Does Creatine Cause Weight Gain? Is Using Protein Powder Cheating?

On today's episode of Transformation Talks, you'll learn whether creatine causes weight gain, and if using protein powder every day is cheating, or bad.

You'll also learn the exact amounts of both that I recommend, as well as whether high sodium meals, your period, and travel can prevent weight loss.

Here's the free nutrition guide you'll hear me mention toward the end of the episode: https://freenutritionguide.com

Apply for 1:1 coaching here for a personalized nutrition and supplement plan, daily support, and help staying consistent no matter what challenges you face: https://samforget.com/coaching/

That way you can learn to break out of the all-or-nothing cycle once and for all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back to another episode of Transformation Talks. I'm your host, Sam Forger, and I am very excited to finally be recording today's episode, which I have had to wait all damn day to start because of a construction project in my next door neighbor's apartment. And okay, it happens, apartment living comes with the territory. But I find it funny how as a whole, Argentinians tend to have slow mornings and kind of ease into their work days. But the one exception, in my experience, seems to be construction. Whether it is, you know, just a private project like this, whatever my neighbors are doing, or whether it's just a whole damn building being built, that, again, in my experience, seems to be the one thing that could start at 7, 7:30 in the morning where you are hearing power tools and hammers and whatever else. Whereas if you go to look for a cafe on a Saturday morning at nine o'clock, people are still opening up the businesses, the employees are just arriving. It's a slow morning kind of country. Again, as a whole, there are obviously exceptions, and this is just my experience. But construction, not sure why. That tends to be the seemingly the one early activity that they get up for. So that preamble aside, which I guess ultimately would matter because you won't know when I recorded this. Let's get into today's topics. I do have two for you. Two questions I get a lot. The first one is, does creatine cause weight gain? And the second thing we'll discuss today is is using protein powder cheating? Should you be doing that? Starting with the creatine question. And for a little bit of context, I checked in with a client earlier this week whose body weight averages. I don't care about the shorter-term fluctuations. It does not matter to me at all. I do not care about what you weighed today versus a couple of days ago, this week versus last week. We always stay zoomed out. We always look at averages and longer-term trends. And I'll explain that in more depth in a moment. But over the last four weeks, her bodyweight averages have been roughly the same. Well, for me as a coach, anything beyond about two to three weeks, when the goal is fat loss, anything beyond about two to three weeks with no sort of downward trend is when I say, all right, let's pause for a second and see are there more calories being consumed than we realize? And it's often an inadvertent thing. People underestimating the impact of leaving little things out, underestimating how many calories are in restaurant meals. That tends to be a big one, getting a little bit complacent with using a food scale, starting to eyeball portion. So it's almost never deeper than just, oh, calories have been a little bit higher. Let's identify the leaks and tighten things up. In some relatively rare cases, when the scale isn't budging, fat loss can still be happening if you are recomping. A body recomposition is just when you are losing fat and developing muscle at the same time. Now, to be clear, recomping in general is not that rare. With a well-structured plan, it is very possible to develop muscle while losing body fat. What is far less common is doing both of those at basically the same pace, where you have lost a substantial amount of body fat and gained a substantial amount of muscle at the same time, and the net result is weight maintenance. You don't see that a whole lot. Influencers on social media love to talk about that, but as a whole, if somebody's body weight averages are not going down over an extended period of time, it's probably not a dead-even recomposition where fat is going down and muscle is going up at an identical pace. It's probably just this person is not in a calorie deficit. So I broke down all the numbers for her. I asked her about it, like, hey, you know, where might we be missing calories? You know, what are your thoughts on this? And she said, hey, there may be a few things here and there, the occasional snack that I don't log. But I'm wondering, I just recently restarted, I'm paraphrasing here, but I just recently restarted taking creatine. Could that be a culprit for why my body weight is holding steady? And that is a great question. And actually, it's one of the biggest hesitations that people express to me when they either see creatine recommended somewhere or I recommend it. It's, hey, I heard that causes weight gain. Is that true? Could this be a factor here? And the answer to that question is uh yes, but bear with me because it's not the thing that most people fear. When you start taking creatine, you hang on to more water, intracellular water specifically, on the off chance you're curious, but basically you just hang on to a little bit more water in your body. So it is not uncommon that when you start taking creatine, you see a little bit of an increase on the scale. But here's the thing that is not an increase in fat. We all tend to say weight gain or loss or fat gain and loss pretty interchangeably, myself included at times. But when you're dieting, you're after fat loss. The weight stuff is actually a bit less relevant. So, yes, it is true that when you start taking creatine, you may see, at first, a little bit of an increase in your weight, but