Before reading this article, we suggest you read part 1: The Truth About Creatine & How It Works
So what about consuming alcohol with creatine?
Most male’s which take creatine and workout during the week, usually tend to binge on the weekend’s and drink. This is not good at all when trying to gain mass and build muscle. Alcohol alone on the cells, inhibits natural protein building, and if protein building is inhibited then muscle growth is inhibited. So if you are working out and trying to get that beach body, alcohol is not just damaging your organs, but will hinder the process of building mass. Also, as I mentioned in a earlier post taking carbohydrates and protein are beneficial because they increase the insulin concentration, which allows creatine to reach the muscle cells more effectively.
However what alcohol does is it inhibits the building up of hormones such as insulin and growth hormone, which are a crucial when trying to build mass and muscle. So overall creatine and alcohol have the reciprocal effects of one another. Creatine helps you build up muscle and alcohol helps to break down that muscle. So if you are working out and actually want to see results, don’t even think about drinking!
Creatine is something effective and has been proven to give you results but there are also other ways of getting creatine rather then going to your nutrition shop where they sell you more then you need. You can start through your diet. Since creatine is naturally occurring in our body it is also naturally occurring in the body of other animals. Therefore creatine can also be taken in through meats, particularly red meat, fish, and etc. The problem with taking creatine via this method is that we obviously have to cook meat, and heating the food disintegrates most of the creatine, not making it as effective. If you do not care about gaining mass, and just want to be able to lift more weights and increase your muscle strength, I recommend not taking creatine with protein. You can substitute the protein, with anything that contains glucose; things such as milk, chocolate, yogurt, ice cream, granola bars, and basically anything which contains sugar. Make sure to eat these snacks with the creatine before going to work out, since this will give you the maximum benefit of the creatine.
Overall, if you are going to be taking creatine, it is effective, and there are no major side effects. Take your creatine with proper amounts of protein and carbohydrates for maximum efficiency. Creatine does not effect everyone the same, and some people will not see the results they wished, due to physiological reasons. Also only take creatine if you are going to go work out and use that extra energy to work out effectively or else you will just get fat! When looking to buy types of creatine, look for creatine’s which are 100% pure and do not contain things such as electrolytes and other random ingredients, since they do not really have any major role when trying to gain muscle; also try getting the creatine which contains creatine monohydrate, since this type has been said to be more effective.
A lot of people don’t take creatine because it causes bloating and water retention, and think that it is just water weight which they are gaining. As explained in the previous article, creatine provides your muscles with more energy and allows you to lift more. When you are lifting heavier weights your muscles neural activities increase and your muscle cells need to adapt to these changes, and this causes a further activation of the protein synthetic machinery of your cells. One of the components of the protein synthetic machinery include amino acids, and amino acids are the building blocks of protein so basically your muscle’s adjust by increasing the protein supply. Also when this machinery is activated in your cells, it causes certain secondary messengers, which stimulate protein growth. With that being said, if you lift more weight( which creatine allows you to do) the protein content in your body actually increases, so creatine does help you gain muscle mass in that sense.
Now what about creatine and water weight?
Creatine does increase the volume of your cells and this is one of the reasons why your muscles expand but this increase in volume of your cells is not necessarily a bad thing. This increase in cell volume helps stimulate protein synthesis, and in effect will help build up your muscles. Also when the water volume of your cells is elevated(which creatine does) it helps with anabolic reactions occurring in the cells, which is the building up of things like protein. So when people feel bloated it may be due to their diet. For example – If you plan on taking creatine and any sort of alcohol, you will obviously get bloated, so choose one or the other. It is regular to get that bloated feeling when first taking creatine but this feeling should not last long. Bloating will occur while you are taking creatine if you are not working out properly and do not have a proper diet plan. The best type of creatine to take is one that contains creatine monohydrate. Furthermore, I would like to point out that studies have shown when people first take creatine, they do gain water weight but after a couple weeks or days(depending on the individual and if they are following a proper diet and exercise routine) the weight gain was actually due to an increase in muscle mass!
Creatine monohydrate is quicker at converting the creatine to ATP(energy) whereas other creatine products take longer to convert the creatine into ATP, and instead stimulates it to create glycogen(which is stored energy) and this form of energy takes longer to use, than ATP.
Stay tuned for next week’s health tip!
Written by: Noreen
This is a follow up tip for: The Truth About Creatine & How It Works
Check out last week’s tip: The Hangover Pill
