Creatine and water weight gain

lilawolf

Mornin folks! I weighed this morning after not weighing for a while because I knew that new exercise and loading creatine would up my weight but I have a couple questions. The "added new exercise" weight should go away despite increasing weights, right? What about Creatine? Is that a permanent water weight gain as long as I'm on it? Estimate on water weight gain?

5 weeks ago: added martial arts
3 weeks ago: added StrongLifts5x5
Last week: loading phase (10g) creatine switching to 5g on Tuesday of this week.

I've done MFP a long time with different amounts of exercise and know basically how much I should be losing. In the last month I should be down around 1.5-2lbs but this morning I was UP 2lbs.

Not really "worried" but playing with calories, hunger, power, etc. Thanks in advance! 5'9 ~150lbs, currently set for 0.5lbs/week 1820 calories. GW 140-145

jessef593

Well. Not really. The increased water weight is due to the creatine pulling more water into your muscles. So as long as you have a higher concentration of creatine in your skeletal muscles you'll more than likely have a greater level of water in them as well. Why would that matter though? It's not like you gained fat, it's more water. Don't worry about it, but if you're that concerned simply stop taking the creatine.

rybo

lilawolf wrote: »

The "added new exercise" weight should go away despite increasing weights, right?Not really, as long as you are lifting, consistently, the added weight is likely to be there. What about Creatine? Is that a permanent water weight gain as long as I'm on it?Yes Estimate on water weight gain?Difficult to estimate depending on how much muscle you have. I've had friends say 8-10 lbs, others say only 2-3

sijomial

Taking creatine didn't lead to any difference to me at all - good or bad.

The "added new exercise" weight should go away despite increasing weights, right?

Yes

What about Creatine? Is that a permanent water weight gain as long as I'm on it?

Yes, if you actually retained extra water from taking creatine of course.

lilawolf

Ok. I think I'm going to go ahead and reset my "current weight", acknowledging to myself that at least a couple pounds are just water, and then look at progress starting again now that I'm back in a steady state. I wish I had taken measurements to see my progress over the last month, but no use crying over spilled milk. Probably bump my goal weight up a tad too.

As I said, not worried... I know its water weight. Just trying to figure out what to expect from it so that I can continue to track and adjust

Thanks for the input!

deputy_randolph

I always gain 3lbs within the first few days of taking creatine. In my experience, the water weight is lost within the first couple of days of stopping. Those 3lbs would only matter if I'm trying to make weight for lifting competition. So far, it hasn't mattered.

canadianlbs

i find that with creatine, yes the few extra pounds stays around. there's always a bit of a scale dip if i let taking it go for a couple of days, but as long as i'm using it it stays pretty stable.

but for me, creatine is only as effective as the amount of water i feed to it anyway. idek if my mental model is accurate, but i always see the water as the limiting/deciding factor. i assume that my body stores as much of my daily dose as it can based on the supply of water molecules, and any excess is just discarded. so if i short-change myself on the daily water, it doesn't matter how much of the stuff i'm taking.