I Took 3x Recommended Creatine Dose - here’s what happened

0:00 This is creatine, a supplement that improves performance. And the recommended dose is 5 grams a day. But for the last two months, I've been taking three times the recommended dose. I've been taking 16 g a day. It's been a very interesting experiment, and I look forward to telling you what I've experienced. This powder, it could look quite suspicious, and some people think creatine is like steroids, but it's not. Creatine is naturally produced in our body, specifically in the liver and brain, and it's used for energy in the muscles and brain. Creatine is also found in meat and fish, but it's not found in plant protein. And we can top up our natural stores of creatine with a supplement, which means more energy, and more energy can mean an improvement in

0:46 health and performance. Creatine monohydrate is the most common form of creatine and the most researched supplement in the world. It's proven safe, has many benefits, and this stuff is cheap. The physical benefits are creatine improves muscle mass and strength, so it's great for weight training. It improves speed and power, which is great for interval training and jumping. And creatine helps with recovery after exercise. I've got something interesting to tell you about that shortly. And all this stuff isn't just for athletes. It's for us everyday folks, too, because exercise is crucial for our long-term health, no matter what age. Supplementing with creatine could mean getting an extra few reps at the end of a set because it's extra energy in the

1:32 muscle. Creatine can help build muscle one/ird faster than without it. So, if it took 6 months to build a certain amount of muscle with creatine, it would take just 4 months with creatine, which is mega. And before you think growing muscle is only for bodybuilders, building and maintaining muscle is so important, especially as we get older. Creatine can improve bone mineral density, which again is important as we get older and even more so for women around the menopause. But even if you're not fussed about all of these physical benefits, which I think you should be, there are benefits for the brain, too. Our brain uses 20% of our daily energy. So supplementing with creatine is literally providing the brain with more energy. Creatine

2:19 improves mental performance, reaction time and memory. It helps with attention and focus. Uh hello. It's shown to be particularly beneficial when not getting enough sleep. Creatine is also beneficial for high stress days, brain fog, and traveling between time zones. In the context of stress, stress requires a lot of energy. It depletes your creatine. And so in that background, giving your body the extra creatine will give you more energy because that energy that you would have had otherwise was taken because the stress is very energy consuming. Here's an interesting bit and for those that think taking more than 5 g of creatine is a waste because we'll just wee it out. Our bodies prioritize creatine going to our muscles first before going to the brain. So that's

3:06 where the standard dose of 5 g comes in. It's enough to fuel the muscles, but not the brain. It's only when we take a higher dose of creatine, something like 10 g, 15, or even 20 gram, that the extra creatine left over that the muscles didn't use, that's when it goes to our brain. And it's one of the reasons I did this experiment to see if it actually made a difference. So, with all of this good stuff, what are the downsides of taking creatine? Some people can get an upset stomach, a bit of nausea, and if you take a high dose all in one go, you might get [Music] creatine can add some weight to the body. But before you think, oh no, I don't want to put on weight. It's not fat. It's not even really water

3:53 retention. Creatine pulls water into the muscles where it's needed and doesn't put water under the skin. And having a well hydrated muscle means having a better performing muscle. So rather than thinking extra water and extra weight, think extra firmness and extra strength. And I'll tell you about my extra firmness and extra strength in a minute. If you're concerned about creatine causing kidney damage, creatine doesn't cause kidney damage in healthy humans with healthy kidneys. If you're unsure if you should be taking creatine, check with your health professional. I am not a professional. I'm just a 42-year-old woman doing an experiment and sharing my results on the internet. Before this experiment, I was taking 5 g of creatine

4:39 a day for 2 and 1/2 years. And that dose worked well. It helped with my weight training. But when I saw there was benefits from taking a higher dose, that's when I increased from 5 g to 18 g. I take 8 g of creatine monohydrate powder in my mint tea first thing in the morning. Creatine doesn't have a taste, so it mixes well with most drinks and it doesn't degrade in in heat. So, you can have creatine in your coffee. Then, I have another 8 g in my workout drink and I sip that throughout my morning workout. So, I'm getting 18 g over 3 hours. These are the two brands of creatine that I use. I buy whichever one is the cheapest at the time. I'll leave a link to these in the description. Fun fact, vegetarians and

