Creatine for Weight Gain: Does It Work?

Creatine for weight gain is seldom heard of but is not impossible. In terms of popularity, creatine is one of the top five supplements. More often than not, it's used to improve endurance and muscle mass. However, it will never be a supplement for weight gain in 'fat form' rather than 'water form’.

Before understanding how creatine for weight gain actually works, it’s important to understand what it is and why it’s popular among individuals who want to build muscle mass.

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What is creatine?

In the simplest terms, creatine is an amino acid that increases energy in the cells while enabling the muscles to grow. Additionally, the supplement helps with improving endurance, recovery, and performance.

If you’re a beginner, you don’t need to immediately supplement your diet with creatine. It must be noted that creatine is naturally found in red meat, fish, and poultry. However, as your workout routine intensifies, you may add creatine to your diet to improve the overall process.

NOTE: creatine will never help you build muscle if not used alongside a proper diet and workout routine.

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Does creatine for weight gain work?

Add creatine to your supplement stack. (Photo by Unsplash/CHU Gummies)

Interestingly, creatine can have a side effect similar to supplements for weight gain, but it’s not fat.

Usually, when one hears the term 'weight gain', the immediate conclusion is 'stored fat'. With creatine, it’s not fat that's responsible for weight gain, but water retention.

Here’s what happens:

Creatine works by drawing water into the muscle cells, and the cells end up retaining that water. As a result, the muscles might appear bigger even if you haven’t trained for too long.

An important point to note here is that water retention after creatine supplementation is a good sign. That means the supplement is working as required and increasing stores, resulting in performance improvements.

Water retention is a short-term result, though. Creatine as one of the supplements for weight gain has long-term results as well, like added muscle mass.

It so happens that when one uses creatine consistently, the body’s ability to exercise and recover improves due to the improved creatine storage. Moreover, the quality of training, including sets and reps, improves because of performance improvements.

Eventually, better exercise and recovery patterns can lead to added muscle mass. When one adds lean muscle, their overall weight increases, but their physique appears to be lean or buff (based on diet and goals).

Adding creatine to your supplement stack can help with performance. (Photo by Unsplash/Alonso Reyes)

However, if you’re pondering over added calories after understanding creatine for weight gain, be rest assured that one scoop (recommended) of creatine does not have enough calories to push you into a calorie surplus. As it’s well known, if you’re not in a calorie surplus, your body will not store any consumed calories as fat.

Hence, creatine for weight gain has short-term and long-term results, but both are good signs.

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Creatine for weight gain: how to control it?

While water retention is not the worst side effects of supplements for weight gain, the numbers on the weight scale can be bothersome. While there're ways you can control weight gain following creatine supplementation, there're limitations as well.

Drink more water. This will trigger the body to get rid of excess fluids, reducing water weight.

Control your sodium intake. Sodium can aid water retention and add to bloating. If you reduce sodium intake, the body naturally stores less water. However, be mindful of the symptoms of low sodium too.

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How does creatine help with building muscle?

Creatine works when used alongside diet and workout routine. (Photo by Unsplash/Anastase Maragos)

It’s not a creatine 101 till you’ve understood how it helps with building muscle. Firstly, as mentioned above, it will not help build muscle if there's no diet and workout routine. Secondly, creatine should not be confused with vitamins to gain weight.

If you’re properly focusing on a diet, workout routine, and creatine, sooner or later you will reap the benefits. Initially, the muscles appearing bigger will be due to water retention.

However, once the creatine stores increase, you will be able to achieve higher reps and more sets. Eventually, the extra reps and sets will enable your muscles to become bigger by adding mass rather than water retention.

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Bottom Line

If you’re particularly using creatine for weight gain, it may not be the perfect solution. If you’re looking to gain weight, the first step is to be in a calorie surplus.

Furthermore, you can add creatine to your diet if the focus is on gaining weight and improving endurance or performance levels. Unfortunately, creatine for weight gain in terms of fat isn’t a solution in any shape or form.