What do you eat at night?

I'm not a muscle head, so ignore this if it's stoopid, but if you're trying to build muscle, isn't a lot of calories the whole idea? And eating before bed isn't a problem. . .lots of the body beautiful guys eat right before bed.

I am having a hard time keeping on any size when I try to get ripped up. This picture is from a couple months ago and I'm not far off this mark now but what I am wondering is if my muscles are getting eating up a bit at night?

To help combat this I often will drink either a whey shake with fat free milk within an hour of sleep (milk for the Casein since it is supposed to last in your system 7-8 hours).... or a shake with some casein and whey with water. But them I feel I am throwing cals into my body right before bed. It sometimes feels like I have to do one or the other - size or cuts.

Suggestions or help?

I'm pretty new here so I hope you will friend me as well. Thanks!

If you're having issues with losing lean mass on a cut, I would first look at:

Size of your calorie deficit
Protein sufficiency in terms of net protein intake for the day
Training protocol


Nutrient timing would rank very far down the list provided you don't use some really f'd up meal protocol.

Dinner typically.
Or ice cream or cheesecake if I want a late night snack.

I eat Doritos. True story.

1) Awesome muscle definition, you should be proud. I wouldn't cut any more unless you're trying to compete or be in a fat-burner ad :P
2) You can't have your cake and eat it too. Aka you can't go on a fat cut program without losing some muscle. I'm sure you've read tonnes about that in fitness magazines etc. That said, you can do as much as you can to limit the amount of muscle that you lose. So you have to follow the calorie limits given to you in a cut program, but do everything you can to keep your protein grams up to around 1 or 1.5 g of protein per lb of lean body weight (do you have one of those machines at the gym that can measure that?). Nutrient timing is important as well as the body can only use so much protein at a time so spread it out throughout the day i.e. drinking your shakes at night can help you keep feeding while you sleep. Cut calories out of other nutrient groups like carbs and fat, making sure not to nix any nurtrient altogether. Taking BCAAs can help keep muscles growing/maintaining, and making sure you eating your veggies to keep muscle-stressing inflammation down.

I've been reading a lot lately about how the type of cardio you do can help you achieve your goal. Steady-state cardio is notoriously catabolic (muscle eating) and cortisol increasing (stress hormone - fat storage). "They" are recommending HIIT, intervals, plymetrics, tabatta etc as a form of cardio that is less catabolic. Any cardio where your bursting your effort for a short time, resting, bursting etc. ... and that's pretty much all I know on the subject.

Good luck.