that's not body fat, so it doesn't actually matter. The other thing is that is a one-time small increase. You start taking it, and maybe for the first week or two, your weigh-ins are a little bit wonky. But if you're still in a calorie deficit, if you're still burning more calories than you take in over time, you will still see a downward trend in weight. It may just take a little bit longer for that fat loss to be reflected on the scale in the form of weight loss. So that's a really important distinction. Like, okay, could cause a little bit of an initial increase in weight. It's nothing to do with fat loss. And eventually the fat loss that it would still be happening, that is unimpeded by taking creatine, eventually that will be reflected on the scale. The one exception, and I won't keep repeating it because I don't want to be too redundant here, is if somebody is genuinely recomping at an identical pace, fat's coming down, muscles coming up, and you're breaking even. And when that does happen, it's it's generally not something we see for very long, even in the populations where that can't happen. So um, so great question from this client because you hear about that all the time. And the answer is yes, but it's yes with a couple of caveats. And by the way, if you've ever wondered, should I be taking creatine? The answer for most people is probably. Of course, I don't want to give blanket recommendations to every person in every situation. And I'm always happy to have like a one-on-one chat. If you ever want to email me questions about your situation, my email is mail at sam4j.com. But I'd say as a whole, yeah. So creatine is one of the most well-researched, safest supplements that can improve not only your performance during your workouts, but also, and you may have seen this on social media already, it's become a big talking point over the last, I don't know, year, two years now. There's cognitive upside to taking creatine as well. And you'll see a huge variety of recommendations for when, where, how, and why to take creatine. You can keep it super simple. Just get a creatine monohydrate and have five grams per day, every day. Don't worry about when, just have it every day, regardless of whether or not you're working out that day. Do not stress whether it's in your pre- or post-workout meal. Most people don't need to worry about optimizing. It's just consistency. So you add it to your routine, five grams per day. Some people are more of responders than other people. Some people may not feel like they see a huge difference. But again, it's extremely well researched, very safe, very cheap, relative, you know, just if we're looking at the uh price proportion, it's very, very little. So it's basically only upside. You may see that slight initial increase on the scale, but if you find yourself kind of panicking about panicking about that, just remind yourself this doesn't matter. This has nothing to do with what I'm actually after, which is fat loss specifically. The next thing that I wanted to tackle today is another recent client question. And it is, I get versions of this question all the time. And let me pull up the specific one. So a little bit of context here. This is a client that I recently started working with who is having trouble reaching her protein minimum. She's never had 100 plus grams of protein before. So I recommended just having a protein shake or a protein smoothie on a daily basis to get, say, 25, 30, very easy grams. It's it's just one of the most, and I guess this is a bit of a spoiler answer, but one of the most convenient ways to just get a little bit of extra protein. And she responded and said, okay, so it isn't horrible to use the protein shakes as a makeup source. I feel like I'm cheating if I do that some days, which again is a very common thing. People wonder, should I, is it okay to have it every day? Does that count as cheating? Is it better to come from whole foods? Kind of all versions of this question. And a few things for us to look at here. Number one would be is most of your intake coming from whole, minimally processed foods like eggs, yogurt, chicken, ground beef, ground turkey, steak, tuna, etc. If so, I think it's a great addition for you to kind of fill any gaps with a either way isolate protein powder, which as a whole is the highest quality form of protein powder that you can take. Or if for whatever reason that doesn't agree with your stomach, which is not uncommon. It's not as common as I think people talk about, but it happens. Or if you are following a vegan or vegetarian diet, you could also obviously have a vegan protein powder. Now, people will talk about vegan protein powders having reduced what's called bioavailability. So basically, your body's ability to utilize that protein because technically, many, not all, many sources or many vegan protein powders are incomplete proteins. So you have your amino acids, which are what make up protein. By the way, amino acids don't spend money on that as a supplement. They're what make up protein. So if you're just getting adequate protein throughout the day, it's extremely redundant and a waste of money. But anyway, people will talk about the reduced or lower bioavailability of a vegan protein powder because technically they're often made with incomplete proteins. But again, we're looking at the whole consistency versus optimizing thing. If you have a vegan protein powder, and by the way, a lot of them now are blends that have different sources of vegan protein that can make up a more complete protein. But if you're getting a variety of sources throughout the day and a vegan powder makes more sense for you digestively, or because you are following a vegan uh vegan or vegetarian diet, that's also fine. I guess I'm on a little bit of a side tangent here. But a good recipe for the day, say in this client's case, if she's looking to get 100, 120 grams per day, is take your protein target, divide it by how many meals that you're having. So in this client's case, say on average about three main meals per day, the occasional snack, depending on her work schedule, but three main meals per day, it would be completely fine for her to do something like this. And I would recommend it from a convenience perspective. