Written by Garett Reid | NSCA, CSCS, CISSN, M.S.E.S.S
Fact checked by Andrew Lenau, ISSA CPT & Sports Nutritionist
FACT CHECKED
Creatine monohydrate is the king of supplements to build lean muscle mass. Thanks to decades of research from the top sports scientists, creatine has traveled up the ranks of bonafide ergogenic aids. From being compared to a steroid in its early days, creatine has become the closest we have to a miracle drug due to its effectiveness in a wide range of physiological processes. This includes things like increased muscle hypertrophy, higher work output, and even better cognitive abilities. But what about weight loss? Can creatine help you lose fat during a cutting phase? Let’s find out. In this article, we will answer questions such as:
- What is creatine?
- Can creatine help lose weight?
- Can creatine help maintain muscle mass during a cutting phase?
- Should you take creatine while cutting?
- How to take creatine to lose weight?
What Is Creatine?
Creatine monohydrate is the most effective bodybuilding and strength supplement on the market. Generally coming in a tub as a white powder, you simply take your daily dose, train, and watch your muscle grow. While primarily used as a supplement to increase muscle hypertrophy and strength, recent research has found that it has much more uses than that. This is due to the numerous physiological roles that creatine has.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of creatine is that it’s a foreign substance. In fact, creatine is a naturally occurring non-proteinogenic amino acid that the body requires for basic function. Our body will primarily use the muscles to store creatine for the use, which is then replaced by creatine eaten through our diet or resynthesized from other amino acids. In order to top out our stored creatine, people will supplement with exogenous creatine as the majority of people can only naturally fill their stores 60-80%.
What Is Creatine Used For?
Our muscle fibers require a high-energy phosphate molecule by the name of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) in order to provide energy for muscle contractions. ATP is known as our “currency for energy,” as we must have it to function; when we run out, we stop moving. Therefore, the body has 3 metabolic systems to continually resynthesize this ATP:
- ATP-CP (Phosphagen System)
- Glycolysis
- Oxidative
While these systems are used simultaneously, the intensity of our action will dictate which one will act as the primary method to resynthesize ATP. The ATP-CP system is the fastest way to resynthesize ATP, so it’s primarily used for high intensity exercise of very short durations (<10 seconds), such as HIIT and weight training.
During this process, a phosphagen will separate from the ATP to provide energy and become a compound known as ADP. In order to resynthesize ATP from ADP, your body will take a phosphagen from creatine to add it to the ADP, and viola! You have more ATP.
Because creatine is primarily used during these intense activities, that means it’s vital for strength training. Basically, when you take creatine supplements, your body can produce more ATP which means you can perform more volume in the gym. This creatine intake then translates into weight gain in the form of more lean muscle mass, increased strength, and increased muscle power. This is the primary function of creatine, and it is very effective.
Can Creatine Help You Lose Fat?
This question requires some explaining as it’s not straight forward. As mentioned above, creatine is primarily used to produce more work output in the gym for performance benefits. While you could stretch this and say that means you burn fat by using more calories yada yada, the results would likely be minimal. Therefore, creatine doesn’t necessarily help you lose weight in terms of burning more calories like a thermogenic would.
However, studies have shown that creatine may play a role in increasing the amount of body fat loss. For example, this meta-analysis found that creatine increased the amount of fat burned in 50-year-old males¹. However, the mechanism of why this occurs is not necessarily understood. One explanation is that creatine has been found to play a role in increasing the utilization of fat adipose for fuel. In addition, it has been theorized that merely the addition of muscle increases the calories burned. However, the fat loss is minimal and only averages an extra 0.5kg.
Still, this doesn’t mean creatine isn’t an effective supplement to take when losing weight. You see, when we talk about healthy weight loss, there are actually two different adaptations that we look at.
- The loss of fat tissue
- The mitigation of muscle loss
While creatine may have some direct effect on losing fat, it can definitely help with the mitigation of muscle loss. In other words, creatine shines as a weight-loss supplement as it will help you hold onto muscle during your diet. This is actually a vital aspect of weight loss that too many people forget about. In fact, this is why it’s advised to get into a small caloric deficit.
How Does Creatine Help Weight Loss?
As mentioned above, creatine has been found to be highly effective in mitigating muscle loss during stressful events or during times of sickness. For example, this meta-analysis found that creatine supplementation helped to prevent muscle loss in humans and rats in limbs that were immobilized². As you have probably experienced or seen, when someone is bedridden or put in a cast, their muscles will waste away in a process known as muscle atrophy. Creatine seems to be able to stop this or at least mitigate it.
For example, while there are no studies that specifically look at creatine and weight loss (as mentioned above), some studies have kept track of body composition. A study from 2018 examined the effect of creatine and complex training but also measured changes in body fat percentage³. While nothing is said explicitly about the diet, the group that ate creatine gained more muscle mass and improved their overall body composition when compared with a placebo.
Still, creatine has been found to improve conditions of various other muscle degenerative diseases. This includes ailments such as:
- Multiple sclerosis
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
- Parkinsons
While there don’t seem to be any studies that specifically look at creatine’s role in muscle retention during weight loss, it makes sense to assume it would have similar effects. In other words, if creatine can help retain muscle when a leg is wrapped up and elevated, it’s a good bet to say that it will do the same when you are actively training.
Unfortunately, the exact mechanisms of why this happens are still not fully understood. Possible mechanisms have included the effect that creatine has on cell expression and muscle protein synthesis.
Does Creatine Cause Water Gain?
