Hey guys, I was just thinking that since our natural hormones go crazy when we sleep at night, wouldn’t it make sense to eat every two hours during this time? Only thing I want to know is if waking up three times during the night will disturb the hormonal effects of sleeping. Are there any other negatives that could come from this night time feeding? Thanks.
When on a cycle I always have MRPs during the night,
but I don’t set an alarm clock to have them. Have
them when you naturally briefly wake up to a half-asleep state, which occurs several times during the night. Disturbing your sleep to have the MRP could be counterproductive, and if you are not waking up hungry your body probably doesn’t really need the nutrients anyway.
Again, from experience, I would say this is an individual thing. I was recommended by a highly paid consultant to athletes that I ingest a protein shake before bed, one or preferably two in the night, then one as I wake in the morning. However, my digestion is not too great, esp. with powders, and it was causing me gastric distress! On the other hand, I know some massive competitive bodybuilders (obviously with superior digestion, and drugs) who follow this regime, even using an alarm during prep for a competition to make sure, and they swear it makes all the difference. Definitely, if you have a strong stomach, I would go ahead and have a protein drink in the night, but probably not wake yourself up just for that; restful sleep is even more important…I think?
Along the same lines, I was having a conversation with a friend who does biochemistry research about taking certain amino acids as precursors to neuropeptides/ hormones/ whatever other secretagogues come in on down the line. He tried taking l-ornithine right before bed and, after a week, found he had an elevatation in his growth hormone levels. Taking it at other times of the day did not have an effect. After all, HGH gets released in the body in the first stage of sleep, so it makes sense that having one of its precursors amply supplied in the blood fluids might influence its release. Definitely not a double-blind lab study, but very interesting nonetheless.
I think it can be very counterproductive. Your digestive system should be resting at night, as with the rest your system. Because your digestive system is constantly going, the quality of your sleep can suffer. GH levels will be lower; muscle recovery may actually slow down since your body isn’t allowed to attend to it. And more of the food just goes straight to the gut.
If you do it, though, definitely do it during the natural cycles of your sleep. Don’t “plan it.” It can be a very useful trick for cutting down on sleep needs (I did it all the time during school), but if done too much, I couldn’t stomach more food and my body started to feel worn out.
I believe night feeding is very important-both on and off AAS. Rather than use an alarm or rely on chance to wake up, I simply drink enough water to cause me to wake up every 2 to 3 hours.
I think most of the guys’ suggestions are good. Dont ever force yourself to wake up. If you drink enough water then you will be peeing 1-2+ times per nite. That’s when I do a shake. This may suppress GH levels during sleep, though. I dont think there will be a huge impact on any other hormonal situation. The GH suppression, shouldnt be that much of a concern. I have a GH article coming out soon that will discuss GH at nite, but the bottom line is that you’ll get plenty of GH anyway. Besides, if you want to be anabolic, then eat for anabolism (as frequently as possible). Surplus nutrients make you anabolic. GH without nutrition does very little. What, then, is most important? Food…eat up!