Good Diets on Creatine

When spending your hard-earned money on diet and nutritional supplements such as creatine, you will naturally want to ensure that you are optimizing your efforts with an appropriate diet. Without a sound nutritional approach to support your consumption of a supplement, you will get sub-par results at best. What follows is a dieting strategy that you can follow while on creatine, along with some tips to make the most of your muscle-building experience.

About Creatine

Creatine is a naturally occurring substance in the body, so do not think that you are introducing a foreign compound while supplementing with creatine. A healthy liver produces roughly 2 grams of creatine a day, whereas supplementation can range from 5 to 20 grams--up to 10 times what your body would produce on its own. The advantage to supplementing with creatine is that it helps your muscles make additional adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the fuel used for short-term activities such as sprinting or weightlifting. Thus, by supplementing with creatine, you are allowing your muscles to work beyond their natural capacity, resulting in additional growth.

High-Protein Diets

As you will be performing additional reps thanks to your creatine supplementation, you will be causing more microtrauma to your muscles, necessitating additional repair. As protein is the main building block of muscle, you would do well to provide your body with ample amounts of protein while you are using creatine. A good target to shoot for is 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight--so if you are 180 pounds, consume 180 grams of protein each day to optimize your recovery.

Water Consumption

Creatine also works to cause additional water retention in your muscles, providing additional volume and intra-muscular pressure. This process occurs whether or not you have consumed adequate water throughout the day--if you have not, your body will divert water from other locations into the muscles, which can lead to cramping during training. Thus, while on creatine, it is important that your diet contains plenty of water--at least eight 8-oz. glasses during the day, and preferably more.

Additional Dietary Requirements

Aside from merely consuming tons of protein and water, your body will also need an ample supply of carbohydrates and fat for both energy and to normalize hormonal processes. A reasonable split to aim for is 40 percent of your diet as protein, with the remaining 60 percent divided equally between carbs and fat. Remember that a gram of fat has roughly double the number of calories as a gram of either protein or carbs, so adjust accordingly. Regarding carb sources, consume plenty of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy, while minimizing consumption of processed foods. Regarding fat sources, minimize consumption of saturated fats to avoid potential problems down the line with cholesterol.

Considerations

Note that the long-term effects of creatine supplementation are yet to be studied, so to minimize any potential risk, remain "on" for no longer than two months at a time, giving your body a few weeks off to return to "normal" before beginning again. Additionally, the necessity of a loading phase (taking additional creatine during the first few weeks to increase retention) has not been shown to be strictly necessary, so if you are looking to consume creatine on a budget, 5 grams a day is probably sufficient to elicit the desired effect.