Why Creatine?

< Full Episode

Transcript: Why Creatine?

Season 10, Episode 7  | March 18, 2025

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Welcome back to another episode of Life Time Talks. I’m David Freeman.

And I’m Jamie Martin.

And today’s topic, we’re going to be talking about why creatine? So creatine is an often misunderstood supplement, yet it’s one of the most researched supplements. And it can be powerful by being able to provide support, lean muscle mass, strength, energy, cognitive function, and so much more. And we have our special guest back again. Who we got, Jamie?

Back again, one of our favorites, Paul Kriegler, is with us. Paul is a registered dietician and personal trainer, and he serves as the director of nutritional product development at Life Time. Paul, welcome back to the pod.

Great to be back. Thanks for inviting me back.

How are you feeling a few changes in the life, yeah?

Yeah.

What you got going on? Tell us a little bit.

Family’s growing up. New house.

So let’s talk a little bit about creatine. I think one thing that we hear a lot about is creatine, you need to use this. It helps build muscle, this, that, and the third. But let’s just break down what exactly is creatine.

Creatine is it’s a compound that’s naturally found in our bodies. Most of it’s in our muscle tissue. There’s a little bit that’s stored in our brain and our liver and kidneys as well. But it’s an energy storage molecule, for lack of a better term. So the first 6 to 10 seconds of any movement or hard effort you make is generally fueled by the breakdown of phosphocreatine in your muscle cells. So it’s literally something that jumpstarts any activity you want to do. So it’s a really critical energy storage molecule.

There have been some misconceptions over the years, though, about creatine. So let’s talk a little bit about that because, as David said in the intro, it’s actually a really well researched and backed supplement for people. So let’s talk about why there was that confusion.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, supplements in general can be controversial. Creatine is available even though it’s a natural compound that our body makes. Oftentimes our bodies can’t make enough of it to maximize our creatine stores, which is why it’s positioned also as a supplement. It’s made from three amino acids — arginine, methionine, and glycine. So those are protein-building blocks. We’ve talked about protein a lot on this podcast. But yeah, it’s an amino acid compound made from arginine, methionine, and glycine that is critical for energy production.

There are over 1,000 human studies on creatine over the last couple of decades. And it’s got a really well established safety profile, and a really efficacious performance enhancement health benefit profile as well. So the risk-benefit ratio of creatine is incredibly skewed towards the benefit side of that equation.

But like you said, that the performance enhancement thing, that was what it was kind of known for a period of time, probably what, like late ’90s, early 2000s. But that’s with all the new research, right? that’s like, oh, no, this actually is really beneficial for most of us, right?

Yeah, absolutely. It’s been super popular in the bodybuilding community and athletic performance communities for a long time. And I think now the research is finally catching up to say like, no, the benefits that help athletes maximize their performance actually have translation effects to the general population.

Right.

Let’s unpack that a little bit. I mean, you just spoke to a little bit of the benefits from an athletic performance, and then you said energy production. So can you name a little bit more of the benefits to the everyday individual who might not be performing in athletics as well?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the benefits span across the lifespan, too. So in pregnancy and infancy, for example, if there are injuries that starve the mother or baby of oxygen, having maximal creatine stores in your muscles, brain and liver and kidneys can actually help protect against some of the worst outcomes. So in those low-oxygen environments, having maximized creatine stores is really beneficial.

And then in youth and early adult life, that’s kind of your window to maximize muscle mass that you’re going to gradually lose over your later stages of life, as well as your bone mass. So it helps people develop — people of all types develop and maximize their strength and lean body mass, which really serves as your insurance policy as you age.

Right. Because as we’ve talked about on this podcast before, for the average person, muscle loss typically starts right around age 30, right? So it’s really that teens —

Sometimes sooner.

—early 20s that we start seeing that loss of muscle, if we’re not staying active and using. Yeah.

Well, with that, I mean, as far as how early can an individual start as far as taking in creatine?

I mean, there are safety studies in youth populations, so pediatric populations. I’m not going to say, just go start taking it if you’ve got kids, and put it in the family’s shakes or anything. But it’s something to talk to your doctors about, especially if kids are picky eaters. They’re not eating a lot of meat or other creatine sources, like meat and fish. So that’s the exact role of a supplement, is if the diet is lacking in it, and you can’t get enough of it from those normal sources, then a supplement should be on the table for discussion, and starting early in life at that.

Well, to that end, let’s talk a little bit about what the food sources of creatine are. And then let’s get into why supplementation matters, and because why that is a useful tool for a lot of people.

