2820: What Every Woman Needs To Know About Creatine

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Creatine, it's probably one of the most, if not the most popular supplements around, but what about for the ladies? Should you take it? Yes, and sure, today we're going to talk about many things,

that every woman need to know about creatine, we're going to break it down for you. Let's go. Still a common question, though, we get this. Yes, definitely for the ladies.

So creatine's for people aren't familiar with what it is. You find it naturally in animal sources of protein. You don't need to consume it. Your body will make it with certain amino acids. So if you don't consume creatine from animal sources,

your body will produce it. That being said, supplementing with creatine provides more of what creatine does. Even if you do eat a lot of animal sources, and especially if you don't.

And it does produce or is used to produce a form of energy in the body called ATP. So that's where most of its benefit comes from. And it's been around for a long time as a supplement.

“I think it was early 90s when it really hit the market.”

And it quickly became one of the most popular supplements around random fact that I was so surprised by was we looked this up just last week. Remember when we talked about creatine? Yeah.

I was under the impression that like red meat was not only the only place that you're really getting it from, but even if you got it in other places, it was so minimal in comparison. Not true.

No. In fact, I think Doug found an even higher ratio than red meat was, right? I remember one of the fishes at the higher ratio. Yes. So I mean, it's red meat is higher.

Of all the things you don't typically eat if the highest one. Yeah, but not by a ton. It was like 0.3 to 0.4 grams was like the difference or something like that.

So if you eat a good amount of meat, there's good sources of creatine. Now what we see in the research as far as the benefits for building muscle and especially brain benefits, which is even higher.

We're going to get into a lot of it. Right, like you would want to supplement in addition to that. But I just thought that was really fascinating and new to me

because I was always under the impression

that he was one of the only ones even. Would you find Doug? Yeah, hearing. It's hearing. Oh, wow.

Yeah, so nobody ever leads that. So typically red meat would be the highest source. But it's not by a ton. It's not that much more than chicken or other common sources. Yeah, shut up.

Exactly. Okay, so here's what's interesting. You could eat a lot of meat because sometimes we're like, well, if I eat a lot of meat, well, I gain any benefit from creatine.

Yeah, you still will because your body actually has a pretty high capacity for how much creatine it'll utilize. And if you were to eat the amount of meat to reach that upper limit, it's just way more pounds. Even someone like myself who eats a couple pounds

of meat a day still, you're still out of optimal numbers. Right, so I'm still not going to get all the benefits of creatine. Well, let's talk about some of those benefits. And we'll start with the most common ones and the ones

that are the most backed by literature. Although all the ones that we're going to talk about today are backed by studies. But number one is it makes you stronger. This is what made creatine initially popular.

It was, it's a two reps after you think you're done.

In comparison with, I mean, besides diet and exercise,

so diet and exercise always king.

“But in terms of supplements, creatine will make you”

predictably stronger, most consistently compared to any other supplement that's out there. That's not hormonal, like animal extorodes. You will get stronger if you take creatine. And with this tip of the looks like for people, both men

and women is about two pounds or an additional five pounds to every lip. So an additional two reps, excuse me, and five pounds to every lift. So if you're max, deadlift is 150 pounds,

you can pretty much predictably know that you're going to do 155 pounds the following week, which is for supplements is remarkable. Yeah, for supplements, that's pretty substantial. It's also relatively quick that you fill the difference too.

It's not like one of those things that's like, we're going to week, yeah, it's not like one of those things you can be taking for months and months to build it up before you start to really see a difference. It's pretty quick.

And I'd say about a week is when I know like consistently taking it for a week, the following week, when you come back around those lifts is when you tend to notice it. And that's what got a popular.

I got really popular with sports at first,

because you would just see this increase in power and strength, of course, people in the strength training world started utilizing it, which takes us to the next one, which is that it helps the muscle building process. This is very backed by data.

It does seem to speed up the muscle building process or hypertrophy. Now, in the recent pass, there's been some speculations to whether or not it's actual muscle fiber, or if it's just that the muscles are more hydrated,

remember muscles are like 70% fluid. I thought it was more to do with the rate that it's replenishing the ATP and ADP. Yes, but that does as it increases intracellular fluid so the muscles are more hydrated.

So there was like recently there's some studies that said, okay, maybe it's not muscle growth. Maybe it's just the muscles are more hydrated and we're registering it as lean body mass. But there's lots of data showing that it actually,

and I'll say this. Even if it doesn't directly build muscle, the increase in strength, well, progressive overload is how you build muscle. Well, that's back to my point with the energy thing.

