Sorry for the quality. It is a cell phone pic.
Preface: I can’t believe there haven’t been more comments on yesterdays jerky post! Go check it out if you haven’t yet.
Can creatine be part of a healthy primal lifestyle?
Recently, Mark’s Daily Apple had a post on how supplements can fit into the primal way of living. The discussion briefly led to the mention of creatine and whether or not creatine usage could fit into the PB. This intrigued me enough that I looked into it further and was not able to come up with a satisfactory answer as to the views on creatine. So I am going to come up with my own answer by guinea pigging it for you!
The primal lifestyle is more about health than anything. It is all about your body finding its healthy natural equilibrium. Looking great is just a great added benefit. Mark Sisson expresses his view on supplementation and science as anything that can further benefit our health is totally a go. But lets be honest, a lot of us (myself included) sometimes succumb to the gods of vanity and may want to add a few extra pounds of muscle. I won’t lie. If this can be done without detriment to health then why not!
Enter creatine. Most sources will agree that creatine does do its job and that it is very safe in low dosages. But what do I know about creatine? Absolutely nothing! Which is why I asked Mark McManus over at Muclehackto help set me up with a program to get the most out of my creatine trial. Mark M is a huge supporter of high fat diets and has managed to build himself a phenominal physique (he also has some great low carb alternatives for people on his site). Mark M also is a big proponent of creatine so I figured he would be a great place to start. If you haven’t, you should really go check out his site.
My planned trial program:
Creatine: I purchased “AST Micronized Creatine” from Amazon.com. It is the creatine recommended by Mark M on his site.
Dosage:
I will be doing a “loading stage” of 20mg per day starting today and continuing for 5 days (5mg 4 times per day)
I will then begin a “maintenance stage” where I will take 5mg per day after my workout for 6-8 weeks.
After 6-8 weeks, you should take several weeks off for your body’s to renew. Mark M recommends 2 weeks as he says it is enough to clear the receptors. I have also seen some people recommend longer. I will decide at this point whether or not I will be doing another creatine “cycle”.
I will update periodically (and sporadically I am sure) on how the challenge is going and at the end do a full review along with revealing whether or not i will do another run in the creatine cycle.
What are my expectations?
Not a lot. We shall see. I am certainly not expecting some miracle supplement nor am I expecting to be “huge” or “Jacked” in 6-8 weeks lol. Mark M does tell me that I should notice some weight gain from increased muscle and water in as little as 14 days though.
Do you have any experience with creatine? What are your thoughts? Stay tuned for tomorrow when we will get a good rant out of our system!
December 4th, 2008 - 5:53 pm
Hi there
Creatine works. There is lots of science out there. I’ve had a couple of posts on my blog:
http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/search/label/creatine
Personally I take some for a few weeks every now and again. I think it does make me a bit stronger and more explosive. i also think it makes me look a bit “fuller”.
However there are some negatives: cramps ( I tend to get more cramps, especially in the calves, when on creatine), a diuretic effect – it makes me piss a lot and thirst a lot.
I think it is hard to argue that it is “primal”. In nature we simply would not be consuming so much creatine as when we supplement it. We couldn’t eat that much meat.
December 4th, 2008 - 6:35 pm
Chris,
Thank you for the comment! I hope that I don’t experience any cramping but I will definitely report if I have the same. I totally agree that you can not argue that taking creatine is primal. The question that I am trying to answer is whether or not creatine is a supplement that someone living primal can or should consider taking.
December 5th, 2008 - 9:26 am
SoG -
This is one I struggle with — often; the philosophical conundrum of knowing (and I know creatine has worked for me in the past) that creatine works, and the desire to not be financially linked, in an going way, to buying and taking creatine for the sake of some “vanity meat”. My own perspective is that I carry a reasonable amount of body meat as it is due to excellent eating and intense workouts, and though creatine will help add a bit of meat, it’s not worth the $$$. Would rather spend on recovery products as you, Mark S, and others have recommended. Still getting on-board that supplements (from beyond food) help — Mark’s post last week was good in that regard. That, the opinion of a man in his late 40’s.
December 5th, 2008 - 9:33 am
Emergefit,
Excellent Comment! How do we balance that scale of vanity? No doubt about it that creatine is driven as a vanity product. 2 positives though to the creatine connundrum… #1 I was pleasantly suprised with the price. The creatine I got was enough for several “cycles” and did not seem overpriced and #2 I had some killer energy in my workout last night which made me FEEL good. And feeling good is not all about vanity!
December 5th, 2008 - 2:52 pm
SoG,
I have personally never taken creatine so I’m looking forward to see what your experience with it is, being someone who adheres to a similar way of eating as myself. The one thing that I’m curious about is whether or not you will retain that much water given the fact that you stay away from breads, grains and all the other bad carbs.
This will be interesting, I’ll make sure to stay tuned for the updates!! Thanks for being the guinea pig on this one!
All the Best,
Andrew
December 17th, 2008 - 6:54 pm
Very usefull post.
Thanks.
P.S. I like your writing style.
December 17th, 2008 - 9:47 pm
Tom,
Thank you and thanks for stopping by!
December 18th, 2008 - 5:48 am
First of all congratulation for such a great site. I learned a lot reading article here today. I will make sure i visit this site once a day so i can learn more.
January 29th, 2009 - 8:57 am
[...] represents the last day of my 8 week creatine challenge which I started here.As far as a writer and experimenter though… I failed [...]