Creatine Supplement: Helpful, Harmful, or a Waste of Money?

Creatine is one of the most popular and widely researched sports supplements on the market today. Found in pre-workouts, recovery blends, and sold as a standalone powder, it's praised by gym-goers and athletes alike. But is creatine just fitness hype? Is it safe? Does it bulk you up or bloat your waistline?

Let’s go further into what creatine actually does—and doesn’t do—for your body.

What Is Creatine, and What Does It Do?

Creatine is a compound naturally found in your muscles and brain. It helps regenerate ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is the main energy source for short bursts of activity like sprinting or lifting weights.

Supplementing with creatine increases the muscles’ phosphocreatine stores, allowing you to perform better during high-intensity training.

Benefits supported by science:

• Increased strength and power

• Improved exercise performance

• Greater muscle mass (mostly due to increased water retention initially, and later, actual muscle protein growth)

• Enhanced recovery and possibly even cognitive benefits

Is Creatine Wasteful?

For most people—especially those doing resistance training or high-intensity workouts—creatine is far from wasteful.

In fact, it's:

• One of the most cost-effective supplements on the market

• Backed by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies

• Shown to be effective in both the short and long term

If you’re sedentary or don’t engage in strength training, the benefits are far less pronounced. In that case, it might not do much for you.

Verdict: Not wasteful, if used with proper training.

Is Creatine Harmful?

Creatine has been under scrutiny for years—often unfairly. Concerns about kidney damage, dehydration, and cramping have been raised, but clinical studies on healthy individuals have not substantiated these claims.

Important considerations:

• People with pre-existing kidney issues should consult a doctor before supplementing.

• It may cause water retention, especially during the loading phase (more on that below).

• Minor side effects: bloating, stomach discomfort, or cramping in some users.

Verdict: Safe for healthy individuals, according to decades of research.

Creatine and Body Composition: Does It Grow Biceps or Shrink Waists?

Biceps:

Yes, creatine can help increase biceps size, but not directly.

• The initial increase in muscle size is due to water retention in the muscle cells.

• Over time, because it enhances training performance, it leads to actual muscle growth if you're lifting consistently.

Think of creatine as a tool that helps you train harder and recover faster—which leads to hypertrophy (muscle growth), including in the biceps.

Waist:

Creatine does not cause fat gain.

However, during the initial week (especially if you "load" with high doses), you might see the scale go up due to increased water weight. Some people report a slightly puffier midsection at first, but this isn’t fat and often levels out.

Verdict:

• Biceps = likely growth

• Waist = might appear slightly bloated at first, but no fat gain

How to Take Creatine

• Loading phase (optional): 20g/day for 5–7 days (split into 4 doses)

• Maintenance: 3–5g/day thereafter

• No loading? Just take 3–5g/day. It will take a few weeks to saturate your muscles but works the same long-term.

Best timing? Anytime works, but post-workout with carbs/protein may slightly boost uptake.

Bottom Line: Should You Take Creatine?

If you're:

• Doing resistance or high-intensity training

• Looking to improve strength, muscle size, or recovery

• Healthy with no pre-existing kidney issues

…then yes, creatine is a helpful, safe, and affordable supplement.

If you're expecting fat loss, “dry” aesthetics, or a magic pill—it’s not that. But as part of a smart training and nutrition plan, creatine absolutely earns its place on the shelf.

GLP-1 Weight Loss and Muscle Mass?

Let’s dive into the latest consensus regarding the effects of GLP-1 on muscle mass.

The prevalence of Glucagon-Like-Peptide-1 medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound means that many people are well on their way to a healthier weight and lifestyle. Semaglutide treatments have been associated with loss of lean mass up to 40% at the end of the treatment. What this means is that of the total weight lost during the GLP-1 treatment, up to 40% of that comes from muscle loss. 

The science behind the biomechanism that facilitates this weight loss is well established and being built upon continuously. The general consensus is that those who are obese and receiving GLP-1 treatments should be tracking their muscle health and making lifestyle adjustments that include physical training and exercise to prevent sarcopenia. What is Sarcopenia? An article published by the NIH presents it as “Sarcopenia is a condition characterized by loss of skeletal muscle mass and function… Sarcopenia is a syndrome characterized by progressive and generalized loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength and it is strictly correlated with physical disability, poor quality of life, and death” (Santilli et al., 2014). The consequences of weight loss is general muscle loss associated with the body’s natural physiological tendency to remain in homeostasis. 

SO HOW DO I KNOW IF MY WEIGHT LOSS IS MUSCLE OR FAT? 

INTRODUCING POMMA-GRAM!

You get an Echocardiogram for your heart, a Mammogram for your breast, what about your muscles?

Just like the other -grams, POMMA-GRAM tracks and records your muscle strength over time to provide valuable insight to the progress of your ongoing strength training. We integrate data from 5 assessment tools for data granularity. When combined with a comprehensive bio-impedance scan the assessments provide deep data regarding your muscle strength and functional strength. Granular Records Assess Muscle! The better the data granularity and the longer the record, the more insight we have regarding our health, strength, and longevity. If you are curious about your functional strength, book an appointment with us today!

References:

Santilli, V., Bernetti, A., Mangone, M., & Paoloni, M. (2014). Clinical definition of sarcopenia. Clinical Cases in Mineral and Bone Metabolism: The Official Journal of the Italian Society of Osteoporosis, Mineral Metabolism, and Skeletal Diseases, 11(3), 177–180. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25568649/

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