he changed my perspective on creatine

  Hi {NAME}, I changed some of my perspective after talking with Dr. Candow. When I interviewed Dr. Darren Candow, one of the leading experts in the world of Creatine. He touched on some important points to optimize creatine usage. Here’s everything from the interview about how to effectively use creatine. Some of the stuff was very new to me and helped me understand better. Different Types of Creatine There’s about 30-50 different types of creatine on the market today. The most researched and safest is creatine monohydrate. It’s also the cheapest, most effective, and most boring. So don’t be fooled by colorful labels or good marketing, a basic white tub of creatine monohydrate is all you need. The great thing about creatine is it’s almost 100% bioavailable. This means it is completely absorbed in the GI Tract, it doesn’t matter who you are or when you take it. Dosing Creatine According to Dr Candow, 3 grams per day is the minimum effective dose from a muscle perspective. On average, we tend to excrete about 2 grams of creatine through our urine, which makes 5 grams the ideal daily dosage. For serious athletes, they often "load" creatine and take 20 grams per day for an entire week to top off creatine stores in the muscle, then lower the dosage to 3-5 grams. If you’re serious about training, I’d look into doing that. In Dr. Candow’s lab, they like to use a relative dosage of 0.1 - 0.14 grams per kilogram of bodyweight (0.045 - 0.064 grams per lbs of bodyweight). The theory here is that the larger a person is, the more doorways a person has for creatine to enter into the muscle. Personally, I am a fan of "micro-dosing" creatine throughout the day. I seem to retain less water with it that way and it seems to work better for me. I use these [little allulose sweetened gummies]( from CREATE that are 1.5g of creatine per gummy. Here is a 50% off [discount]( link for them if you want to try. They use allulose, which is nice because it can control blood sugar a bit more as well, plus it may synergistically work well with the creatine. I personally take 1.5g gummies 3x per day. This way I can enjoy the taste of a gummy but also low dose the creatine throughout the day. If my training demand goes up, then I will do 2x gummies 3x per day. [Try their 4 different flavors for 50% Off here]( It’s "creapure" which is the highest quality creatine on the market and they just got NSF certified for sport which means they’re approved for use in professional athletics, etc! More Exercise = More Creatine? Let’s say you normally train one hour per day, and decide to up your training to two hours per day. Would it be smart to increase your creatine dosage? What if you started throwing some running in the mix? Exercise at a higher intensity will decrease the amount of creatine available in the muscle. This means, if you increase your training volume, it would be smart to increase your dosage of creatine as well. This goes for cardio too. If you start running or cycling more, it would be smart to increase your dosage, because now you’re recruiting different muscle fibers and causing more inflammation in the body. Inflammation & Muscle Loss There’s been some very impressive studies done on endurance athletes that show creatine can be very effective at lowering inflammation and speeding up recovery. When these athletes took creatine before a marathon or event, their inflammation markers were lower post-race. Creatine has also been shown to reduce muscle protein breakdown. This means if you’re a bodybuilder who’s been hesitant to do cardio because of the potential muscle loss, creatine might be the solution. If you take creatine in the proper dosage, you won’t have to worry as much about muscle loss. How Quickly Does Creatine Work? Creatine peaks in the bloodstream in about 1-2 hours, but it does take some time for it to link to a phosphate bond and do its magic. In as little as 5 days (if you’re doing a loading phase), you can saturate the muscle with creatine and be receiving all of the benefits of creatine. Remember, there’s no benefit from taking creatine for just one day. You have to be consistent with creatine supplementation to get all of its benefits. Best Time of Day to Take Creatine Just like we’re learning with protein, there’s no "ideal" time of day to be taking creatine, so long as you’re actually taking it on a daily basis. Do whatever is best for you. Morning, pre-workout, post workout, lunch, it doesn’t matter. Dr. Candow suggested that post-workout would be the most logical, as that’s where our muscles begin the recovery process. Maximum Dose for Muscle, Brain & Bone Health The highest dosage seen in a study is 30 grams a day for multiple years, with zero adverse effects. If you’re taking upwards of 50 grams, most of the creatine is just going to be excreted. That’s some expensive urine and a waste of your money. There’s also no evidence to suggest how harmful it would be for your kidneys. The goal with creatine dosage is to simply keep your muscles saturated, and very small doses of 3-15 grams have shown to be more than enough to accomplish that. Dosing to Reduce Water Retention Creatine is osmotic, so it likes to drag water into the body. This can cause your body to look a bit more puffy and flat, which most people aren’t big fans of. I know I’m not… I asked Dr. Candow how you could potentially dose creatine to avoid this. Here’s what he suggested : Try taking smaller doses throughout the day instead of one big dose. For example, try taking 1-2 grams separately throughout the day until you get to 10 grams instead of one big dose of 10 grams. One study actually found that taking 1 gram dosages 10 times throughout the day retained more creatine in the body than taking 10 grams all at once. So these are definitely viable options to consider. Creatine and Caffeine If you’re a big stimulant person, avoid taking creatine simultaneously with coffee (or however you consume caffeine). There’s some evidence that suggests creatine and caffeine can negate one another, which means you won’t get the benefits from either of them. This is for long-term users though, so don’t freak out if you drank coffee and creatine together this morning. You’ll just want to be careful about doing this on a consistent basis. Make sure you’re separating creatine and caffeine intake by about an hour. A simple idea would be to consume caffeine pre-workout, and then take creatine post-workout. Creatine Dose for Women Should women increase or decrease doses based on their cycle? Creatine can be super effective for women of all ages, but unfortunately there hasn’t been much work done here yet. The phases of the menstrual cycle are so hard to control that we can’t tell whether or not creatine is having any sort of impact. At the end of the day, the phases of the menstrual cycle are most likely not relevant when it comes to the performance benefits of creatine. So this shouldn’t be a big area of concern. And there you have it, everything you need to know about creatine to effectively use it based on your own personal goals. A huge thanks to Dr. Candow for letting me pick his brain. [Give him a follow]( to stay updated on the latest research with Creatine. Hope these tips help! Until next time, - Thomas Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( Thomas DeLauer, PO Box 1120, Stateline, NV 89449, United States