Creatine is useful in improving muscle performance and recovery but Creatine has not been shown to affect the loss of body fat whatsoever. It does cause water weight gain, but that is not remotely equatable to fat mass gain.
No matter the reason you find yourself in the gym and working out. Maybe you’re working out to regain some semblance of control over your life or maybe you’re working out to regain strength as you’re getting older to possibly grasp at longevity or as many do you could be trying to lose weight. More specifically than just the word weight, you’re most likely trying to lose and should be trying to lose fat mass. Without a doubt, if you’re new to the gym and new to exercise there will be many different variables that will create much confusion for you as you start this new journey and process. One of these things will be how you should train or how often you should train for example. Another could be what you should eat if you should eat or how much you should eat. These two are potentially the biggest examples of sources of confusion for someone who is new to working out and exercising. Another example more specifically of what someone might be questioning and dealing with in their confusion is what supplements should they take or if they should take supplements at all to reach their goals. If you just started working out your main concern does not need to be on supplements. It doesn’t need to be one these fancy and particularly expensive supplements that you can buy from different stores or locations. Many supplements are marketed towards people who are new in order to try and grasp their attention and get their dollar. When in reality no supplement is necessary for anyone to reach their goal, particularly a beginner. What I mean by this is that only one thing should be your priority as a beginner. Learning. Learning is the most crucial part of anyone’s journey. What I mean whenever I say this is that any person who is just started working out needs to consider that they don’t know as much as many other people do. This being the case they should be willing to have the approach of learning and asking questions from others who do know more. This could be friends who might know more about Fitness than you or this could be looking and researching many different things on the internet but this can add to even more confusion in my experience. The best way to learn is by first-hand experience and just starting. By just taking that first step from then forth you will learn more than you knew yesterday.
When you’re no longer a beginner and you have at least some experience under your belt you can begin to consider other things more complicated than just the basics. One of these would most likely be supplementation. As mentioned earlier if you have a goal in mind then there are certain supplements that could help you get there but they are by no means necessary. One such supplement is creatine. In particular, one goal that I’ll be addressing today is the goal of losing fat. So, should you eat creatine while trying to lose body fat?
The Importance of A Caloric Deficit for Fat Loss
For beginners or anyone who wants to lose weight or more specifically fat, there’re really a few things to consider. The main and most predominant thing to consider is the existence and prevalence of a caloric deficit. This is the backbone and the most important part of losing fat. If you eat too much you will not lose weight. I will break it down more specifically. Each person has their own body, obviously, and along with that, each person burns a certain amount of calories based on their body size and activity level. This is why when someone says that they have a fast or a slow metabolism they are indicating that their body burns or does not burn as many calories as someone else they are comparing themselves to. As I mentioned a caloric deficit is simply when a person consumes fewer calories a day than their body burns. When your body is in the state of a caloric deficit it has no choice but to lose fat. This is the case because fat of the human body is stored energy. Now, your body doesn’t know that you don’t need this stored energy since you’re not in the wild living in the Sahara but you can force it to lose this weight by entering into a caloric deficit. To create an example let’s say we have a guy named Doug. Doug is an average male of about 30. he weighs about 200 lbs and his BMR (Basal metabolic rate) is 2,000 calories. If Doug wants to lose weight he will need to consume fewer than food 2,000 calories a day. If Doug wants to gain weight instead it will l be the reverse. Doug will need to eat an excess of 2,000 calories a day. There are many ways to calculate your body’s metabolism using online calculators and the such.
- A CALORIC DEFICIT means that you consume less calories than you burn
- A caloric deficitv is the singlemost important part to loosing fat. Without it no diet will succeed
- Metabolism will differ from person to person depending on activity, body mass, and age.
Now that we’ve addressed the importance of a calorie deficit in losing body fat we can now move on to the importance or lack thereof creatine in the diet of someone who wants to lose body fat.
So, does Creatine effect fat loss at all?
- CREATINE increase muscle recovery and strength
- Creatine does not effect metabolism or the loss of fat
- Creatine does cause water weight gain but that is not correlated to fat gain
As mentioned the only crucial part to losing body fat is having a caloric deficit. If anyone tells you otherwise they are most likely trying to sell you a product and mislead you. It doesn’t matter the diet the only part that truly matters in terms of the science of losing body fat is the caloric deficit. If a person wanted to only eat donuts and soda every day they can lose weight. It would not be easy but they could as long as they stayed under their caloric deficit. This being said creatine does not help with weight loss. It potentially could but that data would be just extrapolated. Creatine essentially puts more energy in the muscles to allow you to work harder in the gym. Creatine is very useful in muscle recovery so it is by no means harmful to take if you are trying to get in shape but it is certainly not important to losing fat whatsoever. You’d be better off saving your money and directing it toward investing in a personal trainer or a diet for example. Creatine however has been shown to cause people to gain weight, more specifically water weight. There’s a difference between water weight, fat weight, and any other weight that is present in the body. Creatine will not affect the gain or loss of fat whatsoever.