Creatine Worked. I Still Hated It.

Creatine is probably one of the last supplements I should be criticising.

Creatine monohydrate is one of the most researched sports supplements around. There’s a strong amount of evidence behind it, particularly for strength, power and repeated high-intensity exercise.^[1]

And I still don’t take it.

Not because I think creatine is rubbish.

Because I hated what happened when I took it.

My Problem Has Always Been How I Look

I’ve had a weird on-and-off battle with my weight for most of my life.

I was the fat kid growing up, and I think part of me has always been trying to get as far away from that version of myself as possible.

Even when I’m in decent shape, I can look in the mirror and find something I want to improve.

Normally I sit somewhere around 94–95 kg without doing anything too extreme. I train, I keep a reasonably close eye on what I eat, but I can usually maintain somewhere around there without turning my entire life into a diet.

Then I booked a holiday.

Like plenty of people do before a holiday, I decided I wanted to get properly lean for it.

For about three months I cut my weight down.

Eventually I got somewhere around 89 kg.

Five or six kilos might not sound enormous when you just look at a number on a scale, but visually it can make a massive difference.

I was leaner.

But I also looked flat.

Then I Had a Brilliant Idea

About a month before the holiday I remember looking at myself and thinking:

Bloody hell. I’ve lost all this weight and now I look depleted.

I’d spent months trying to get leaner and suddenly I wasn’t happy because I’d lost some of that fuller look I normally had.

So I thought I’d use creatine.

In my head this made perfect sense.

Fill the muscles back out. Get a bit more performance in the gym. Look lean but full.

Perfect.

Except it didn’t quite go like that.

What Creatine Actually Does

I’m not going to turn this into a biochemistry lesson because that isn’t really the point of this article.

But the basic science is worth getting right.

Your muscles use ATP as an immediate source of energy.

During short, explosive efforts such as heavy lifting or sprinting, ATP gets used rapidly. Your muscles store phosphocreatine, and that phosphocreatine can donate a phosphate group to ADP to help regenerate ATP.

Creatine supplementation increases the amount of creatine and phosphocreatine stored in muscle. It doesn’t give your muscles ATP directly; it helps support rapid ATP regeneration during short, high-intensity efforts. That is one of the main reasons creatine can improve repeated high-intensity performance and support strength and lean-mass gains when combined with resistance training.^[1]

You Don’t Have to Load Creatine

A creatine loading phase is optional.

A commonly studied loading approach is roughly 20 grams per day, usually divided into smaller doses, for about five to seven days, followed by a lower daily maintenance intake. Taking a smaller daily amount without a loading phase can also raise muscle creatine stores; it simply takes longer.^[1]

At the time, though, I wanted everything quickly.

So I loaded it.

I was taking roughly 20 grams per day.

And then the scale started moving in exactly the direction I didn’t want it to move.

I’d Just Spent Three Months Losing Weight

Creatine can increase body mass during the early stages of supplementation, and water retention is one recognised reason. That is not the same thing as gaining body fat, and research reviews do not support the idea that creatine itself causes fat gain.^[2]

I knew that.

But I’d spent three months watching the scale come down, and suddenly it was going back up.

I also felt puffier and softer when I looked in the mirror.

Whether all of that was actually caused by creatine is impossible for me to prove now, and plenty of people take creatine without feeling noticeably bloated.

But at the time, none of that mattered.

I just felt like I’d spent three months getting lean only to undo the look I was chasing a few weeks before the holiday.

I Got Lean for a Holiday and Kept My T-Shirt On

That’s the ridiculous part of this story.

I’d spent approximately three months dieting for this holiday.

I’d got myself down to about 89 kg.

I’d done the hard bit.

Then, one month before going away, I introduced something because I thought it would make me look even better.

And I ended up feeling so uncomfortable with how I looked that I didn’t take my T-shirt off on holiday.

Not once.

No walking around confidently with my top off.

No swimming without thinking about my body.

I’d done months of work specifically so I could feel good when I got there, and instead I spent the holiday conscious of my weight.

Was creatine making me fat?

No.

But did I feel fat?

Absolutely.

And that was enough to mess with my head.

Creatine Isn’t a Magic Extra Rep

People sometimes talk about creatine like you take it and suddenly it forces another rep out of you.

That isn’t really how it works.

Creatine increases your muscle stores of phosphocreatine. That can help maintain performance across repeated short, intense efforts, so over several hard sets you may manage slightly more work or maintain power better. Those small improvements can add up across weeks and months of training.^[1]

It is not some instant switch that guarantees an extra rep on every one-rep max.

The Benefits Weren’t Worth It for Me

If strength, power or muscle gain is your priority, I completely understand why you’d use creatine.

It is one of the few supplements where there is genuinely a large amount of research supporting its usefulness.

But at that point in my life, performance wasn’t my main concern.

I wasn’t preparing for a powerlifting competition.

I wasn’t trying to hit the biggest one-rep max of my life.

I wanted to stand on a beach, take my T-shirt off and think:

Yeah. I’m happy with that.

Instead, I got completely inside my own head about my appearance.

What Happened When I Stopped Taking It

I stopped taking creatine just before the holiday.

Afterwards, it took several weeks before I personally felt as though my weight and appearance had returned to what I considered normal.

Muscle creatine stores do not return to baseline immediately after supplementation stops; the process can take several weeks.^[1]

So the fact that I didn’t immediately wake up lighter the day after stopping it makes complete sense.

Again, though, the important phrase there is personally felt.

I wasn’t measuring my muscle creatine levels in a laboratory.

I was looking in a mirror and standing on a set of scales.

So Why Haven’t I Taken It Since?

That experience put me off.

I know I could completely avoid the loading phase.

I could simply take a small daily maintenance dose and allow my muscle creatine stores to increase gradually.

That is a perfectly valid way of taking it.^[1]

Maybe one day I will.

But right now, the potential performance benefit isn’t important enough to me to outweigh how much I disliked the experience.

This Isn’t an Anti-Creatine Article

That’s probably the most important thing I can say.

I’m not telling you creatine is bad.

I’m not telling you not to take it.

And I’m definitely not pretending my experience is what everyone else will experience.

For somebody whose main objective is increasing strength, improving repeated high-intensity performance or getting more out of resistance training, creatine monohydrate is one of the most evidence-backed supplements available.^[1]

My experience was different because my priority was different.

I cared about how I looked.

Probably too much, if I’m being completely truthful.

And I learnt something from that holiday that didn’t really have much to do with creatine at all.

I’d spent three months changing my body so that I could enjoy myself.

Then I let a number on a scale and what I thought I saw in the mirror stop me enjoying it anyway.

Creatine didn’t ruin my holiday.

My reaction to what I saw in the mirror did.

And that’s probably a more useful lesson than anything I could tell you about ATP.

Research & Sources

1. Kreider RB, et al. — ISSN position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017.
2. Antonio J, et al. — Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation. Review, 2021.