I mean, even if that is, the other part isn't true, just, so let me, I haven't said this in the podcast in a long time.

“I think I've shared this with you a long time ago.”

How I used to describe this to be way back in the days, like my understanding to like simplify it. So the average person could understand. It's like, I would give this analogy of every time and I do this while I'm resting with a client.

It's like, while we're sitting down resting, we'll be resting between like a bench press or something. I'd be like, right now while you're resting, your body is replenishing like these energy molecules, ADP and ATP, right?

And let's just say for our human sake, your body can make a hundred of them, right? And while we're resting during this rest period for the next 90 seconds, your body replenishes 97 of those hundred

that we use, some of what we just used on the set. And so when we take creatine, you replenish those at a faster or higher rate.

So instead of, let's say, and then we go to our second set

and we work all the way down to only 50 molecules left. If we weren't on creatine, we rest for 90 seconds. You only replenish back up to say 70 or 75. When you're on creatine, you replenish back to 8590. - Yeah, that's a more energy to do more every set

and that will naturally progressively overload the body 'cause you're stronger and you can lift more. - Yeah, that's not a, I mean, that's a pretty decent illustration. It really when it looks like as you have so much ATP available. So ATP is this type of energy.

It actually is a cellular energy.

“So I think I believe every cell in the body utilizes ATP.”

So it's like a primary source of energy. But when it comes to exercise, it burns up very quickly. So you use ATP in explosive movements or for strength. Once it burns out, then your body starts to tap into glycogen. So this is why doing long distance running,

you're using up the ATP very quickly and then you're running on glycogen. This is why strength training you do sets because you train the explosive energy and not the glycogen and what happens is through the,

through focusing on ATP, this is how the muscle, that part of how the muscle building process works 'cause your muscles get bigger to utilize more ATP. So through that process, I would say it builds muscle. And when I bring up studies, the vast majority of them show

it does help with the muscle building process. But even if it didn't directly help the muscle building process, it makes you stronger. And we do know that when you progressively overload the body, this is the most consistent way to build muscle.

So if you can suddenly lift five more pounds, it's higher stress on the muscle fibers, which will send a lot easier. - Easy to see how that will help you in the muscle building's part of it.

- Totally.

It's also extremely safe.

“Crating is easily the most studied organic aid that exists.”

There's like thousands of studies on crating, double blind, placebo controlled. There's long studies, there's studies with high doses. It's not just safe, and we don't necessarily have to go here, but it's not just safe, but it probably helps with longevity.

- Yeah, I'm actually curious because I know a long time we were bashing the whole loading sequence in the beginning, because that was like, we're like, oh, it's just trying to get you through their product and like, has that changed it all

in terms of the recommendation? 'Cause they do recommend high doses for brain function now. - Yeah, cognition, but, and to to be able to really get it in your system, I mean, is that really a factor? - So you build up crating stores or ATP,

and it takes, let's say it takes 10 days to maximize or top those out, taking more in the beginning, we'll probably make it happen faster. So instead of taking 10 days, it might take something like six days. Nonetheless, if you're talking about the muscle effects,

loading isn't necessary, it just takes a little longer to get the maximal effects. So back in the day, they would tell you to take 20 grams a day

for the first seven days, and then five grams afterward.

You don't have to do that, you'll get the, you'll just get the max benefits, maybe a few days sooner. - No, the whole part, though, is that if you did do that, doesn't hurt, because then you get the brain benefits. - The brain benefits, which we'll get to,

probably happen with higher doses, because in order to get past with the muscles need,

“and everything else, you need to hold it.”

- Well, before the ice, it think doesn't waste. - Yeah, these are until these stuff, you need to. - Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. - Do you guys remember what some of the like fear mongering and stuff around the kidneys,

or the kidneys? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - So the places that they've done most studies for safety are kidney health, organ health, liver health. There were fears that it would increase muscle tears or injuries, that's also been dispelled.

- Oh, yeah.

- Very safe for the kidneys.

Unless you have impaired kidney function, and you're working with a nephrologist, and they're like, "Hey, you know, do the following, "then you're totally fine." By the way, if you have impaired kidney function,

they'll also tell you to restrict things like protein and stuff like that. - Sure. - So it's very, very safe on the body. Like I said, like every study done on safety with creatine has shown.

Again, not that it's just safe that there's longevity benefits. So now they're looking at data showing like, "Oh, there's..." And again, this isn't one of the points,

but it's probably maybe anti-cancer and maybe anti-disease, it seems to be good for your organs because all your organs run or utilize ATP as well. So it's not just safe, it's actually good for you. It's actually one of these that good for you.

