Lee Haney, the only 8-time Mr.Olympia used to say “assimilate don’t annihilate” when he was talking about volume in a training session. Lee would often tell people that it was at nighttime that that you grew. Then research started coming out showing that muscle protein synthesis was high for upwards of 24 hours post exercise. So people started to think about what they could do to take advantage of their nighttime nutrition.
After all, if we just trained a muscle, it’s possible to focus on that muscle with your nutrition and ensure that you grow. So if we recover and grow while we’re sleeping them why do we ignore it? Why would we ignore the seven to nine hours and completely miss our bedtime nutrition? Without proper nighttime nutrition our body will need amino acids for energy and if we don’t feed our body then where do you think those amino acids are going to be pulled from? That’s right, our muscles. Don’t take your nutrition at night for granted.
Nighttime Nutrition Step One: Make sure that you’re sleeping enough. No amount of protein or supplements will help you recover and grow if you aren’t getting adequate sleep. No, sleep after you’re drunk doesn’t count. Most people have no clue how delicate the relationship between a healthy metabolism and sleep is, if we sleep less our metabolism gets screwed up.
Look at sleep as two phases (there’s actually five), REM sleep, not Michael Stipe, and deep sleep. Once we hit deep sleep our body will start changing hormone patterns and will put us into a even deeper sleep, almost like a coma. It’s during this period that that our body will try to repair, recover and grow. Once we progress to REM sleep we actually start to wake up, our body starts go through more normal functions (blood pressure increases as does heart rate).
Nighttime Nutrition Step Two: After we assured that we are actually getting a good nights sleep then the next option is to manipulate our hormones naturally. Research shows that testosterone, growth hormone and IGF-1 are all elevated at nighttime. So what can we do to make sure that we aid them in increasing? For one, we need to make sure that we aren’t eating any sugar pre-bed. We don’t want our blood sugar levels to fluctuate during the night, instead we want a steady pulse of blood sugar. To accomplish this, make sure that your last meal consists of healthy fats, protein and fiber.
What protein is better and how much protein do you need? Click that link and look deeper into that issue. In short, I really don’t think it matters that much if you choose whey or casein. I would say that to be on the “safe” side, you should go with casein and whey mix.
Taking about 2-3 grams of glutamine pre-bed in water and on a empty stomach has been shown in research to increase growth hormone.
Nighttime Nutrition Step Three: Now we need to make sure that you’re hydrated. Going to bed dehydrated is like wearing high water pants today. It just isn’t cool. All of the cell processes that happen at night require the cell to be hydrated for optimal work. A hydrated muscle cell is a anabolic muscle cell. Look into adding taurine and glutamine into your diet as well as just drinking enough water throughout the day.
Nighttime Nutrition Step Four: So we’re getting enough quality sleep, we’re not eating sugar before bed and we’re drinking a whey and casein protein shaker with some essential fatty acids and fibers pre-bed as well as just being hydrated. What else can we go in our pre-bedtime nutrition to ensure that we build muscle and lose fat? Well, we can make sure that our immune system is healthy. Why do we care about our immune system?
A healthy immune system decreases catabolic processes and improves protein synthesis. So how do we improve our immune system. Aside from getting sleep, consuming whey and casein protein as well as glutamine and vitamin C on top of a moderate fat, high protein and low carb diet. A good six pack diet is a great place to start if you are unsure of what type of diet you need to be on.
