Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 108: To creatine, or not to creatine?
Transcript
- Cameron: Welcome to today's episode of the Cameron's Conversations podcast. So today's theme is to creating or not to creating to not paraphrase Shakespeare very well at all. I think it's a really, really common thing that I see right now. Someone will say to me, like, should I take creating? And the broad answer is probably yes. But the answer yes only really applies in the context of you're at weight maintenance, you are looking to gain muscle. or you are in a weight loss phase and you fully understand that it will derail your weight loss progress, quote unquote, I'm gonna talk about this, on the scales for a period of time. So I have, ⁓ I can literally see this, right? I've been, I don't know how many weeks it's been, like three weeks, something like that. I have been supplementing creatine and my weight has been extremely stubborn over that time. Like it has trended up relatively quickly and it's. kept climbing a little bit, then it steadied out, and now it's starting to drop a little bit more steadily. But it has gone up quite a bit. It's up about two and a half kilos, which I was quite surprised by. I think probably an indication of how low my creatine levels were. I mean, I did do a little bit of a kind of food diet analysis, and I was like, don't think there's much, like a very limited pool of creatine in my diet. And I was like, I think I'm gonna see quite a big spike, and I have, which is absolutely fine. I really couldn't care less. And to be quite honest with you, whether it's a mix of the just continued diet and weight loss or whether it is also the creatine starting to make a bit of an impact, because sometimes it does make muscles look a little bit fuller, so sometimes you look a tiny, tiny bit more toned. The leaner you are, the more tangible it is. I definitely look a lot leaner, so I'm not fast, right? I'm just not that bothered. My waist measurements gone down, my progress photos, I can see them getting leaner. I'm just not overly stressed about it, but if you were to look at my weight loss progress over the last few weeks, it's been underwhelming. Underwhelming and that's absolutely fine. It was down quite a bit this morning as well, of back to the low end of the 38s, which is good, because it has been bouncing around like mid 38s, sorry, 38s, did I say that before? I didn't mean to say that. But yeah, anyway, 78s and 79. And now it's starting to probably trend down. I do think I've kind of reached that saturation point. It was a bit more delayed than I thought, which I think again, probably a representation of the fact of quite low creatine levels in my diet. So yeah, it's been interesting. But the point is this, that it just hasn't fazed me because I'm doing progress photos and I'm like, do I look leaner than last week? Yes, Pasco, carry on. Like I see a difference visually. It's quite funny as well. It's kind of at that stage in my weight loss journey where quite a few people in person have kind of commented as well. They'll be like, oh, you're looking quite lean at moment. Like a couple of guys at basketball, a couple of the very direct sort of compliments that you get when you play for a team in a sport, which is really, really funny. as well, but yeah, it just makes me laugh. But the point is, is that a lot of the time when it comes to creatine, you would be at a significant advantage in the long term to take it, absolutely, but you must be tolerant, if you're a weight loss phase, of seeing nothing on the scales for two weeks. And it depends for every individual, because if you had a diet that was quite high in creatine in the first place, it probably wouldn't have an impact. on you in quite the same way. Like you'll probably see weight climb for like seven to 10 days and plateau out. But evidently, because I haven't been eating much red meat at all, which again, as I said before, is not a philosophical thing. I just don't eat a lot of red meat day to day. Typically when I'm in a weight loss phase, I tend to eat lots of like chicken, for example, and that doesn't have any way near that kind of creating content of something like red meat would do. And I don't eat a lot of fish as well, which some fish can contain a bit creatine as well. But the point is this, is that as long as you're accepting of it, as long as you know your weight might trend up a little bit, you're gonna be absolutely fine taking creatine in a weight loss phase. But for most people, unfortunately, it does mess with their heads a bit, and if you're early on in your journey and you're just trying to get momentum going, I'm gonna actually say I wouldn't bother. I think if you are in the first four to six weeks and you're just finding your feet a bit with it, it's probably not worth the bother, because I think it's more likely to derail you than not, because you can have 14 days of the scales not moving, or indeed, maybe a week of them going up. get really pissy about it and lose motivation and then it's just a struggle. I would much rather someone got to maintenance if they are not 100 % confident. I know one of my clients recently started taking creatine. We had a good conversation about it. He's already really quite lean and been on holiday, come back and he kinda asked me about it and our weight was right back to where it was pre-holiday after kind of like a week and I said, look, this might be a good time for us to do it. You already, cause he's already at that point where he's very motivated by his physique, right? He already. feels like, man, so much better shape. think he's 16, 17 kilos off the top of my head. And it's a huge difference already, right? So he already, he's gone on holiday, felt great. And that's probably a little element of it too, had been a bit tactical because I he's just been on holiday and that goal he was really pushing towards that Kate kind of used as like a little middle ground almost where we're like looking to crack on for the holiday a wee bit as a kind of midpoint goal. Now we can kind of say like, well, there's not any immediate pressure. Like he's not desperate to see. like a huge change in the next two weeks. Now, the thing is, you'll still see the visual changes, but just not on the scales, but again, it can mess with people's heads. So it's a natural kind of point where we can be like, right, let's bring this up, let's see what happens with weight. My guess is that over that period of time, we wouldn't sort of lose much weight at all. As it happens, that's kind of like happened, we've lost probably about 0.2 kilos, 0.3 kilos over two weeks, which is about, mean, normally drops 0.6, 0.7 kilos a week. So we are a kilo less than that, right? Significantly less weight loss. than the normal cadence over a two week period to be clear. But I would guess into the next two weeks that that'll shift back to normal, right? I think you'll probably have plateaued out a little bit. You just have a bit of red meat in this diet to be fair. So the