Does Creatine Make You Gain Weight?
Supplementing with creatine will probably make you gain about 2 pounds in 12 weeks. There are two big meta-analyses on creatine (Burke, Branch). Both found that creatine causes a man of average size to gain 2 pounds, with roughly 1.5 pounds from water retention, 1.5 pounds from muscle growth, and -1 pounds from fat loss.
That means creatine can make you gain weight in a calorie deficit. Losing a pound of fat burns about 3,500 calories. Gaining 1.5 pounds of muscle takes around 1,200 calories. The water retention doesn’t take any calories. That means the average study participant had a calorie deficit of 2,300 calories while gaining 2 pounds on the scale.
The amount of weight you gain can vary. Most people gain a couple of pounds, but for an extreme example, my roommate back in university gained 8 pounds after a week of supplementing with creatine. He was doing a “loading phase,” taking 5 grams of creatine four times per day, and he had an exaggerated response to it. During that same week, I took the same amount of creatine and didn’t gain any weight at all.
This makes creatine confusing. Creatine is great for building and maintaining muscle, making it a great supplement for both bulking and cutting. But since it causes a somewhat unpredictable amount of weight gain, creatine can make it hard to tell how big your calorie surplus or deficit is, making it hard to know if you’re eating the right amount of food.
Here are some tips.
How to Take Creatine
I recommend taking 5 grams of creatine monohydrate every morning mixed into a tall glass of water. Creatine seems to be good for cognitive function, and some researchers think it might help you wake up in the morning (study, study). It’s speculation of the most tenuous kind, but even a meagre hope of a small surge of energy might make it easier to get into a steady habit.
Creatine Tips for Bulking
If you take creatine while bulking, it should speed up your rate of muscle growth by about 33% (full explanation). That means if you would have gained 10 pounds of muscle without creatine, you’d gain 13 pounds with it. In addition to that, you might gain a couple of extra pounds of water weight.
The increase in water weight will probably happen fairly early. The creatine might give you an extra pound in the first week and/or half a pound for a few weeks. So expect to gain weight a little faster during your first month or so.
If you start taking creatine at the same time you start bulking, you’ll also have extra food in your stomach, extra glycogen in your muscles, and some muscle swelling, all of which cause even more weight gain. It’s normal to gain 1–3 pounds in your first week, even in a modest calorie surplus. Don’t worry about that. Give it another week before you make adjustments to your calorie intake.
After that, the creatine will help you build muscle about 33% faster. That means you can eat a 33% larger calorie surplus than you otherwise would have. Instead of 200 extra calories, maybe you eat 260. Mind you, most muscle-building programs take it for granted that you’ll be taking creatine, so you don’t need to do anything differently.
Creatine Tips for Cutting
If you take creatine while cutting, you have a higher change of building muscle, a higher chance of maintaining muscle, and you’ll look a bit fuller. The confusing part is that creatine can cause weight gain, even when you’re eating in a small calorie deficit. That makes it hard to tell if you’re eating the right amount of food.
The trick is to cut with a calorie deficit that’s large enough to overshadow the small increases in lean mass from creatine. In these studies, the participants lost 1 pound of fat in 12 weeks. If you cut at a classic pace, you can lose 12 pounds of fat in 12 weeks without risking muscle loss. Even if the creatine adds 2 pounds of lean mass, you’ll still be down 10 pounds on the scale. That’s -0.8 pounds per week. You’ll know you’re in a deficit.
Creating Tips for Recomping
Creatine will help you gain more muscle while recomping, and it might slightly increase fat loss. Most studies show that creatine causes a small amount of fat loss, likely because you need to burn fat to get the energy to build the extra muscle. That’s exactly what you want.
It’s okay to gain or lose small amounts of weight while recomping. I recommend weighing yourself once per week anyway, just to have an idea of which way your weight is wandering, but you don’t need to adjust your calorie intake based on those small changes.
Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He's a Certified Conditioning Coach (CCC), has gained 70 pounds, and has over a decade of experience helping more than 15,000 people build muscle. He also has a degree in fine arts, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth.
Cassandra Duquette
Cassandra Duquette is a certified nutritionist (CNP) living in Cancun, Mexico. She takes a holistic approach to nutrition, combining a good diet with exercise and a healthy lifestyle. She's gained 23 pounds, bulking up from 97 to 120 pounds.