Yeah. An adult human has about 100, a little over 100 grams of creatine stored in their body at any given time. And we break down a certain percentage of that. It’s in single digits percentage on a daily basis. And your body can regenerate some of that, kind of replenish from its amino acid pools. But a lot of us don’t eat enough protein relative to the demands we have and those specific amino acids to maximize our creatine pools. That’s where the supplement comes in handy.

Got it.

Taking a very small dose on a daily basis, just kind of as a maintenance dose can help you build up, maximize, and maintain that maximal concentration of creatine in your muscles, brain, liver, and kidneys.
Got it. Got it. So protein sources, meat sources are typically, so you’re saying like, what I’m seeing beef, cod, salmon, what else is there?

Yeah, just to give people context. You’d have to eat over 2 pounds of beef. And it would have to be rare because creatine gets degraded when you cook it well. So it has to be rare beef or raw fish. 1.6 kilograms of cod, 1.1 kilograms of salmon, and this is all to get 5 grams of creatine.

Right. Which is really — I mean, I know in the Life Time supplement, that’s what’s in a single scoop, right?
One small scoop. It’s about a teaspoon.

Got it.

So you have to eat a lot of food to get the maximal dose of creatine that helps us establish, maxed out creatine stores throughout the body.

Now, I actually had a recent conversation with one of my athletes, and she was hesitant about taking the actual creatine. She was like, I feel like I’m going to end up gaining weight. I tend to gain weight every time I’ve read up things on creatine and so on and so forth. So can you tell what usually is happening with the body, if it’s being probably introduced with starting to take creatine and the body adapts and so on and so forth?

Yeah, people will gain weight. They’ll gain a couple of pounds in the first few weeks of taking creatine supplements. That weight is usually, it’s just water, more water getting stored along with the creatine inside the muscle cells. So it shouldn’t be something that people shy away from. Your muscles literally get better vitality from it. You’ll look like your muscle bellies are fuller. So you’ll appear leaner, even if you get a little heavier on the scale, in most cases. And it’s not something that people should be hesitant about.
It’s a very temporary effect. You’ll stabilize, and the benefits will help you continue whatever your weight goals are. If you’re trying to continue leaning out, having maximal creatine stores helps your workouts. It helps your recovery in between sets of activity. You recover faster, so you can do more sets in a given amount of time. It helps you bounce back in between workouts better.

So the people that struggle with being sore or not motivated to go back in the club, for the third and fourth day of the week to lift weights, that’s where the benefits really start to snowball.

So you mentioned getting those optimal stores. How do people get there? Because I know we’ve done articles and experience, like give them a source for them in terms of it’s not necessarily a matter of like, we talked about that scoop that you would add or like getting the food sources, but is there a front loading a little bit with creatine and then tapering off? How does that work to get to that kind of optimal storage?
Yeah, there’s two predominant routes. One is just start taking it at a small maintenance dose, 3 to 5 grams a day, and just keep taking it that way. You’ll max out your stores of creatinine in about three or four weeks taking that route. The other option is take 15 to 20 grams of creatine for about 5 to 7 days, and then back down to that 3 to 5 grams per day.

The loading phase with the higher dose for a short period of time is associated with more gastrointestinal upset, bloating, gas. So I just recommend people start taking it small dose, and just don’t stop, really.
Then on the flip side, I mean, obviously, we talk about how the body naturally produces it. Is there any individuals who probably should err on the side of caution of taking creatine?

Yeah, anyone with known liver disease or liver damage and kidney damage, I mean, any chronic condition, really. Talk to your doctor before you start something like this. But if you’re generally well, it should be fair game and welcomed by most forward-thinking physicians and medical professionals now.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and just thinking about people who don’t eat meat sources or that I would assume, like vegetarians, people who are vegan, they may need to supplement a little bit more.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially with the rise of GLP-1, people’s appetites are being downregulated. So anyone that doesn’t eat a lot of meat, so vegetarians and vegans are kind of automatic qualifiers there, people with appetite challenges, if they’re on GLP-1. Older age, people are generally, as we age, we get worse at digesting and absorbing protein, and food habits tend to change as well. So anyone who’s got low-protein intake should and could benefit from creatine supplementation.

And then, I mean, hydration is always important. But what would you say as far as in complementing with the creatine, how valuable the hydration is going to be during the time that you’re taking creatine as well?
Yeah, critical always. Yeah, especially if you’re adding it new, you don’t want to be kind of behind the eight ball on hydration because, like I said, it will attract more water into your muscle cells and that’ll initially pull from your serum or your circulation. So you want to keep pace with hydration.

