Creatine for Women: How to Take It, How Much You Need & What It Actually Does

Search transcript 0:00 Okay, let's talk about creatine because a lot of you think it's just for men. 0:06 Some of you actually think that it's making you gain weight. I've seen your 0:10 comments. Some women are really scared because they think it's going to make 0:16 them bloated. And I've got an incredible study to unpack with you that will 0:23 change the way you use and look at creatine. And here's the study. It 0:29 looked at over 3600 people. It was out of the journal of International Society 0:35 of Sports Nutrition. It was a 2024 study. And what they found is the key to 0:43 creatine is you've got to pair it with exercise. And I'm going to show you 0:49 exactly what type of exercise. And what they found is if you paired creatine, 0:56 and I'm gonna give you the dosage on this video, too. If you paired creatine 1:01 with exercise, it didn't matter if you what sex you were. It didn't matter what 1:06 age you were. It didn't matter if you were fit or not fit. You lost body fat 1:12 and gained lean muscle mass. There is magic to creatine, but you got to do it 1:19 right. And on this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to do this so you 1:25 can get the same result that the people in this study did. Now, before I dive 1:30 into the study, many of you are starting to hear that I have a new free giveaway 1:34 called a nervous system questionnaire, and it'll help you see what workouts, 1:40 what food, what fasted state, what supplements match to your nervous system 1:45 state. So you can customize information like what I'm giving you here on this 1:50 video. So you can either put NSQ in your comments or you can see the link at the 1:55 top of this video and it's a free giveaway so you can customize the 2:00 information in this video to match your needs. Let's dive into the study. So 2:05 here's the first thing that they found is it was82 2:09 kg of fatfree mass that they gained compared to the placebo. So they built 2:18 muscle while at the same time they lost weight. So the body fat percentage went 2:25 down by 28%. But it wasn't just taking the creatine. 2:31 And I think this is where we've all gotten it wrong. I I know when I first 2:35 learned about creatine, this is where I just thought, "Oh, you take this and you 2:39 start building muscle." It doesn't work like this. You've got to take creatine 2:44 on a regular basis at a specific dosage and combine it with muscle training. And 2:51 I've taught you all here on this channel that the most effective muscle training 2:56 out there where you can build muscle and you can lose weight is resistance 3:03 training. So resistance training is like these resistant bands where you are 3:10 having to make a contraction in both directions. Whereas a weight often 3:16 gravity, you can push the weight up, but gravity will just allow you to bring the 3:22 weight down. With resistant bands, what happens is you're actually having to 3:27 hold a contraction through a full range of mo motion, which gives you a better 3:34 muscle result. And if you pair that with creatine, a very specific type of 3:39 creatine, this is where we move away from I'm bloated, it's making me gain 3:45 weight, and we move into I'm losing weight and I'm gaining muscle. And this 3:51 is what we're wanting to get from creatine. Now, let's talk about the kind 3:56 of creatine. So, if you hopefully know this, but if you don't, it's important 4:01 to know that you want a creatine monohydrate. 4:06 My preferred creatine, and I've tried a lot of them, and this one I've noticed 4:10 the best result with. I'm definitely starting to gain muscle. I can feel it 4:15 in my 56y old body. I'm doing exactly what I'm teaching you on all my videos I 4:21 do myself. And I noticed that in many of the creatines, some of the powder is a 4:28 little bit clumpy or a little too coarse. So, my personal favorite is 4:33 Qualia. We'll leave links in there and discount codes if you want to dive in 4:37 and try this one. But most importantly, I want you to understand that we are 4:44 looking for a creatine mono hydrate. That is what you want to get the results 4:51 that this study was able to get. Now, some of the challenges I've seen with 4:58 working with a lot of women specifically is that we have a tendency to think that 5:04 creatine is for bodybuilders. Now, in Age Like a Girl, the my last 5:10 book that I wrote, I did a whole chapter on exercise through menopause. And in 