It's also great for mood, which is really interesting. Now they did a study and I pulled it up here. - Now is that just because you've more energy? - Brain energy. - Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

So they did a study on there was a meta-analysis that was assessing, or sorry, randomized control trial of parammonopausal women and menopausal women. Eight weeks of creatine supplementation reduced the severity of mood swings compared to placebo.

There's also anti-anxiety and anti-depression effects that have been shown now on studies. So it's a mood lifting supplementation. - So that's really an energy thing with the brain. - Yeah.

- Connected, yes, totally. So it'll lift your mood in many cases from taking care of you, which is pretty wild. Again, all the studies that they do on creatine continue to show more and more benefits.

For almost everything that they studied. - Well, yeah, I guess the next one about brain fog, like that has to tie into that. And to, like, you point of recovering from a bad night of sleep, and that's the most interesting one.

They did studies on sleep deprived individuals, where they were purposely sleep deprived of them, and then they do a battery of tests to look at their cognitive function.

“You can always do, you could see the difference, right?”

We did these tests when you weren't sleep deprived, then these ones when you're sleep deprived, and we could see a single dose of 20 grams of creatine essentially erased the cognitive impairment that people see from pool.

- Now, this doesn't mean, I want to be clear, this is not a replacement for sleep. So it's like, oh, cool, I'm going to get back to sleep. - No, this is a band data. - But if you're like, if you just flu somewhere,

10 hour flight, or something like that, you feel brain fog the next day, and stuff like that, what a cool time to mega dose creatine. Not just that, like if you're listening right now, and you're going through a season where,

I don't know, you got little kids, and you're getting bad sleep, and it's just not optimal. Like creatine can help with your brain function quite a bit. Again, it's that energy molecule that it helps produce

or helps promote, and that just helps with cognitive function,

where we see cognitive improvements,

dramatic, I would say in the data, significant improvements in brain function, one is sleep deprived of individuals, and the other one which has been well established for vegans, you actually see an IQ increase of vegans.

- You don't see that makes sense, because if they take the least amount. - Yeah, well, they don't even eat meat, so if meat has at least a decent amount, not even though it doesn't have optimal,

it has a decent amount of creatine, and you get none. - Oh, you know, by the way, creatine's a vegan supplement, so if you're a vegan and you don't want to take, you're like, "Oh, I want to take creatine, "but it's derived from animal, it's not."

It's actually vegan the way they create it. - That's a process, this is what happened in the early 90s, and they figured out how to make creatine in an expensive way. Before that, scientists had been able to make creatine, but it was so expensive, but this is...

“- That's why it was so expensive. - It's the back of the days?”

- Well, it was actually, it was already cheap by the time they made it in the '90s, but because they cornered the market. - Oh, it's considered cheap when we bought it. - Oh, yeah. - I remember when it was...

- So it was way more expensive. - Well, it was like $50 for this back in like '92, '93 for like 30 servings per chalk. - Now, 50 bucks, we'll get you 100 servings or more. But compared to when they first were able

to synthesize creatine, it would have cost thousands of dollars. - It was so expensive to make it. - Oh, I didn't know. - And they figured out how to produce it and make it. - Well, you think about it, that's so cheap

when you consider inflation and everything, too. - Yes. - There's not a lot of things that you can bought that you were buying 20 years ago at a price, and it's half the price. - You've got some inflation.

- Yeah, so when you think about that, it's dramatically decreased. - Yeah, yeah, it's perfect to that end. - But if you're a vegan, so my vegan clients that I used to train, there were a couple supplements

that I would always make them take,

because I just almost every time, if they took it, we saw huge difference. One of them was essential amino acids. I would have them supplement essential amino acids with their meals.

The other one was a multivitamin multimeterole, which I would recommend most people. - Crayteen with vegan clients was like, they would come in four or five days later, and they're like, it's transformative.

- Totally changed a lot.

“- You know, speed of multivitamin, I think”

that we predicted this a long time ago, that creatine would become in a long-gevity and daily use thing that there's companies already that are putting it in multivitamin. - Yep.

- So it's already turned into that right now. - Kind of surprised. - It's only a matter of time. - For everybody's recommending it and it's thought of the same way with that.

- Here's another one. It doesn't blow you. This is like a big myth around creatine. - Okay, explain how our body holds water. The difference between when it's between the skin

and when it's in the muscle, because that's the big difference. - Yeah, so if you're a woman and you have a regular cycle, you know that sometimes,

especially when a progesterone is high, you're just more bloated. And this is just your holding more water and it's under the skin. You can make it look puffy

and it just looks different. - Yeah, it looks between the skin and the muscle. - Right.

