Ep. #165: Should You Eat Protein Before Bed? A Simple Science-Based Answer

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Mike and welcome to another installment in my in five minutes or less series where I answer one common question quickly and simply, because while long form content is great, Sometimes it is also nice when someone just gets right to the point and tells you what to do and how to do it in five minutes or less.

And that’s what I do in these episodes. I’m asked frequently whether you should eat protein before bed or not, if you want to gain muscle. And the quick answer is yes, you should, but probably not for the reason that you think you see most people think, and I myself used to think that you needed to eat protein before you went to bed to prevent muscle loss.

Because let’s say you eat your final meal at 6 PM and it’s hot. Fully processed by midnight, [00:01:00] you go to bed seven or eight hours, no nutrients, you’re going to lose muscle, right? Sounds pretty bad. The short answer is no, you’re not going to lose muscle because that’s not how it works. Studies have shown that the body simply doesn’t cannibalize muscle tissue that easily.

And so you don’t have to eat protein before you go to bed. To preserve your muscle. The real reason you should eat protein before you go to bed is because it helps you gain muscle faster.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well. Please do tell them about it.

It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I [00:02:00] can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle4LifeFitness, Twitter at Muscle4Life, and Facebook at Muscle4LifeFitness. So if we go back to the previous example of eating your last meal at 6pm, it is fully processed by midnight.

And then you have your six, seven, eight hour stretch, no nutrients. The reason why this isn’t optimal from a muscle building perspective is muscle growth requires two things. It requires a stimulus and it requires raw materials. When you train your muscles, that is a stimulus. And when you eat protein, that is also a stimulus.

Both of those things tell your body to build and repair muscle tissue. Now that’s the stimulus half of the equation. The raw materials half is simply. In this video, we’re going to be talking about whether you should eat amino acids and particularly essential amino acids, which your body has to get from your diet has to get from the protein that you eat.

These amino acids are [00:03:00] what muscle tissue is built from. Simply put, no matter what might happen in terms of a muscle building stimulus, if there are no raw materials available, if there are no amino acids available, then you no muscle growth will result. And that’s why research has shown that if no protein is eaten before you go to sleep, that your protein synthesis rates are going to be quite low.

The amount of proteins that your body is going to be able to create, including muscle tissue, is going to be very low. That then leads us to how eating protein before we go to bed can help us gain muscle and strength. Faster, which is exactly what was found in a study conducted by scientists at Maastricht University.

When we eat protein before we go to bed, we are giving our body a muscle building stimulus because remember eating protein stimulates protein synthesis, stimulates muscle growth, and we are giving it the amino acids, the raw materials that it needs to build muscle tissue. And as [00:04:00] most of us spend about a third of our lives in bed, you can see how the muscle building So this can add up over time.

Now in terms of how much protein you should eat before going to bed and when, I would say 20 to 30 grams of a high quality protein about 30 minutes before bed is good. And if you want to just do food, I would say something like cooked egg or cottage cheese or maybe low fat Greek yogurt are good choices.

And if you’re like me and you’d rather do a powder because it’s easy, you can do casein, Don’t personally like casein. I don’t like how it tastes. I don’t like how it feels in my mouth. I don’t like how it feels in my stomach. So what I do is I use a blend of pea and rice protein because those proteins and particularly when they’re together are well digested, slowly digested, which is what we want for our purposes here.

Well absorbed and are rich in essential amino acids. Now in terms of specific products, I use my own, it’s called thrive and it [00:05:00] is a blend of pea, rice, hemp and quinoa protein. It is a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. It doesn’t contain any unnecessary fillers or any chemical junk. And it also contains 10 additional nutrients that many people’s diets tend to lack and many vegans and vegetarians in particular.

Thank you. And so if you want to learn more about that, simply click on the link in the description. And if you like what you can also save 10 percent on your first order. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don’t mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick comment review of it on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from.

This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to [00:06:00] be notified when the next episode goes live, then just podcast and you won’t miss out on any of the new goodies.

Lastly, If you didn’t like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife. com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself, and I’m always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. Alright, that’s it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.

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