A nutrition post?!
I am not a dietician but I have enough physiology knowledge to know a couple of things about a few things in the nutrition world.
I had a client at the gym do a dietary recall before our session the other day. At the end of this brief exchange, they mentioned to me that they wanted to eat earlier in the evening because eating before bed is not good for them.
Now…this is one of those things that you hear a lot. Eating before bed will make you fat. As if somehow your body knows that it is 8:00 pm and will then utilize those recently ingested nutrients differently than if you ate them at 5:00 pm.
We are going to break the above statement down a little bit more but we need to define a couple things first.
Protein Synthesis–a process by which our body uses amino acids to make new proteins thus allowing us to build more muscle.
Sleep– A form of recovery. A parasympathetic state that we go into when we shut our eyes for a period of time. Sleep allows us to recover from our daily activities including muscular recovery as well.
The key to success is to have protein synthesis going as long as you can throughout the day.
Why?
Bigger muscles!
What do sleep and protein have in common?
Your body can utilize protein quite effectively during sleep and can have a host of benefits if combined with regular exercise.
We want to have a lot of circulating amino acids in the blood so that we can recover and repair much more effectively. So…eating protein before bed can be beneficial.
A 2014 study by Ormsbee found: that in light of our recent work and that of others, eating small portions of single macronutrients at night (⬃150 kcal) before sleep do not appear to be harmful in obese women who are also exercise training [1].
Another study conducted by Peter T Res found that consuming protein before bed became effectively digested resulting in a rise of total body protein synthesis. This was sustained throughout the entire night and greatly improved recovery rates with sleep [2].
So…eating before bed is ok.
What I think the most important thing to mention here is what that meal consists of.
If you are slamming Big Macs before bed, you might not add lean tissue to your body.
If you are eating a lot of carbs before bed, it will not be as effective because carbs do not act the same in the body as protein does.
Lean protein sources before bed seems to be the answer.
In Conclusion
* Protein before bed is good
* Meal composition is just as important
* You will not get fat
* Do it and be awesome!
Sources
(1) Ormsbee, Michael J., et al. “The influence of nighttime feeding of carbohydrate or protein combined with exercise training on appetite and cardiometabolic risk in young obese women.” Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, vol. 40, no. 1, 2015, pp. 37–45., doi:10.1139/apnm-2014-0256
(2) Res PT, Groen B, Pennings B, Beelen M, Wallis GA, Gijsen AP, Senden JM, VAN Loon LJ. Protein ingestion before sleep improves postexercise overnight recovery. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2012 Aug;44(8):1560-9. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31824cc363. PMID: 22330017.