New problem. I work nights in a warehouse, four on four off, and I go back on Tuesday. My normal night eating is a big plate at 1am from the canteen, usually something fried, and then biscuits till 6. The first week at home I have eaten small and plain and been fine. Twice I have had something richer and both times it went straight through me within the hour.

How did other shift workers handle it? Is it the timing, the fat, or both? I do not fancy being stuck in a warehouse toilet at 3am with a forklift waiting.

Not a night worker, but the going straight through you after rich food is very common in the early weeks and for most of us it fades. Mine took a couple of months. Smaller and more often helped me more than cutting anything out completely.

I eat at odd times because of training and what worked for me was splitting the big meal into two or three smaller ones and going easy on the fried stuff for the first month, then bringing it back one thing at a time. If I had a big fatty plate on an empty stomach it was a guaranteed sprint. Same food, smaller and with something starchy, mostly fine.

Take your own food in for the first few weeks. Canteen food at 1am is designed to be the opposite of what you want right now. And be kind to yourself if one night goes wrong, it does not mean it will always be like this.

Two full sets of nights done. Report for any other night workers who find this.

Took my own food: a sandwich and a tub of pasta, split into two breaks instead of one big plate, plus fruit instead of the biscuits for the first set. One accident in eight nights, and that was the night I gave in and had the canteen chips at 2am, which was entirely predictable. Second set I had half portions of the canteen food on two nights with no trouble.

So it seems to be the size and the fat together rather than the time of night. Still a bit looser than before generally but better every week. Forklift was not disturbed.

Good result. Mine settled over about three months, and these days I can have the chips. Just not at 2am, but that is age, not the gallbladder.