“- And it looks puffy, it looks like body fat.”

- Yeah, exactly. - Now when you take creatine, you increase intracellular fluid in particular in your muscles. So your muscles which are like 70% fluid

now hold a little bit more because ATP draws in water. - Yeah. - So here's what happens and this is why someone then freak out

is the scale will go up with three pounds, right? Between two to four pounds, let's say one to four pounds is what a woman will typically see on the scale. Usually around two and they'll freak out and they'll feel bigger.

And so like, okay, creatine's making me bloated. I heard about this. - Yeah. - No, your muscles are rounder and fuller. They feel more toned or more shapely.

They're more hydrated. You have just hydrated your muscles better with creatine and it's not the same thing as blow. It doesn't cause that kind of water retention. It's intracellular.

- Do you remember? I told you this a long time ago on the podcast. Do you remember how I used to use this for when I would cut for a show? - No.

- So I would intentionally not use creatine when I would be bulking. Although I understand all the benefits of it for building muscle this night, I get it. I used it more psychologically.

- Oh. - And the reason why I did this was it was really difficult for me. I have the reverse effect of somebody

who's always felt overweight.

I felt as always skinny. So it was always hard for me to go on a cut because I felt like you're small. - Yeah. All of a sudden the glycogen gets pulled out.

When you are depleted, it depletes all the glycogen stores. So your muscle bellies look in the bodybuilding world we call it flat. - Look at that. - And so you know when you deplete all that,

your body is probably metabolizing body fat and you're leaning out and that's all part of the process. And it would all, as a young kid who was insecure about being skinny and abdomen muscle, always would mess with my head.

I'd try and go on a little bit of a cut or a diet. Oh my god, I'm losing muscle. I can see it. It looks like I've lost all of my muscles were deflated.

how much of a kind of a mind-fuck that was for me.

And so I would intentionally not really use creating that much during the bulking process. And then when I switched over to the cut, then I would take high doses of it in load water. So it filled my muscle bellies up a little bit.

So I'd have less of that psychological flat feeling. And it was great because it made me feel fuller. I'd better pumps in the workouts. It looked better. And as I know, I'm having to push myself through this.

“So that's how I used to use it when I was competing.”

By the way, because it increases intracellular water, you're going to want to drink more water when you're crazy. It's funny because I have some friends that one of them's a doctor and her husband.

So it's a couple, good friends of mine. And I'm-- you know, she's asking me about creating. Because now it's like well known that it's good for you. She's in the medical space. And she's like, should I take this?

I'm like, oh my god, absolutely. So herner has been sort of taken it. Now, both of them came back to me. They're like, I need to drink way more water. I'm like, first year, I'm like, yeah, your body,

your muscles, or more hydrated, and you're going to need more water as a result.

Now, I never noticed this.

And a lot of my clients didn't necessarily notice this, because I would always promote them to drink more water anyway. So if you drink a lot of water, you're not going to notice this. But if you're the average person who could benefit from drinking a half a gallon of two a gallon of water a day,

which is what we typically recommend. So you only drink a few glasses of water a day, like a lot of people. And then you start taking a creatine. You may suddenly notice, my mouth is dry, my eyes are dry, what's going on.

Your muscles are holding more water. You need more water. This is extremely wonderful too, because with back in the days where they had a lot of fear on this was, you know, you'd have some athletes,

like they were obviously already dehydrated. And then they're on creatine, and they're trying to pin it on creatine, and they had all these like symptoms. - Like muscle cramps. - Yeah.

- And so, but it requires a lot more hydration and success.

- You got to drink more water, because you have more ATP, your muscles are holding more fluid, which is good. So you'll need to drink more water. By the way, when the scale goes up two pounds, just for the women listening,

because a lot of women freak out over them, 'cause the scale is so scary. Oh my God, it went up. It when it goes up two pounds, and it's intracellular, intramuscular fluid.

“Now, would it register on a sensitive body fat test?”

It's not a huge percentage, but your body fat percentage actually goes down a slight bit, because your lean body mass went up. Lean body mass is everything that isn't body fat. So when you get a test, and you're looking at lean body mass

and fat mass, it's fat mass is fat. Lean body mass is bone, organ, water. It's everything that isn't fat mass. So when you add two pounds on the scale, it's good. Your muscles, again, are fuller, the rounder,

and you have to understand this, because if you're so scared about getting bigger, you may feel a little bigger, 'cause your muscles are fuller, but I'm telling you, you look better. This is a really good thing, and hopefully if you're listening

to this, you understand that, okay, the goal is to build muscle. But again, it doesn't blow you, that's not what it does. Next up, it probably helps with fat loss. In fact, I brought up some studies, and there was a minute analysis.

