Cutting: Shake Before Bed Hurting?

What’s up everyone? Just have a quick question about my cutting phase. I have made great progress in only 2 weeks of my dieting. Granted most of the weight loss is water weight and depleted glycogen in my body, I’ve lost 12 pounds over this 2 week span. I wanted to know if supplementing with a casein shake before bed (low carb) is hindering my fat loss. I have heard that fat loss also occurs during sleep so i wanted to know if this amino acid trickle throughout the night would be metabolized as fuel instead of me burning fat. any help???

If it fits into your allotted calories for the day, the short answer is no. If you wanted to examine it further you could say that something containing a lot of carbs might be detrimental, but that’s really nit-picking.

A simple casein shake should not negatively affect your progress.

I do shakes before bed, too. I sleep better with food in my stomach.

[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
If it fits into your allotted calories for the day, the short answer is no. If you wanted to examine it further you could say that something containing a lot of carbs might be detrimental, but that’s really nit-picking.

A simple casein shake should not negatively affect your progress.

I do shakes before bed, too. I sleep better with food in my stomach. [/quote]

I disagree with this. When I’ve had my most successful cuts, I made sure to stick to the rule of not having anything to eat within three hours of bed time. It might seem ridiculous, but it works extremely well for me.

Having a shake before bed can raise insulin levels, then you go to sleep and your body doesn’t know what to do. That can hurt your results in a couple different ways.

I’d definitely suggest consuming your last shake or meal at least 2 hours before bed, and 3 if possible.

Try it and see if it works, that’s the only way you’ll ever find out what works for you, in any facet.

12lbs in two weeks sounds fast enough. Don’t get greedy! Have that shake.

i appreciate the help. i am thinking of going somewhere in between all your comments. something like my casein shake 2 hrs before bed (in order to assure i have met my protein requirements for the day) and then take my zma a half hour before bed. any oppositions to this?

[quote]mattyg24 wrote:
i appreciate the help. i am thinking of going somewhere in between all your comments. something like my casein shake 2 hrs before bed (in order to assure i have met my protein requirements for the day) and then take my zma a half hour before bed. any oppositions to this?[/quote]

Nope. Test it out.

[quote]MODOK wrote:

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:

[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
If it fits into your allotted calories for the day, the short answer is no. If you wanted to examine it further you could say that something containing a lot of carbs might be detrimental, but that’s really nit-picking.

A simple casein shake should not negatively affect your progress.

I do shakes before bed, too. I sleep better with food in my stomach. [/quote]

I disagree with this. When I’ve had my most successful cuts, I made sure to stick to the rule of not having anything to eat within three hours of bed time. It might seem ridiculous, but it works extremely well for me.

I’d definitely suggest consuming your last shake or meal at least 2 hours before bed, and 3 if possible.

[/quote]

I definitely agree with this. Extending the period of sympathetic nervous system dominance is a great idea for fat loss. There is one drawback with doing it before bed however…some folks (myself included) will get insomnia from all the catecholamine running through the body. To combat this I save my fish oil for bedtime. It allows me to sleep while still keeping the fast.
[/quote]

From a purely scientific standpoint, I’m not sure it really makes a big difference if we are talking about calorie-controlled situations here. If the difference between having a shake and not having a shake means 200 or so extra calories each day, then yes, it makes a difference.

However, from a pure practicality standpoint, I agree with Modok (Twice today! JFC WHAT is going on here?!?!) that I prefer not to eat right before bed. I’m IF’ing and I tend to eat my last meal and close off my 8 hour feeding period between 2130 and 2200 and then go to bed around midnight. I don’t have issues with catecholamines keeping me up as my meals are all larger than what Modok probably eats since I’m IF’ing and he does (IIRC) more frequent meals, so my meals are still only partially digested by the time I get to sleep. The only exception to this is if I’m going to eat a very large meal (which by my standards, really means something), in which case I prefer to eat and then pass out immediately afterward.

It SHOULD matter, especially if your metabolism drops dramatically while you’re asleep.

The rate at which you burn calories vs the rate at which you’re ingesting them…that discrepancy is what we care about, isn’t it?

If your rate of expenditure drops to, say, half of what it is during the day, and you feed yourself at night and that food has to be digested while you sleep…what happens?

You’re taking in calories while your rate of expenditure (at rest expenditure) is drastically lower… that should lead to greater (over time) fat accumulation.

At least, that’s how I think about it, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t work that way.

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
It SHOULD matter, especially if your metabolism drops dramatically while you’re asleep.

The rate at which you burn calories vs the rate at which you’re ingesting them…that discrepancy is what we care about, isn’t it?

If your rate of expenditure drops to, say, half of what it is during the day, and you feed yourself at night and that food has to be digested while you sleep…what happens?

You’re taking in calories while your rate of expenditure (at rest expenditure) is drastically lower… that should lead to greater (over time) fat accumulation.

At least, that’s how I think about it, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t work that way.[/quote]

If those calories are being consumed at night instead of somewhere else, then the deficit created by not consuming them during a period of higher caloric output would effectively cancel out the small surplus created by consuming a small meal during a period of reduced output. Average output for the day - average intake for the day still applies, regardless of how those calories are arranged across the day.