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. For breakfast, she could have a homemade protein shake or smoothie where she throws some fruit in there as well. And I know I just really emphasized homemade. I'll touch upon that in a moment. So she could do something like a homemade protein shake or smoothie and a couple of eggs. There's 30, 40 grams of protein right there. For lunch, she could do a sandwich, cold cuts, where she has deli turkey. She has fruit again as a side, maybe, lettuce, tomatoes to get some vegetables, a little bit of volume on a sandwich. Great. There's another 40 grams right there. And then let's say for dinner, she has some chicken with a pre-made salad pack or something like that. And there's another 30 or 40 grams right there. And that's just a random template off the top of my head of a very low effort way to get 100, 120 grams of protein. But you can see how this can kind of work. You're getting, okay, I'm gonna spread out my goal intake over the course of the day, divide it usually by three or four. And then I'm gonna use protein powder at one of these meals or by itself as a snack, that can be a fine option as well, depending on your protein target, to kind of fill in the gaps a little bit there. That is completely fine. And I would recommend it. Do not let anybody tell you that is cheating. Now, from an appetite perspective, two ways we could look at this. If you are somebody who has a very hard time staying full, which I guess I should actually do a whole episode on that, there's a lot we can do from a hunger management perspective. But if as a whole, you feel like I just get so hungry, then I might steer you away from protein powder to more whole food sources of protein just because they take up more space in your stomach and you are more likely to feel satisfied. But if you're like this client, and one of the reasons you struggle to get enough protein is you get full prior to reaching your protein target, then great. You can go with a protein powder because in a liquid form, when you're having it with a shake or smoothie, it's a bit easier to get down. You won't feel like you're stuffing yourself. Now, a moment ago, I really emphasized the whole homemade protein shake or smoothie. And this is not to say that things like muscle milks or fair life or core power that those things are bad. They are not at all. I actually personally love them while I'm traveling because you can find them in any airport, you can find them in a Cumberland farm, CVS, super accessible, really easy way to get 30, 40 grams of protein. But in most cases, I prefer that people make their own because it is ridiculously fast and easy. It is not cumbersome. It's one of the easiest things you could possibly make. And when you are making a homemade version, you can add more nutrients to it. You can customize it a bit more. I actually think it tastes better. But an example could be you do a vanilla, whey protein isolate, whatever milk or water you want. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, whatever the liquid is that you want. And then you could add frozen mixed berries. Some of those uh pre-made or pre-made, just yeah, the frozen bags, the kind of grab and go ones. Also have greens already in there, things you may not be super eager to put in separately, but okay, there's a little bit of kale or something like that. Adds a little bit more volume, some more nutrients. You throw in a banana as well. Maybe some powdered peanut butter to get some of that peanut butter flavor without a ton of the calories. And then you have a fantastic smooth protein smoothie there that in the case of this example, we're looking at maybe 35 grams of protein and at least 10 grams of fiber in fewer than five minutes. That is fantastic. And let's say you did need more calories. Again, this is what I'm talking about with the adjustment thing. You could very easily just swap the powdered peanut butter, like a PB2, for regular peanut butter. And there's a 200 calories right there. You need a little bit more protein. Okay, you go from one serving of protein powder to a serving and a half. You need to bring your carbs down a little bit. I generally wouldn't recommend doing it in the form of reducing fruit, but hypothetically, you could pull that lever and just have a smaller portion of that as well. So there are a lot of things you can do in terms of um adjusting what nutrients you're getting, the actual calories and macros. Um, I mean, I have a I have a handful of go-tos, but um, as a whole, I would be a fan of homemade versions compared to the pre-made versions. And then the pre-made ones, sometimes a little up and down for ingredient quality, the protein itself and other things in there that may not agree with you from a digestive perspective. And to that point, and I think this is the last thing I'll say on protein before I wrap up today. If you're struggling to get enough protein, ironically enough, one of the most common reasons for this, besides the obvious stuff like people not prepping in advance and people not planning their meals, is relying too heavily on convenience-based protein sources. So things like pre-made protein shakes, protein bars, high protein bread, high protein pasta, uh, you know, high protein this, high protein that, basically everything but actual whole food sources of protein. And I know it's so easy to walk through a grocery store and see like protein, protein, protein, good source of protein, which is very generous most of the time on a label, but it's so easy to see that stuff and be like, okay, that'll be great for when I'm in a pinch. But the irony is whether it's an ingredient quality issue, whether it's