Thread: Protein drink before bed...Yes or No?

If it's whey protein, whey digests pretty darn quickly, so it's not great for bed (though taking in fats with it would help quite a bit).

If it's casein protein, it slowly gives your muscles the amino acids they need for about 7-8 hours.

Egg protein is somewhere in between the two, and unsure about Soy, probably the same as egg.

It's up to you whether any are needed

Raw eggs have slower absorbtion than casein . . the trade off is low bioavailability.

What About Other Proteins?
So far all I’ve focused on is whey and casein as these are the proteins that have been predominantly studied. Unfortunately, there is far less data on the speed of digestion of other proteins. Soy has been examined and appears to be a fast protein; note from my article Milk: The New Sports Drink? A Review that milk was found to be superior to soy protein for gains in lean body mass with training. This is thought to be due to the rapid digestion and amino acid profile of soy.
Beyond that not a tremendous amount of data exists. One researcher collected what is available and I’ve reproduced his data (originally printed in The Protein Book) in the table below
ProteinAbsorption Rate (g/hour)Raw Egg Protein *1.4Cooked Egg Protein *2.9Pea Protein3.5Milk Protein3.5Soy Protein Isolate3.9Casein Isolate6.1Whey Isolate8-10Tenderloin Pork Steak *10.0
* Measurements marked with an asterisk should be considered as the roughest estimates as the studies used indirect measurements of protein digestion.
Clearly there is a large variety for protein digestion rates although, as noted, some of the above values should be taken as very rough estimates.
I’d note again that this has some implication for the idea that you must eat protein every three hours. With the exception of whey, where 40 grams of protein would take roughly 4 hours for complete absorption), all proteins listed would still be digesting for far longer than the magic 3 hour period.
Once again, this is getting a bit too long so I’m going to save the final bit of this discussion for Part 3, which I’ll post on Monday. In that article I’ll look at the current fascination in the sports nutrition industry with protein hydrolysates along with a few minor topics.

I need to pick up a jar of Casein protein for nights...

Good info TY !

^^^^i have a protein shake with a handful of bcaas before bed and i set my alarm and wake up and drink just whey protein and a hard boiled egg. i always make my meals in a 3 day set so i only cook e3days. now that i got a great diet because i hired someone because i dont know to much about dieting, bulk diet yes but cuting diet not that much.

What exactly is casein protein? Can you buy a "casein isolate" or do you get it in certain foods?

Originally Posted by N_I_C_K

What exactly is casein protein? Can you buy a "casein isolate" or do you get it in certain foods?

Casein is milk protein. Micellar Casein seems to be the choice of many as far as powders go, though there's calcium caseinate, and a few other choices out there.

Originally Posted by Arra

Casein is milk protein. Micellar Casein seems to be the choice of many as far as powders go, though there's calcium caseinate, and a few other choices out there.

Don't think I've got the money to spent on another powder at the moment. So should I just drink milk before I go to bed?

Originally Posted by N_I_C_K

Don't think I've got the money to spent on another powder at the moment. So should I just drink milk before I go to bed?

Are you bulking or cutting? The simple sugars may affect your results. You'd probably be better off eating cooked egg whites (if the Capt'ns article from Lyle McDonald is correct), since they are rather slow digesting. And I'm not sure about the pH levels of casein being affected by the whey in the milk protein, so I'm giving you the best answer I myself can.