Cutting on a weird schedule

Currently I weigh around 210 and I'm trying to make the 198 weight class for my next powerlifting meet 5 weeks away. Its 24 hour weigh ins, so I think if i REEALLY wanted to, I could cut the 12 pounds all in one day and rehydrate and be ok, but I really, really do not want to put myself through that. Plus, I really wanted some cutting experience - I haven't made a conscious effort to drop some bodyfat since HS, and I think my knowledge has grown significantly since then. I figure I could easily lose a good 4-6 lbs in this time span, putting me a little closer to my goal weight and making the water cutting a little easier.

Anyways, I'm following a pretty basic carb cycling routine, monitoring my macronutrients and calorie counting on fitday.com. Things are going well, but the thing is sometimes i have a really, really weird schedule. About once every two weeks I'm forced to pull an all nighter or a psuedo all nighter (<4 hours of sleep). Somedays I'll have one night where I'll get 9 hours and the next I'll get 5. Often, this is out of my control. I'm not lazy, I manage my time well, and I know how to study--this school is simply really ****ing hard. I'm essentially taking three physics classes (at uchicago we only take 4 classes a semester, but we have 3 semesters per school year so it ends up being the same) and one easier English class, but Qauntum mechanics, general relativity, and my 8 hour a week lab class are really kicking my ass (thats 8 hours of lab every other week, +writeups). Couple that with the fact that pretty much all of these kids I'm in class are a), smarter than me, b) have no social lives, and c) do not lift weights or do really any other extracurriculars, and I have to work really hard to keep up.

Basically, don't give me any bull**** on "you just need to structure your time better" blah blah. I'm a third year in college and I know what I'm doing, and yes, sometimes I just have to do things like this to keep up even though it is hard on my body.

Anyways, how really should I mess with my diet on these days? yesterday, for instance, I woke up at 9 AM, but didn't end up going to sleep till around 7 AM the n ext night cause I had to write this stupid lab report. I went to class from 10:30 AM-1:30 PM, came home, ate some food, then took a 5 hour nap. This is how things usually go - I always make sure I get some good sleep afterwards, and usually my training isn't effected (I rarely pull late nights on training days, but when I do I either skip class if I can and sleep in or nap after clas then lift later in the day). Anyways, thats essentially another 6 hours that I'm awake when I usually shouldn't be. How do I adjust my calories on these days? I was thinking of just restructuring my days such that all of my calories for a particular day correspond to the last 24 hours - as in I count all calories eaten from 12 AM to 12 AM the next day as one day, instead of from when I wake up to when I go to bed.

But this creates problems when you're carb cycling, as I'll suddenly be going from a no carb day to a high carb day or something similar, making me think it won't work very well if this transition barrier is midnight versus when I go to sleep ("hey its midnight! TIME TO EAT A BUNCH OF CARBS!") My other plan was to just tack on another 500 calories or so of protein or fats no matter the day (essentially, "safe" calories). Stress burns a lot of calories, and so does being awake, so I figure I should be safe, but I'm still really guesstimating here.

But then my schedule is just plain weird when I take that 5 hour nap in the middle of the day -- suddenly I wake up and its 8 PM, I've only consumed 1500 caloreis for the day, and I go to sleep in another 5 hours. At a bit of a loss here.

Anyways, any advice would be appreciated.

-Trent

Like you said, just try going for 24 hour blocks no matter you're sleep schedule. If you're awake when you'd normally be sleeping compensate with a little more food. Timing doesn't really matter when going from a low carb day to a high carb day. In the end you're main focus should be total cals per week.