After doing the 30 day health study on vegetarian living I received a lot of feedback, mostly positive and some negative. What I was greatly interested in was the increasing number of people wanting me to try new studies. One of the top things that was requested that I try was creatine.

What is creatine?

According to About.com

Creatine is a compound that’s involved in the production of energy in the body, in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Made in the liver, approximately 95% of the body’s creatine ends up being stored in skeletal muscles and the remaining 5% is found in the brain, heart and testes. Once it’s used, creatine is converted to a waste product called creatinine and excreted in urine.

Creatine is basically an acid that is emitted from your body when your muscles are put under stress. This acid is sent to your muscles to help maintain and rebuild the muscle quickly and efficiently. Body builders generally take it to help decrease the time between workouts for their arms to recover. Studies have also shown that it can help increase your lean muscle mass. This is believed because creatine promotes water retention. Muscle is made up of 70% water so this belief has some weight to it. *pun intended*

Believed negatives / side effects

I have heard quite a bit negative through my life about creatine and that people should avoid taking it. I was at first a little sceptic of being a guinea pig, but I figured I should try to either concrete the beliefs people have, or show them what benefits creatine can create.

I’ve heard quite a few things that creatine will do to a person. This study is to help show whether or not these side effects happen to a young, healthy and physically fit individual.

The (supposed) side effects of creatine use have been said but are not limited to

• Heartburn
• Nausea
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting
• Hypertension
• Water weight gain (little to no muscle gain)
• Poor disposition to other acids (i.e. bad things happen when you drink orange juice)
• Heart palpitations
• Labored breathing
• many more…

This list is just a small sampling of what I have been told may or may not be the side effects. These are what I see as being the common beliefs of what creatine will do to you. Now you can see why I might be apprehensive to try and be the guinea pig for such a product.

As before, I will give you my stats including weight, dimensions, and caloric intake and weekly photos. I am following the creatine loading method, which in the first week you take creatine 4 times a day to help get a store of it in your body, then only once a day on the days you workout thereafter.  It’s one week since I began the study and there are changes happening, I will go into further detail once I see what all creatine does to the body while continuing my research on what all creatine is and does to not only me, but others. I will be posting an update on this in one month from today. The final post, a month after that.

If you have any comments, questions or concerns you can comment below, hit me up on twitter or email me at hello@homelessinhawaii.com