actually not a great source of protein. Like I just said, it's it's typically very generous. I've seen so many things that's a great source of protein that have 85% of the calories from fat and carb. So for a variety of reasons, you may actually be giving yourself a bit of an uphill battle with whether it's your digestion, whether it's how uh satiating or non-satiating a lot of these options are, the overall nutrient density, the shitty macros, then you're gonna play makeup elsewhere. So, sure, a handful of these things are fine as icing on the cake. But here's something I want you to take away. Here's something that I really want you to remember. The best sources of protein in the grocery store pretty much never mention protein on the label. If you look at a lot of the things that I mentioned a few minutes ago in this episode, whether, I mean, protein powder, protein powder is an exception, of course, but whole foods, whether it is eggs, whether it is chicken, whether it is lean ground beef, whether it is tuna, whether it is turkey, steak, et cetera, um, you know, cottage cheese, yogurt, depending. I mean, I know sometimes they market it a bit, but most of these things make no mention of protein. And ironically enough, a lot of the sources of protein, you know, high protein pancakes, things like that, they have a little bit of so-so quality protein and a lot of carbs and fats, which that's not bad, but like I said, it's almost ironic because you're looking for things to make your life more convenient. It's a bit of an uphill battle. So, dust settled, I would recommend prepping whole food sources of protein in bulk, two days per week, getting really clear on a handful of staple meals. That makes sense for your goals and make you feel good. You can get most of the way to your target with these whole food-based meals, but do not hesitate to then fill in a gap with some protein powder. To answer this client's question far more directly, no, it is not cheating at all. I assure you of that. I would say if you want to get a quarter of your daily protein. So if your target is 120, you get 90 grams from whole food, 30 grams from protein powder, great. That is a solid recipe for most people, no pun intended. So I hope I answered those questions. Okay. As always, if you have questions on anything that I went over, any other supplements, don't hesitate to let me know. I say in every episode, but my email is mail at samforj.com and I would love to chat. If you want more ideas for really simple high protein meals and the handful of supplements and snacks that I do recommend, you can go to freenutritionguide.com. I will, of course, include the link to that in the show notes for this episode as well. And let me just say, obviously, now with Chat GPT and Claude and whatever other AI, I know it's pretty typical for people to, you know, search for you know recipe ideas and meals, this, that, the other, there. And it can be a really good tool. But what I found is that the databases that it's pulling from, I say it, AI in general, the database that AI tends, databases that AI tends to pull from, are a lot of sources that share overly complex, what I would consider to be non or not non, try that again, unsustainable recipes. When I look at my clients who are the most consistent, what their diets tend to have in common is it's almost like Chipotle style eating, where if you walk into a Chipotle, you see a handful of carb sources, a handful of vegetables, a handful of protein source, and you bit and you they're prepped in bulk and you mix and match them. What I very rarely see work out is your classic, I guess once upon a time, it's less popular now because of AI, but your classic Pinterest recipe idea kind of thing, or, you know, you know, getting all these different handbooks and ebooks with all these overly complex recipes that just take way too much time, a bunch of ingredients that you're not typically going to have in the house, way too many decisions to make. Simple, simple, simple is the way to go. And if you're somebody who says, Hey, I get bored, okay, there's nothing stopping you from going more complex. But if you want more novelty, In your diet, it does it does come with some trade-offs. You're going to have to spend more time, energy, bandwidth, planning, cooking, and tracking these things. And I do find that most boredom issues tend to cure themselves pretty quickly when you see how much easier it is to get results by simplifying your diet. And the last thing I'll say for today's episode is if you want to personally collaborate with me on an ongoing basis on say, you know, which supplements make the most sense for you on your average day of eating, if you want a second pair of eyes, on your food log, if you want my feedback, you want to plan your weeks together, or yeah, plan your weeks with me. That's yeah, together, same thing. Looking at what challenges you anticipate, the things that tend to give you trouble, whether it's travel, whether it is social settings, whether it's pressure from family and friends to eat a certain way, alcohol, you name it, coaching may be a good fit for you. I will include the link to my coaching page as well in the show notes. It is sam4j.com slash coaching. And if you submit an application there, we can have a very no pressure uh chat about how coaching works, where you're at right now, what you're trying to achieve, and if this is something that could make sense for you. And if so, great. We can get started. I'll get you taken care of, of course. If not, like I said, it's a very no pressure thing. We can just see if it is, in fact, something that makes sense for you. So that is what I will leave you here with today. Like I said, any questions at all, whether it's on anything I discussed today, whether it's on how the coaching stuff works, mail at samforj.com and we can go in depth with anything you need. But I do find you find, I do hope that you found this episode helpful, and I'll catch you soon.