5:15 it, I brought a lot of interesting research to you all on creatine. And one 5:20 of the things that I don't think that a lot of women understand is that as you 5:25 go through menopause, as estrogen goes down, your own natural creatine stores 5:31 will follow. So, I'm personally one of those people that wants you to 5:37 accomplish all your health goals with food, with fasting, with exercise. I 5:43 don't think the goal of health is to be on like 20 different supplements. I I 5:49 just after so many years of working with people, that is absolutely not the goal. 5:54 But there is a handful of supplements that are really important for you to be 6:00 on. Magnesium is one of them. I've done a big a lot of research on this and 6:05 talked about a lot of videos on this. I think everybody needs vitamin D. 6:09 Absolutely. And I think especially for menopausal women, Perry, if you're in 6:15 the transition or post-menopausal, you don't have as much estrogen. So, you 6:21 absolutely need to be supplementing in with creatine. And so, you don't have to 6:28 be a bodybuilder to get the benefit from creatine. It's not about bulking up. I 6:34 want you to think of creatine as muscular cellular energy. That is what 6:41 it's like. Every time you take a sip, and I'm going to talk about how you take 6:45 it in dosages here, but every time you take a sip, I want you to think I am 6:51 giving my muscles energy for the workout that I'm going to do. Second thing that 6:57 I see with a lot of people is that they think they only take it on their workout 7:03 days. Put it in the comments if you are one of these people who have been bought 7:08 into this myth. And I don't mean it like to call you out. I just think a lot of 7:12 us have been using it wrong. The study proved that you need to be taking it 7:17 consistently every single day, not just on your workout days. So for me, I put 7:26 it in my coffee every morning. Now there was a lot of discussion about, okay, 7:32 what hap what if the heat of my coffee actually starts to break down the 7:38 creatine? This went through social media recently. I was like, "Oh my god, do we 7:42 now have to worry about the temperature of our coffee to know if we're getting 7:46 creatine?" I mean, does this make you guys crazy? Sometimes I'm like, "God, 7:50 can we just eat food and take some supplements and feel better?" We have to 7:54 think about the temperature of the of the drink the creatine is going into. 7:59 And the temperature that actually breaks creatine down is pretty high. It's like 8:05 150 degrees. I do not think your coffee is 150 degrees. So, I like to build 8:12 lifestyle tools and offer you lifestyle tools that are simple. So, I literally 8:18 put a scoop in my coffee every single morning. So, it's not The study said 8:25 this result, this loss of body fat and gain of muscle, it it can't happen with 8:32 just the creatine alone. You actually need to do it every single day and you 8:37 need to do it in combination with working out. You don't have to work out 8:41 every day. Don't worry, I'm going to get into that. The bloating trap. So, a lot 8:45 of people are like, "Put in the comments if you took what you took creatine and 8:50 all of a sudden you got bloated." What creatine is going to do is it's going to 8:56 send water to your muscles. Why does your muscles need water? Because it 9:02 needs hydration for performance. So, if you are driving water to muscles, 9:10 but you're not using those muscles, then yeah, you're going to start to feel 9:17 like you're swelling up because creatine's doing what it's supposed to 9:21 be doing. It's driving all that water to muscles, but the muscle isn't being 9:27 used. So, you're going to feel doughy. You're going to feel a little bloated. 9:31 You're going to feel like you're gaining weight. And the goal of this study was 9:36 to show that you actually have to combine it with some form of muscle 9:43 strength. Honestly, I think the same is for protein. And we'll talk about 9:48 protein in a moment. I have watched more people gain weight trying to do one gram 9:53 of protein for one pound of body weight they want to be because they weren't 9:58 using their muscles. And so all that protein turns to fat. Same thing with 10:04 creatine. You are getting those muscles ready so that they can perform for you. 10:09 Now, let's talk about the loading doses. Early on, when we got all excited about 10:14 creatine, we are like, "Oh, okay. You should do 10 grams for a week and then 10:19 