5:24 vegans tend to respond the most to creatine as they don't get it in their diet. And women and seniors are shown to have good improvements as well. And it's interesting about the woman thing because well, I'm a woman and I'm approaching the middle of my life and the menopause. I have ADHD and my brain is a very busy place and I can feel that it uses a lot of energy. It's one of the reasons I'm often so mentally exhausted at the end of the day. But more on that in a minute. So, what have I experienced as a result of taking highdose creatine? Let's start with the good stuff. It was during this experiment that I was able to break through an exercise plateau that I'd been stuck on for months. I was able to increase my weights and the amount of reps. It's important to

6:09 mention that at the same time as doing this experiment, I'd also increased my daily protein to a minimum of 150 g a day. So, I can't be sure if breaking through the plateau was a result of the highdose creatine or the extra protein, but it was probably a mixture of both. I had more energy in my muscles because of the creatine, so I was able to push harder and the extra protein allowed for better muscle repair and growth. And the interesting thing here is for the last 3 months, I've been on a small calorie deficit and I've lost 3 kg of body fat. So, although I'm lighter, I've still been able to lift more weight for more reps. which is amazing. 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes with Laura Try 20. And despite being lighter, I think my

6:55 muscles look bigger. They've grown because of the increase in weights. But it'll also be the extra water in my muscles, which makes them look fuller. And many people don't want to look fuller, but I don't mind it. In fact, I like looking fuller and stronger. And these next bits, this is where it gets really interesting. I seem to have more mental capacity and brain power throughout the day. Another important thing to mention, I do take ADHD medication and the stuff is magic, but that's a story for another time. And usually when my medication wears off towards the end of the day, I crash quite hard and I have very limited mental energy, if any, for the last few hours of the day. However, that's not been the case recently. Even when the

7:42 medicine has worn off, I still have brain energy and I can still do stuff, which is astonishing. It's kind of like having a mini brain upgrade. It seems to be that if you are cognitively taxing yourself consistently, really pushing your brain to the max, creatine might feel like a one rep upgrade in working memory. Just quickly, Dr. Rhonda Patrick has compared highdose creatine to speed. It's like speed. It's like without the speed. It's like speed without the speed. And as someone who takes prescription and fetamine, so speed for my ADHD, I can confidently say creatine is not the same as speed. It does not feel the same at all. Saying that, I have noticed an

8:28 enormous improvement in my brain energy since going to highdose creatine, and my results keep getting more interesting. With regards to recovery after exercise, it might be a coincidence, but my Whoop tells me that my recovery scores have improved recently. I'm exercising harder, getting fitter and stronger, but somehow I'm recovering faster. And I thought that I'd waved goodbye to the days of that high energy and fast recovery in my 30s. But when I started taking 15 g, things started to get very interesting. What I found is that my recovery increased. I started to recover faster and it started to feel like I was 30 again. Like right when you hit 40, you kind of reach this point where your recovery is a little bit more hampered than usual. And then

9:14 when I started to up it to 15 g, I found that between my workouts, between my surfing sessions, pretty much I surf every single day. I work out two to three times per week. I found that my body was fully recovered the day afterwards. It's clear that my recovery and fitness is improving because my resting heart rate has gone down. My heart rate variability has gone up and both figures have improved significantly in a short space of time. I do need to take into account the fact that three months ago I moved into a house that I now own. I have good company living with my mom, so I'm not lonely anymore. And all this makes me feel safe and secure, which will then have a huge impact on my well-being. But these stats, there's an obvious improvement in the last four weeks and the bad stuff I've

10:01 experienced. I haven't had any stomach issues or nausea. It probably helps that I take the large dose split into two over a 2 to three hour window. This might be TMI. I may occasionally go from a type three or four on the Bristol stool chart to a type five. And I have regular blood checks and the results come back showing excellent organ health, including excellent kidney health. Given that I've had such positive results doing this, will I continue with highdose creatine? I'm going to drop to 10 grams a day as it's not yet proven that taking a high dose for a long period of time is suitable. But on the days where I haven't had enough sleep, high stress days, foggy brain days, then I'll take 18 g of creatine for the extra boost. Do you take creatine? How much do you take a

10:46 day? And you tempted to give this high dose a try. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And if you liked this video, then YouTube thinks you're going to like this one, too.