Comment by nsbk
4 hours ago
This is such a crazy substance. I'm 43 and I feel like I have more energy than I have ever had before. I started taking it during recovery from a bad ankle fracture since it helps building muscle mass. Once the ankle was better I took up CrossFit, and kept on taking creatine because why not, it helps replenish ATP so I will be able to give the extra-push when working out, I thought.
What is blowing my mind though is that at $dayjob my team is going through a crazy crunch to deliver a very strategic project and some of us are pushing 10-12h days often. I'm in hour 12 today for the second day in a row, and my head is not tired at all. Turns out the brain also uses a lot of ATP too, specially during demanding cognitive tasks so I guess it is creatine that is keeping the engine running smoothly even after so many hours.
I will like once every week or two have a poor night sleep. These days I take twice the dose and I don't feel like I'm sleep deprived at all. Feels like cheating! And apparently no side effects at all so far. Well, maybe I'm working too much.
Mind that, while the "creatine high dose to fight drowsiness" hack works and has no side effects (other than upset stomachs), the lost sleep still does it thing. You don't notice day to day but it will catch up to you eventually in many bad ways.
Definitely! I would not recommend it to make up for lack of sleep for extended periods of time.
One of the things I'm trying to do better lately is to have a good sleep hygiene. Sun in the eyes early in the morning, no caffeine for the first 60 waking minutes of the day (adenosine absorption period), no screens 2 hours before bed and whatnot. Still, some nights I will just wake up in the middle of the night and won't be able to get back to sleep, then it's when I feel creatine helps
Edit: Typo
>some nights I will just wake up in the middle of the night and won't be able to get back to sleep, then it's when I feel creatine helps
I suspect creatine is responsible for me not being able to get back to sleep easily, because once I'm awake, I'm awake.
Creatine ruins my sleep if I take it late in the day. It most definitely has this conditional side effect for me.
is it possible that this is the bump due to your workouts and not plainly creatine ?
I take creatine daily but when I'm working out more than a couple of weeks, i feel much better than on weeks when I skip working out.
The overall fitness is going to definitely have a positive effect on the perceived energy levels (my Vo2 max is at its highest ever). On the other hand, I have been very fit at other times in my life but have never experienced this "my head can just go on" feeling before. I used to take conscious breaks, do NSDR between meetings and other energy-replenishing tricks because I __needed__ them. It feels like now I don't
You mentioned that you took up CrossFit after starting creatine. Did your previous fit phases include lifting heavy weights?
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great question. Can I take creatine and skip the workout hassle?
If your body requires more creatine than your diet currently provides, then supplementing with creatine would help, even without exercising.
from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42578920/ (CrM is creatine monohydrate)
Going from minimal exercise to light-moderate exercise will do as much for you as creatine would. To me it's almost a no-brainer to try doing both.
For me, just creatine doesn’t seem to do a whole lot. But heavy workouts (with or without creatine), energize me enormously.
You can do the workout and skip creatine and its marginal benefits pushed by gym bros and health influencers beyond reason.
It has an especially noticeable effect if you're a vegetarian. I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and high doses of it for me are a crazy cognitive enhancer.
That's because creatine is missing in vegetarian diets. It is found in beef. Something to consider if you are thinking about going vegetarian.
Oh I’ve been mostly plant based for years, maybe that helps explaining the difference
>I'm 43 and I feel like I have more energy than I have ever had before. I started taking it during recovery from a bad ankle fracture / Once the ankle was better I took up CrossFit, and kept on taking creatine because why not
And how do you know it's the creatine and not ...taking up CrossFit and the benefits to energy and cognitive function exercize brings?
I take creatine daily, have done for well over a year. I also run 5-6 days a week and lift twice a week.
I’ve previously stopped taking it for a couple months and noticed no real difference in physical or mental ability.
You may not have taken enough. You need 15-20g/day for mental benefits. And long term, at least 2+ weeks.
If you would, please explain or point me to the material where you get your higher dosage recommendation. (I always heard and understood proper dosage to be 5–7.5g/day, 10g/day at the most. I’d like to correct my error if I’m mistaken.)
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Yeah I definitely don’t take that much.
The only difference I notice is a small increase in muscle strength after taking it for a month or so.
I’m 45 and work out a lot and feel this way without creatine. To the point that this makes me worry it would exacerbate my existing sleep issues (I literally never feel sleepy, I feel exactly the same 24 hours a day).
Any tips on GI impact? I pair mine with food and lots of water and it's improved but wondering if there's any more I should be doing
Some people report less GI distress with creatine HCL but it’s much more expensive.
The GI issues are caused by the creatine absorbing water. This causes your gut to have more water than usual as it follows the creatine through the works… which causes… urgency.
The effect diminishes after you’ve been taking a regular dose for a while, even with just monogydrate (not HCL).
Some people say HCL causes less distress because it doesn’t draw water as much. Others argue that defeats the purpose of taking it.
Monohydrate is studied to death and proven effective, HCL not so much.
The studies I've seen from HCl claim it's more bioavailable too, so you only need 1/3 the dosage compared to honohydrate. That makes the cost pretty comparable.
But otherwise, I'd agree that monohydrate has significantly more research behind it and I'd default to that if it's tolerable.
Anything over 5g is hard on my stomach. I take it in my protein shake in the morning and dont notice any issues.
I took double the dose once and I regretted it. I was in the bathroom pretty often that day.
Do you take the standard 5g or something else? What's your weight?
~5g most days, ~10g if I didn't sleep well. I'm currently 68kg
height?
Have you tried stopping creatine? How do you know it's the creatine?
I've been taking it for almost a month and I plan to stop to see if I notice any change back that would make me want to start taking creatine again.
Creatine is one of the few if not the only supplements we actually know work. But with that said, my experience is that the bump is there but not world changing. Although it could be placebo, I don't think so because the first time I started taking it I noticed something but didn't make the connection because I noticed it playing basketball and not as much lifting. I could just sprint a lot easier. I recently started taking it again and again I noticed I can sprint easier and not be as spent. Of course you can improve by simply working out regularly, but IMHO the bump you get is obvious.
It's beyond crazy, lol. How many grams are you doing a day?
It has replaced in some ways caffeine for me.
The part of where creatine wipes out sleep deficit sounded like a stretch, but it definitely helps.
And this is surely thanks to Creatine. Amazing!