point is this is that for most people, it's a good option. It's a good thing to have and it's good for a few reasons. There's some research, although the research isn't quite as strong for performance as it is for performance, it's still quite strong for cognition. from sort sleep deprived state. So if you've had a really poor sleep, there's a beneficial cognitive effect, which obviously appeals to most of us. And I actually consciously was like, right, I really want to start taking my creatine again because I'm also conscious that my sleep's been a little bit poor lately. I don't know why, I just don't seem to be able to get sleep as early. I'm not sure why that's happening, but you know, go through phases. It could also be because it's light, bright and kind of hot and I'm someone who runs really hot naturally. And even when it's not been, I keep complaining about how not hot it is outside, somehow in the flat it's really warm. And I think that's a factor, but I notice probably a little bit of that where I think I do feel a little bit of benefit cognitively when I am supplementing creating. Whether that's placebo or not, it doesn't really matter because I guess it still works. And definitely from performance perspective, it might be the difference of you getting an extra rep or two across two, two, three movements, let's say. It might be the difference between you being able to put an extra couple of reps in. twice, three times a week, which then the numbers start to add up to be quite a lot. And indirectly, what that means is you gain a little bit more muscle, and if you gain a bit more muscle, you get into shape quicker. So it's really, really useful. But it will lift your floor and your baseline up slightly, because when I started supplementing creatine, let's say I see a two kilo increase, that is additional water drawn into the muscle cell. Now it doesn't make you bloated, it doesn't make you look... what's the word, watery, it doesn't work that way because it's really within the muscle cell. If anything, it makes you look a little bit more toned if you've got a good amount of muscle in the first place. So the point is, that it tends to actually have a positive impact on kind of like the way you look at anything, but it will lift that floor, right? It will make you a little bit heavier in the kind of short term as well. Now, actually I was thinking about this other day and I was like, I wonder if that's not a bad thing, right? I was thinking, because we often think about weight, right? But really what we're talking about is body composition, because weight only matters because, because of body composition, right? It matters because we don't want to be holding too much fat because that's usually not the way we want to look or particularly healthy for us. So obviously there are two factors. But the thing that's kind of interesting if you think about it is like in theory, if I'm holding an extra two kilos more, that means I'm two kilos heavier for every step I do, which means a really marginal but still something amount of calories expended, which I was thinking about too. Random thought that popped into my head. was like, I suppose that is like an additional one 35th of my weight. And so I'm probably expending when I walk like. a smidgen more calories as well. But that's a very, I guess, counterintuitive approach when people just want to see weight loss and the number go down. But I did think about that. was like, hmm, actually there could be an advantage in that long term, I guess, because if you can be two kilos heavier, but still look really, really good and you're performing better and your cognition is better when you're sleep deprived, but you also get a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny amount of additional calorie expenditure because there's additional water being stored in your muscle. Maybe there's an advantage there. Better. It's just a thought. But the point I was going to make is, yes is the answer, the short version of this. I think pretty much everyone should be taking creatine. Creatine and vitamin D, but in D3 form, are usually the two that I say like blanket for people. Now I do have some clients in very sunny countries, I'm not jealous at all, that maybe don't need to worry about D3 in the same way, but in Scotland, in England, like I know there's a big heat wave, it's incredibly unlikely you're getting enough. Vitamin D synthesized from the sun on your skin throughout most of the year, right? It's just not happening. I look, it's July here and it's gray and overcast and I would go out in a small top. Like I'll have shorts on but I'm probably wearing a fleece. So I'm getting some exposure but it's not gonna be enough. Cratein kind of falls into a similar category where you're not going to be getting enough through your diet. There's clear advantages to taking it in terms of performance. There's a bit in cognition. It may even have a neuroprotective effect when we're older. The research for that is a little bit newer. So the short answer is to creatine or not to creatine, you probably want to creatine. So hopefully that was helpful, just a short episode as it was front of mind because I've been taking it. It's actually funny, I've been taking my MyProtein, I've got an anecdote off the back of this, been taking MyProtein creatine and I used the berry flavored one? I have no idea. But anyway, it's the first time I've ever had flavored creatine and I actually really rate it. I've always suggested to people having the non-flavored one and just mixing it with fruit squash, but actually. find this one seems to mix a bit better and tastes a bit better doing it that way. So I've got this flavored creatine and it kind of saves me on having squash as well. Like I was like, that's just kind of more practical. I have to mix two things together. So that's handy. It means if I've got it in the back of the car, I can chuck it in a water bottle and it's actually got a bit of flavor, which is quite nice. So that's useful. Side note, my neighbors had it for six days and they are across the hallway from me and... I see them all the time, just passing, right? They had my package for six days and didn't hand it to me, and it's tiny. So first off, why did the Amazon delivery driver even give it to them? Because it's not a high value package. They never normally do that. Secondly, what on earth? Who keeps it for six days? Like I'm a village lad. I'd have to go and check like if they were in twice an evening every single day, I'd feel so guilty. I'd have to put a note through the door saying I have the package. Like I could not hold on to someone's package for six days. I would have real anxiety. about that as well, but maybe that's a reflection of my village upbringing, who knows. Anyway, that is by the by, my slight loss of games for running out for like two or three days I can live with, but hopefully that episode was helpful on whether to create in or not to create in, and a bit of wider context. I hope you're a great week and speak soon.