Eating/ not eating before bed...

Hey all,

I just wanted to get your thoughts regarding this. To start off with, the goal would be physique improvement (decrease bodyfat, and maintain or increase muscle mass) whilst maintaining/ improving sports performance. I guess the main focus would be fat loss, as the way I see it if I decrease my body fat I will increase my sports performance

From my delve into various peoples opinions and various research articles, I have come across the following trains of thought;

NOT EATING AFTER 1800 or 1900: this is to promote bodyfat reduction. I think this is BS, as I and others often train BJJ and other things in the evenings and this would be a sure fire way to under-recover.

EATING IN THE EVENING BUT NOT DIRECTLY BEFORE BED: the thinking here is it's ok to eat in the evening, but not in the hour before bed (even casein protein) as this blunts your bodies natural GH response which would have a negative effect on fat loss and recovery.

EATING DIRECTLY BEFORE BED: here, you eat slow releasing protein in the hour before bed so that your muscles are 'drip fed' amino acids throughout the night to minimise catabolism and facilitate recovery.

Now, my understanding of sleep physiology is not great, I just know that you need good quality sleep for optimum recovery and that GH is secreted in higher levels during deep sleep. With the original goal in mind, what are your thoughts. I'm pretty confused about the sunject to be honest.

(P.S. I also like to think this will benefit all of those undertaking the 10 week challenge )

Regards, Chris

That's great, thank you for the reply guys.