One of the major concerns with taking creatine supplements and losing weight is the claim that it causes water gain and bloating. As most lifters don't want to look fat when they’re cutting, they may obviously be weary about using a creatine supplement if this were true. Surprisingly, there is actually truth to the claim that creatine causes water retention. However, the issue is that it’s automatically assumed that water retention is harmful and that it somehow equals fat.
Neither of these are true. Let's look at what actually happens and why creatine supplementation won't ruin your muscle definition and won’t make it look like you gain fat.
Creatine Draws Water Into The Muscles:
There are a few points to address concerning this claim. The first is that creatine just randomly causes you to hold onto water, and you’re going to notice it niggling in your love handles. Not quite. Creatine is osmotic, meaning that it will tend to draw in water wherever it is located. Being that 95% of your creatine stores are located in your muscles, creatine draws water into your muscle cells causing them to actually be fuller. Therefore, don’t confuse water retention from creatine with the water retention of sodium which is usually held in your fat.
Muscle Hydration Is Anabolic!
Secondly, ask yourself; do "dry muscles" really sound like something you want? Realize that water is NOT bad for your muscles!!! Other than keeping them healthy, when any water is absorbed into your muscles by creatine, it engorges the muscle cells in something known as cell volumization. This is actually awesome as cell swelling actually triggers several anabolic processes. These include:
- Improved muscle protein synthesis
- Increase in IGF-1
- Decrease myostatin (a protein that inhibits muscle growth)
- Increases amino acid transport
All of these processes mean more muscle mass.
Your Muscle Is Made Of Water:
All of those anabolic benefits sound pretty sick, but there’s one last point to consider. A large percentage of our muscles are naturally made up of water, with estimates being up to 79%. After realizing this, being worried about “water retention” seems a little silly. The point being is that when you gain muscle, you are already “retaining” more water as that extra muscle is composed of water.
In fact, a review by ISSN (International Society of Sports Nutrition) confirms this⁴. They found that while creatine may cause water retention short-term, long-term studies have shown that over time the water gained is equivalent to the muscle gained. In other words, the total weight of water gained from creatine is what you would expect due to the gain of muscle.
Should You Take Creatine Monohydrate While Cutting?
So this gets to the main question, should you take creatine while cutting? After reviewing all the research, we would say absolutely! Some of the hardest parts about a cut are all solved by the benefits of creatine:
- Mitigating loss of lean mass (due to training in a calorie deficit)
- Muscle tissue will see quicker muscle recovery (we all know what training in a calorie deficit feels like)
- Possibly having more energy to perform a workout
While creatine may cause some weight gain due to water retention, this effect has been largely overblown by the uninformed. While it seems this water gain that occurs is actually just due to the increase in muscle mass, a hydrated muscle is actually good! This is actually an excellent example of how even truths can be bent by those who don’t understand to produce lousy advice. Regardless, there are actually bodybuilders who will use creatine for this exact effect and cause their muscles to blow up before a bodybuilding competition.
This brings an exciting fact to creatine in that it seems to be able to improve a wide range of performance variables. There’s a saying around the sports supplements world that says, “If you’re not taking creatine, you’re doing it wrong.” That basically sums up how we feel about taking creatine while cutting. In fact, that’s how we think about creatine with everything. Bottom line is if you want to cut fat, creatine will likely help.
How To Take Creatine Supplements For Cutting
When taking creatine supplements for different purposes, including cutting, there’s no reason to change your dosing protocol. Here’s a recap of a creatine supplement dosing protocol. Also, if you're wondering what happens when you stop taking creatine, the good news is you should be able to retain most of your gains, as long as you continue training hard.
- Loading Phase: Your loading dose will consist of taking 20-25g of creatine for 5-7 days
- Maintenance Phase: Your maintenance dose will consist of taking 3-5g of creatine daily
In terms of timing, you can take creatine at any time of the day. It also won’t make a huge difference if you take creatine before or after workout.
The one thing you may want to consider is what you take creatine with. You’ll also want to take creatine with plenty of water. Further, taking creatine with a high GI food, such as juice, can also improve the absorption.
Other than that, creatine monohydrate is an awesome supplement that could help you during your next cutting cycle!
Check out the best supplements for your upcoming fat loss phase in our article on the 8 Best Supplements For Cutting.
Interested in seeing how creatine stacks up against other supplements? Check out our article comparing Creatine vs Protein. And make sure to pick up one of the 7 Best Creatine Supplements on the Market or check out the 7 Best Creatines For Women!
References:
- Forbes, Candow, Krentz, Roberts, Young. Changes in Fat Mass Following Creatine Supplementation and Resistance Training in Adults ≥50 Years of Age: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology. 2019;4(3):62. doi:10.3390/jfmk4030062
- Padilha CS, Cella PS, Salles LR, Deminice R. Oral creatine supplementation attenuates muscle loss caused by limb immobilization: a systematic review. Fisioterapia em Movimento. 2017;30(4):831-838. doi:10.1590/1980-5918.030.004.ar01
- Wang C-C, Fang C-C, Lee Y-H, Yang M-T, Chan K-H. Effects of 4-Week Creatine Supplementation Combined with Complex Training on Muscle Damage and Sport Performance. Nutrients. 2018;10(11):1640. doi:10.3390/nu10111640
- Antonio J, Candow DG, Forbes SC, Gualano B, Jagim AR, Kreider RB, Rawson ES, Smith-Ryan AE, VanDusseldorp TA, Willoughby DS, Ziegenfuss TN. Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation: what does the scientific evidence really show? Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2021;18(1). doi:10.1186/s12970-021-00412-w
Garett Reid
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