you take it down to five grams for two weeks and then you go off of it for a 10:23 week. Another crazy making." Like, who's got time to figure out what week you're 10:28 at? I have good news for you. In this study that I quoted at the beginning of 10:35 this video, they found that there is no significant difference in fatfree muscle 10:42 mass when you do a loading dose. So what dose do you do? three to five grams 10:51 consistently every day of creatine mono hydrate and 10:58 it will start to saturate your muscle stores and make it ready for 11:03 performance. Now, I just want to say because this 11:07 one's interesting, there has been a lot of talk about creatine with jet lag at 11:13 very high doses. That's a whole another video. And I think there's incredible 11:18 science where you go up to like 20 grams when you hit those jet lag moments. Your 11:24 brain's a muscle and it will help you get over that jet lag quickly. I have 11:29 tried that and it works. The other place that I've used a high dose at is, you 11:35 know, especially for my menopausal women, if all of a sudden you're just 11:39 have a lot of sleepless nights and you're feeling punchy, this is where a 11:44 high dose could bring your brain back online. But for the sake of losing 11:49 weight and building muscle, 3 to five grams every day consistently. Another 11:55 thing I've heard from people is, well, this they don't they haven't studied 11:59 this on women. Well, good news because there is a new 2026 metaanalysis that 12:06 looked it was a is a meta analysis. So, it looked at 34 different studies which 12:12 totaled to about 700 women. It was the first ever womanly creatine meta 12:21 analysis. And here's what they found. that statistically they saw a positive 12:27 effect on two things. Body composition, which is what we're talking about here 12:33 in the 700 women, and performance. Now, let's unpack performance for a 12:40 moment because some of you are very active individuals that are working out 12:45 a lot. So, yes, three to five grams every day is going to help you with your 12:51 daily workouts. Uh, some of you have hobbies like me. I I love to surf and I 12:57 notice that I go out surfing every day, two hours every day, and I notice my 13:03 paddle strength is much stronger when I'm taking creatine on a regular basis. 13:10 I used to prescribe to the idea that I needed to do the loading dose and then 13:16 taper down and then not do then get off of it for a week. That was the way we 13:21 used to talk about it. When I got off of it for a week, I noticed paddle strength 13:27 wasn't as good. Since I've been doing three to five grams consistently, paddle 13:32 strength is definitely consistently getting better and better. So, we all 13:37 have different things that we're that we're working on. So, performance could 13:42 be in the gym, performance could be in a hobby, performance could be in life. 13:47 Here are five things I want you to think about when taking creatine. So, first, 13:53 you got to give your body something to use the creatine for. So, creatine 13:59 without training does nothing. It produces no measurable change. So, we 14:06 want to make sure that you're training. And what does that look like? I realize 14:12 that many of you are like love the gym. you go regularly, you come to this video 14:18 because you want to know how to improve there. I also realize that some of you 14:22 just you you're like dreading picking the weight up. So, let's make this 14:28 simple for you. I want you to pick two days a week that you are going to do 14:33 strength training and let me know if you're going to do this. Put this in the 14:36 in the comments. I read the comments. So, thank you for those of you who keep 14:41 putting stuff in. I feel like I have a relationship with you. So, I really 14:45 appreciate interacting with you because then I also know how to make videos that 14:49 are customized to you. So, two days a week, we are going to make sure that we 14:55 are doing some type of strength training. The research is now showing 15:00 resistance training is the best for weight loss. I have done videos on that. 15:05 I will leave links in the notes here so you can access those. But it doesn't 15:09 have to be, you don't have to have a gym membership. It doesn't have to be fancy. 