Unwanted Night-Time Weight Loss

Bigger Stronger Leaner Over 35 Lifter
1

I lose weight every night. A substantial amount of weight. For instance, last night before bed (and after a nighttime protein drink) I weighed 168lbs. This morning, after a mid-night piss and morning piss, I’m 164.5. I’ve noticed this trend going on for years. Sometimes I will lose almost 5lbs.

I just figured it was water weight that was eliminated after going to the bathroom, and the calories from my last meal burned overnight. I get 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night.

However, I’m going to make a concentrated effort to gain muscle via Waterbury’s Huge in a Hurry, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m burning off more muscle than I’d like at night. Is 3-4lbs weight loss overnight excessive?

Compounding this is the fact that the weight is staying off, I’m down about 14 lbs from my heaviest of 178lbs 4 months ago. Mostly due to tweaked diet (no more sugary sweets, emphasis on clean food, slight reduction in overall carb intake) and a new job that keeps me active all day (construction).

I’m 38, 5’11 tall and 165lbs. Getting 160-170gr protein daily, supplementing with fish oil, and heeding peri-workout nutrition advice from this site. Before bed I drink a low-carb casein shake mixed with olive oil, and take a few fish oil caps. I keep 5gr of BCAA’s and a glass of water bedside, I take those if I wake up for a bathroom trip. Some nights I sleep right through so I miss the midnight aminos.

Crap, time for work! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

2

You may search “overtraining” on this site in “articles”. I think Poliquin has talked about night time weight loss being indicative of possible over training. I can’t recall his parameters though. It seems like it was a percentage he went by.
You may need to provide some more info, particularly your current training.

3

I don’t think that is necessarily an excessive amount of weight to lose overnight. I’m around your weight, and I usually piss or respire away 2-3 lbs of H2O overnight. Include a healthy dump pre-morning-weighin, and you’re easily at 4-5 lbs.

The fact that you’ve improved your diet, and significantly increased your activity level would explain the weight loss.

If you are overtraining as was suggested, there are other indicators of that, such as increased morning heart rate, etc. Of course, you’d need to know your baseline…

Are you very lean, and losing weight? More info would be helpful. Estimated or measured body fat %, training, etc.

4

If you’re pretty lean, prolly go to 1.5g protein per lb bodyweight. losing weight is the least of my problems, so I only do 27g protein shake an hour or 2 before bed. You may want to boost your night time drink to 40-50 g protein, especially if youre lean and have a fast metabolism. Add 2-3 tablespoons natural peanut butter to your bedtime shake.

Thoughts:

losing 5 lbs overnight is nothing to worry about.

if you want to get bigger, you should up your protein to about 200+ grams per day.

good luck

5

[quote]katanadriver wrote:
I lose weight every night. A substantial amount of weight. For instance, last night before bed (and after a nighttime protein drink) I weighed 168lbs. This morning, after a mid-night piss and morning piss, I’m 164.5. I’ve noticed this trend going on for years. Sometimes I will lose almost 5lbs.

I just figured it was water weight that was eliminated after going to the bathroom, and the calories from my last meal burned overnight. I get 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night.

However, I’m going to make a concentrated effort to gain muscle via Waterbury’s Huge in a Hurry, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m burning off more muscle than I’d like at night. Is 3-4lbs weight loss overnight excessive?

Compounding this is the fact that the weight is staying off, I’m down about 14 lbs from my heaviest of 178lbs 4 months ago. Mostly due to tweaked diet (no more sugary sweets, emphasis on clean food, slight reduction in overall carb intake) and a new job that keeps me active all day (construction).

I’m 38, 5’11 tall and 165lbs. Getting 160-170gr protein daily, supplementing with fish oil, and heeding peri-workout nutrition advice from this site. Before bed I drink a low-carb casein shake mixed with olive oil, and take a few fish oil caps. I keep 5gr of BCAA’s and a glass of water bedside, I take those if I wake up for a bathroom trip. Some nights I sleep right through so I miss the midnight aminos.

Crap, time for work! Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks[/quote]

You can’t “burn off muscle” overnight. Some water, sure. You cleaned up your diet and lost weight. Solution…eat more but eat smart. Not enough protein and total calories in your diet. The supplements are fine but that is what they are…supplements. You need real food.

Don’t bother with Huge in a Hurry until you get your intake sorted out as you won’t see much in the way of new muscle. Track your food if you must, figure out your baseline and then come back for advice based on that information. Or, just eat until you see the scale move the other direction.

6

All good advice, thanks. Definitely not over-training (been off for a few weeks)and I’m not super lean (probably around 10% BF) so I’m not too worried about the few lbs lost overnight. Will keep diet in check. Am definitely going to increase protein intake when I start trying to gain mass. Thanks

7

My advice: Sleep through the night. Its just natural. Even if it doesn’t change anything, at least it won’t hurt.