you are not going to go into a catabolic state of eating muscle while sleeping...unless you are some strange type of sleep walker that does wind sprints.
I disagree with your analysis. The catabolism does NOT come from increased activity at night, which is obvious. Catabolism DOES come from nutrient deprivation for a 6-8 hour period (i.e., "breakfast" originated from the phrase "break the fast").
As put into words by other sources:
"Nocturnal post absorptive catabolism is the state of catabolism the body enters during sleep after all available dietary calories from previous meals are absorbed. The time it takes to enter this state vary based on factors like their metabolism"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnal_post_absorptive_catabolism"Sleeping for 8-10 hours per night is similar to fasting and this is catabolic to muscle growth." "The Importance of Sleep" at
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson5.htm"Pre-Sleep . . . Fasting for several hours at night puts your body in a highly catabolic state, and glutamine levels are quickly depleted . . . Post-Sleep . . . If you were to have a massive carbohydrate meal before sleep, your glycogen stores would still be diminished, and catabolism prevalent after fasting for several hours at night. . . The same applies to glutamine . . . Several studies have displayed glutamine concentrations are severely reduced (around 500 to 750 mumol/L) after a night of sleeping." See Glutamine—The Conditionally Essential Amino Acid
http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/magazine04/glutamine.htm"While you may not actually sleep for 10 hours straight, you should realize that even going 6 hours without food puts you into an easily avoidable catabolic situation. The solution is to simply consume one or two nocturnal meals to maintain body energy stores and protein synthesis, or at the very least minimize protein degradation."
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459879 "If you're a typical trainer, you don't get up to eat in the middle of the night. Your body turns to muscle mass for energy while you sleep, burning up the precious muscle you worked to acquire during the day." "Midnight mass: what you eat before, during and after you sleep can make your physique an overnight success (Flex, Dec, 2004)
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_10_22/ai_n7581364"During sleep the levels of available carbohydrates decline and the body must use other alternative energy sources. These other alternative energy sources are fats and protein. Thus protein from your own tissues is broken down during sleep in order to supply energy for the body. This is called catabolism - the metabolic breakdown of large molecules in living organisms to smaller ones, with the release of energy."
http://www.restoreunity.org/sleep.htm"Nocturnal (sleep-induced) Post-Absorptive Muscle Catabolism… [is] a natural, everynight event that occurs during the later hours of sleep… after the release of Growth Hormone has abated… when your body's ability to synthesize new protein (build new muscle mass) is drastically cut."
http://www.thepumpingstation.com/grow_muscle_while_you_sleep.html"Just think about it: being essentially fasted for 8-10 hours is incredibly destructive for muscle -yes even if you eat cottage cheese before bed. This is especially true in trained individuals like us, because we have higher rates of muscle breakdown (Phillips et al. 2002) The faster we can stop this catabolism once we wake up, the better." The Top Ten Post Work Out Nutrition Myths Phillips SM, Parise G, Roy BD, Tipton KD, Wolfe RR, Tamopolsky MA (citing Resistance-training-induced adaptations in skeletal muscle protein turnover in the fed state. Can J Physiol Pharmacol. 2002 Nov;80(11):1045-53.)
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=659666