15:13 It can be 20 to 30 minutes in one of these strength training sessions. But 15:20 what I want you to do is I want you to make sure you're covering the big muscle 15:26 groups. So you especially your legs. I know a lot of you come to my channel 15:31 because you want to lose weight. I want to make sure that you are strengthening 15:36 your legs first. They are your biggest metabolic organ. your calves, your 15:43 quads, your hamstrings. So, you can do squats, you can do lunges around your 15:49 dining room table. You can get up from this video, you can do it for the rest 15:53 of the video. Get up and squat. 25 squats. Just squatting starts to build 15:59 those those quad muscles. So, um you could do push-ups. I started my surf 16:05 besty and I started doing push-ups before every surf session. Anything that 16:10 uses your body weight is a is going to be a form of resistance training. You 16:17 want to focus on the largest muscles in your body. That is going to give you the 16:22 best metabolic bang for your buck and you just have to do it twice a week. 16:29 Step number two, I want you you're going to take your creatine every day. You 16:35 might do it in water. You might do it in a smoothie. You might do it in coffee 16:40 like me personally. I don't I don't taste it. I It does not have a taste for 16:46 me, but I do I I had to put it into a ritual. So, if you don't want it in your 16:52 coffee, I understand that a lot of people have rituals around coffee. They 16:56 don't want to mess their coffee up. You put it in water and drink your glass of 16:59 water before your coffee. But you want to make sure that you're consistently 17:05 building these creatine stores. Because without the consistency, 17:11 you won't get the benefit we're talking about. And consistency beats intensity 17:18 when it comes to dosage for creatine. Step number three is I want to make sure 17:27 you and God, I just had a friend that called me about this. This is such a 17:30 good example. Don't get caught up in these creatine 17:36 gimmicks like these chews. I had a friend call me and said, "Hey, I want to 17:40 know about creatine. What do you think of the chews?" I don't know. You're 17:44 going to put the powder that I like and you're going to put it in a chew and now 17:49 you got other ingredients to contend with. And those of you who are fasting 17:54 is going to pull you out of a fasted state. So, don't get caught up into the 18:00 gimmicks. It's it's literally this simple. It's a powder. It's creatine 18:06 monohydrate and it is three to five grams every single day. The you if you 18:13 love the chews, fine. But now you got all those ingredients you're going to 18:17 need to make sure that you know. So don't get fall into the all of those uh 18:25 sales tricks to try to get creatine into you. It's simple. Just get the powder, 18:30 put it in the coffee, put it in your water, and you're going to be great. 18:33 Step number four is feed the muscles you're building. It's fascinating to me 18:40 how the conversation, especially for aging women, has really gone to it's so 18:46 important for us to build muscle. And for my post-menopausal women out there, 18:50 I know some of you are just like really like one more thing I got to do now. 18:56 Anybody feel that way? Put it in the comments. You want to make sure that 19:00 other than creatine, you are doing protein. And yes, the research is like 19:06 30 grams of protein at every meal. I've done videos on how the best research on 19:12 visceral fat weight loss right now is intermittent fasting with protein pacing 19:17 and inner and and resistant bands. I'll leave links to those videos here for 19:22 you. But what I want you to know is that if you want to build muscle, which if 19:28 you're a 60- year old woman, 65 year old woman, and you're like, "Here I go. I'm 19:32 gonna try to build muscle." When you start to see the evidence of muscle 19:37 building, what ends up happening is your motivation goes through the roof. So, 19:43 let's make sure that we are prioritizing protein. I build every single meal 19:51 around protein. I look at the protein source first and then the rest goes 19:55 fiber usually goes next, fat fat goes next and then the car carbohydrate is 20:00 like an afterthought. But I love carbohydrates. I just don't lead with 20:04 carbohydrates. I lead with protein. If you are trying to gain muscle and lose 20:12 fat, yes, you have to feed your muscle with more than just creatine, you if you 20:18 can add that protein in, you're going to get that extra boost and you're going to 20:22 get the momentum that you're looking for. Step number five, build a weekly 20:29 routine around this. Because what's happening is that if you are struggling 20:34 to get this done on a regular basis, get your creatine in. This is why I love the 20:40 coffee. If you're struggling to figure out how to take it, I want you to do it 20:46 in a morning routine. Every single morning, you're either going to do a 20:50 glass of creatine or you're going to do it in your cup of coffee. Another 20:55 routine you could do is you could be focused on every time you do a 21:00 postworkout smoothie that you put it in your smoothie, but build it into a daily 21:06 habit. I mean, you could even build it into brushing your teeth in the morning. 