Absolutely. And then is there a time of day, a best time to take creatine to maximize its benefits?
You could argue that the best time for absorption is after a workout, after strength training, along with some carbohydrates to replenish the glycogen stores in your muscles that you’re burning out in that workout. But that’s the beauty of creatine supplementation. It can be taken and can effectively be taken anytime.

Got it.

I take it in my morning coffee. I make Americano —

That was my next question.

—and in goes the creatine and in goes the unflavored collagen peptides.

Got it.

That was so — so that’s how you take it. What are some other ways that people might incorporate the creatine into their diet? Smoothies?

You can mix it into your oatmeal, smoothies. You could throw it in a soup that’s not going to cook further. Like if you’re dishing up soup. It mixes into any liquid. It’s odorless, tasteless, white powder.

Got it.

I had it this morning in my shakes.

I love it.

So, I mean, it easily — I mean, to the point of what Paul just said, you don’t taste it, so you won’t know it’s there. And then know the benefits that come with it is amazing. We got to talk about all creatine is not created equal. Let’s talk a little bit about, are supplement when it comes to understanding the quality of creatine versus just saying, hey, it’s creatine, it’s creatine, right?

Yeah. We use a source called Creapure. It’s from a German company. They’ve been making creatine and supporting creatine research for decades. It is considered the highest quality source available on the market. There’s other sources and other forms of creatine, like creatine ethyl ester, creatine hydrochloride. There might be some benefit for some people to use those other forms, but the most economical and the most trusted and researched is the creatine monohydrate form, and Creapure appears to be one of the highest quality forms you can get.

And just I know we talk about this with LTH products all the time, but just the testing that happens, the third-party testing and certifications, can you speak to those for a minute?

Yeah. Yeah. So the raw material gets qualified when it’s received from Creapure at our manufacturing facilities. And basically, what they’re looking at, is the material what it says it is? Is it at the right purity level for the specification? Are there any unknown or unwanted contaminants or adulterants in it? And then once it’s cleared from the raw material screening, it goes into production.

Once it’s in final package, it’s sent out for third-party testing with NSF. And they look at some of the same things. Is it what it says it is, at the dose that it’s supposed to be on the label. And with NSF contents, that’s a certification verifying label claim and contaminants. So they’re screening for almost 100 common chemical and environmental contaminants in that finished product so that you’re certain that nothing got introduced throughout the manufacturing and packaging process.

And then the creatine monohydrate, our product we call Power, is also screened every batch for banned substances, so performance enhancing drugs, hormones, those sorts of things that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Association and the US Anti-Doping Association. So athletes of all ages, they can be sure that this is a safe product.

A safe product for them. I have one additional question. And it’s going to bounce us back for just a second. But you mentioned putting it in your coffee, but you also mentioned the heat sensitivity of creatine. So I just want to make sure is there a certain temperature you need to be careful of with creatine?

No. Creatine because it’s just those three amino acids, it’s very heat stable.

Perfect.

There’s a chance that you can alter the flavor of something if you cook it further.

Got it

So you can put it in hot beverages or hot liquids. And it’s not going to damage the effects of the creatine.
Just want to clarify that.

That was good.

I’m a also do the morning coffee thing, like put that in there. Great way to start the day.

Well, I mean, there’s a mini episode. So I mean, we covered a good amount of things to just make sure that we empower our listeners with what creatine is and the benefits and the effects that it has on the body. Is there anything that you want to hit on that we might have missed that you want to share with the listeners?

Yeah, there’s emerging research that suggests it’s really beneficial for cognitive performance and memory and word recall. So in aging populations or people that are just underslept, quite honestly, there’s a recent study on creatine, 10 grams of creatine after sleep deprivation significantly improved cognitive performance. So if anyone’s tired or their brains just not calculating at the same speed it used to, you should look into creatine supplementation and give it a try.

Awesome. I feel like I have another article idea right there that we need to cover. So there we go. All right Paul, as always, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. If people want to learn more, Paul has lots of articles at experiencelife.lifetime.life. He’s been on the podcast in the past, and he’s on Instagram @_cafepk_. And you can also find the Power creatine monohydrate and all the other LTH supplements at the Life Time Shop at lth.shop.

There it is.

Awesome.

Always having you on is a pleasure, as you know. So I’m pretty sure we’ll have you back sometime soon again.

Let’s do it.

Thanks, Paul.

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