Now, is that indirectly, 'cause your building muscle, therefore, doing it, or there's actually some sort of mechanism that's causing you to split. So there's a lot of studies that show that there's a little bit of a fat loss.

In fact, there was one minute analysis of adult age 50 and older. I mean, it makes sense that if you're, if every cell operates and utilizes this creatine, and taking creatine creates that ability for a defunction at a faster rate,

that that metabolically could be positive, too. - Yes, and if it builds more muscle, you get a full shift of course from that. - That's what makes the obvious sense, is like if you build more muscle that way.

- That's right, that's right, so here's one study. So there may actually have met up analysis, and it showed that creatine supplementation during resistance training led to 0.5 kilograms greater fat mass loss compared to placebo.

“That's how to tonne, you know, what is that?”

A pound, extra, but in the world of fat loss and each supplement, that's actually pretty good. But at least this points to one thing, if it does train in a direction, it trends towards fat loss. - Yeah.

- So, and it's great because it's not a stimulant, it's not, you know, making a heart rate go up, it's nothing, no, those crazy things. So, and indirectly, like you said, if it helps build muscle, if it makes you stronger,

so you're lifting more weight, and you understand fat loss, it's like what's really important with fat loss is that got a good metabolic rate. This is actually one of the best supplements you could take for that process.

And then lastly, this one's a really good one, is it helps with bone strength. So, they did a two year randomized control trial. Remember, like I said, I gotta say this again, it's one of the most studied supplements,

if not the most studied supplement that exists. So, thousands of studies. And they're long, this is a two year randomized control trial. You know, heart rate is to find something that long that's randomized in postmenopausal women

with exercise increased bone density greater

than not using creatine. Now, what's the theory on that? Well, there were resistances training. So, you're already strength training.

“So, both groups are gonna see increases in bone mass.”

Right? But now, one of them is lifting a little heavier. Yeah. So, the tension on the bone. I mean, everything goes back to that.

It's just connected to, that's right. That's right. That's right. Getting stronger in building our muscle has all these, has better brain health,

it benefits, it has better stuff from metabolism, benefits, it's got, I mean, you look better benefits.

It's like, it's almost all connected back to that.

It is. More energy to push more weight and to be stronger, which then in turns builds more muscle and building more muscle does all these. Let's brain fog.

What's funny about what's interesting about this is because women for a long time, although they're starting to hear this,

“it's starting to get advertised to them quite a bit”

and women are starting to kind of figure this out. We've got really, really awesome people out there, like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who's like promoting creatine to women. So, they're starting to hear this. But there's been, there's this fear around creatine

for so long with women around the, oh, it bloats me, that's a myth, or I don't want to gain a pound or two on the scale. What's interesting about the studies is the benefits that they show for women are actually greater

than the benefits for women. It's actually, I would say bone density, why is it so big? Bone density and things that can anxiety and depression is greater effects in women.

And I'm not quite sure why, well, maybe that women at least less meat to begin with, and they get less great job. - Yeah, but again, is it all connected back to getting stronger and building more muscle?

Because if you have bigger muscles, you're gonna have bigger reserve tanks. - Yeah. - And if you have bigger reserve tanks that allows you to eat in a calorie surplus and not have brain fog

and not overspill and like wouldn't that theoretically be part of the reason why all that?

“- No, I think, because what I'm talking about is”

they compare men and women who supplement with creatine. So they're both supplemented with creatine, both get benefits. Women seem to get more benefits and I think it might be because women generally eat less animal protein. - Yeah.

- Anyway, they're smaller. - They don't eat as much. If anyone's gonna shy away from eating too much meat, I mean, that tracks with the vegan reason. - That's right, that's right.

- So it's a great supplement to take man or woman, but especially if you're female. And this is gone from, in my opinion, what I mean by that is, I used to recommend creatine when people would ask me what supplement should I take.

To now, it's like, this is actually one of the few that are like, definitely, definitely take this. - Yeah. - This makes a big difference. - Now, I know, we have a guide dug that we're sending

people to a masterclass. - Masterclass. - Oh, this is great. So this is a build your butt masterclass, which is you can go to mapsboody.com and check it out.

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