21:12 You could go, "Oh, I brush my teeth." And you put your jar of creatine right 21:16 next to where you are brushing your teeth. Put it in some water and then 21:20 take it after you brush your teeth. but build it into a weekly routine. So, 21:26 because remember that in this study, it showed that consistency was key. There 21:33 were a couple key things and consistency in low doses was magic. So, we don't 21:39 want to miss a day. Second thing I want you to do is I want you to pick two days 21:45 a week you are going to do strength training. If you're trying to build 21:50 muscle, lose weight, and you don't go to the gym, and you're ma maybe you're a 21:54 post-menopausal woman, do the resistance bands. It's it's easy. It's it's um 22:01 enjoyable. Um there's a lot of ways to do them. If you need more help on how to 22:07 do resistance bands, please join me in my Reset Academy. We work out together 22:12 as a group every Saturday morning. And this is the kind of stuff I'm showing on 22:17 on a regular basis. But why I wanted step five to be build this into a full 22:24 routine is because where we start to take videos like this and we get excited 22:31 about the information but then it falls a to the wayside is that we don't have 22:36 it into some kind of rhythm. So, I want it to go into an effortless 22:42 rhythm. Like for me right now, it would feel really weird for me to not put 22:46 creatine in my coffee because I've been doing it for so long. So, here is my 22:52 challenge to you. I want you for the next four weeks, I want you to do a 22:57 daily dose of three to five grams of creatine and I want you to do two days 23:05 of strength training. So, let me know if you're going to do that. Put I I'm be 23:09 accountable to me. I read my comments. So put in there I'm going to do the 23:14 creatine challenge. Put in creatine c challenge so that you can get 30 days 23:20 from now you can get that extra muscle boost. Now I like to always tell you the 23:26 difference between men and women when it comes to creatine. The results that men 23:32 get compared to women get are not statistically much different. So, women, 23:37 I read you the study. It's a new metaanalysis. This works for you. Where 23:42 it falls apart is when you start to not add the strength training in. You've got 23:50 to use the creatine that you are drinking to be able to get that muscle 23:55 growth. So, please make sure you follow the steps I gave you in this video. 24:00 Three action steps you can take right now. Put on your on your calendar right 24:05 now. When this video clicks off, go put on your calendar two days a week that 24:11 you can sign up yourself up for working out and doing resistance training. Okay, 24:18 step number two. How are you going to take this? Is it coffee? Is it water? Is 24:22 it smoothie? Put it in the notes, the comments right now. You're you and I, 24:27 we're accountability buddies. So, put it in the comments. I can remind you what 24:33 you were trying to achieve. Okay, action step number three is I want you to build 24:40 every single meal around a protein source. Start with a protein source 24:44 every and then then the fiber, then the fat, then the carbohydrate. Build a 24:49 whole meal around protein. Let me know if you're going to do the 24:53 creatine challenge. Uh, report back. Give it 30 days, then come back to this 24:58 video. Tell me what your results are. If you need help, join me in my academy. 25:03 Most important, listen to me if you made it this long through the video. Don't 25:09 give up on yourself. Part of the of the challenge of being 25:14 healthy and living in the body you love is we have over complicated health. I 25:21 want to make it really simple for you. And this information is life-changing 25:26 when you chunk it down and you commit to it every single day. Don't give up on 25:31 yourself. As always, I hope this helps.