Should You Use Creatine for Weight Loss? Pros and Cons
Should you supplement with creatine for weight loss? Creatine is the most extensively studied sports nutrition supplement on the market. But is it just for bodybuilders or can it also be used to lose weight? Here’s what you should know, according to a dietitian.
In terms of sports nutrition supplements, creatine is arguably the granddaddy. This is due to the overwhelming amount of research that backs its benefits with regards to athletic performance, recovery from high-intensity training, and its role in helping to build lean muscle mass. Next to protein powder, creatine monohydrate is the most widely used exercise supplement in the United States, especially among men.
So, it sounds great for people trying to put on weight for muscle or athletes looking to boost performance, but what about weight loss? Can it help or make losing weight even harder? Let’s take a closer look.
The Benefits of Creatine
So, what does creatine monohydrate do? Muscles store creatine, which is naturally produced in your kidneys and liver by combining the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine. To be clear, these amino acids are easily found in animal-based protein foods like red meat, seafood and eggs. However, supplementing with creatine greatly increases the creatine stores in your muscles.
Once there, creatine works to speed up the production of ATP. ATP is our body’s form of energy and is especially important for muscle contraction. This greatly increases the effectiveness of resistance training by supporting muscle growth, increasing strength, improving performance, and reducing muscle soreness.
Since not everyone who lifts weight is an athletic competitor, the biggest selling point of creatine is the stimulation of muscle gain. However, what if you’re doing resistance training to lose weight?
Is Creatine Good for Weight Loss?
The answer is…not really. Studies that have been conducted to explore how to use creatine for weight loss have shown that it doesn’t directly cause fat loss in any significant way. However, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its uses if you are trying to change your body composition. Let’s explore the pros and cons of using creatine for weight loss.
Pros
Help preserve muscle during a calorie deficit - If you are in a calorie deficit to lose weight, supplementing with creatine could be useful. Science has shown that creatine helps prevent you from losing muscle and strength. While this doesn’t mean you’ll lose fat, it can help the effectiveness of your calorie deficit by directing your body to burn fat rather than your muscle mass for energy.
Can make workouts more efficient - By increasing strength and performance during weight training, creatine can also indirectly aid in fat loss by allowing you to lift more weight and exercise for longer durations, which can help you burn more calories.
Cons
Causes weight gain from water - The biggest thing one should be aware of if they start taking creatine for weight loss is that creatine causes one major thing to happen in the body: water retention. It has been shown that people who start supplementing with creatine can expect to gain 2-4 pounds weight from water within days. This is because pulling more water into the muscles is one mechanism in which creatine starts the muscle growth process.
Can make the number on the scale confusing and discouraging - While water retention isn’t a bad thing, the phantom weight gain it can appear to cause can be demoralizing for those working hard to lose weight. This is because they could very well be experiencing fat loss, but the scale is going the opposite way.
Should You Take Creatine for Weight Loss?
So, is creatine bad for weight loss? The answer to this is no. Even though the bloating and rapid weight gain you’ll see after you start supplementing with creatine can be alarming, none of this weight is actually fat. So creatine can’t really sabotage your goals. What it can do, however, is make it harder to track your progress by making you hold more weight from water than you would normally.
Best Creatine Brands
That said, if this doesn’t bother you and you still want to use creatine to support your exercise performance or help mitigate possible muscle loss, these are the top brands we would suggest you check out:
Legion
Legion is a brand known for its great tasting, all-natural supplements that are backed by clinically effective ingredients. They use zero fillers, artificial colors or flavors and on the product page of each of their supplements they offer very detailed descriptions for each ingredient and links to studies that show how and why they work.
Their creatine product “Recharge” is great because along with 5 grams of creatine monohydrate, it also includes other compounds that enhance post-workout recovery including l-carnitine and corosolic acid.
Optimum Nutrition
ON is a trusted brand in the sports nutrition world and their creatine product is great for beginners. It only has one ingredient: 5 grams of creatine monohydrate powder. Unlike Legion, this creatine is unflavored which makes it more versatile. You can blend it into your post-workout protein shake, mix it into your post-workout meal or however else is convenient. Also, like most ON products, it’s very affordable at just $0.67 per serving.
Thorne
If you’re a serious athlete, Thorne has the creatine product for you. It contains micronized creatine monohydrate which means it’s much easier to mix than standard creatine. Most importantly, though, it is third-party tested by NSF for Sport. This testing verifies the supplement is free of banned substances which is critical for athletes who drug test and can’t afford to accidentally take something that’s been adulterated. As a result, Thorne products are trusted by sports dietitians all over.
The Bottom Line on Creatine for Weight Loss
Creatine is a wildly popular fitness supplement, and for good reason! It has a lot of science to back its effectiveness at increasing strength and muscle mass. However, if you’re hoping for it to help you burn some belly fat, you’ll likely come up short.
This doesn’t mean you should not take it at all if you’re trying to lose weight, as it can indirectly help stimulate weight loss by potentially helping to improve body composition and exercise performance. Also, if you’ve heard that little rumor about creatine damaging your kidneys, don't be worried. In people with healthy kidney function, this claim is pretty much debunked.
If you need some guidance on how to best use a workout program, good nutrition and supplements to gain muscle and lose fat, working with a dietitian one-on-one is the way to go. My experience as both a registered dietitian and a personal trainer allows me to help in both areas. Check out my services to learn more.
