Creatine: Weight based dosing so I don’t have to eat 6 pounds of chicken every day
We Inherit Opinions Before We Realize to Question Them
I had opinions about creatine I'd never actually examined. Bloating. Weight gain. Kidney damage. Something for bodybuilders, not for me. I'd never read a single study — but the concerns were just there, fully formed, somewhere between overheard gym conversations, wellness content I'd scrolled past, and years of absorbed messaging about what should and shouldn't go into a woman's body.
Isn't it strange how that works? We inherit opinions before we realize to question them.
What Changed My Mind
What changed my mind was an episode of Diary of a CEO. An anti-aging doctor said she takes 25–30 grams of creatine a day to combat sleep debt and brain fog — that it lets her perform as if she'd had a full night's rest when she hadn't. My first reaction was skepticism. My second was curiosity. Because the days I don't sleep well aren't occasional. For most working women — managing jobs, homes, caregiving, the mental load of everything else — short sleep is the default, not the exception. And the cognitive cost is real.
So I went looking for actual answers. What I found surprised me.
What I Wanted to Know
I'm 5'1" and 105 pounds. I didn't want to bulk. I didn't want anything that would make me feel puffy, foggy, or like I was taking a supplement in the marketing sense of the word. I wanted to know whether a small, evidence-based dose could give me what the doctor described — sharper thinking on bad sleep days — without the side effects I'd spent years absorbing warnings about.
What the Science Says
It turns out one paper does most of the work. Eleven of the world's leading sports nutrition researchers reviewed more than 500 studies on creatine and pooled their findings into a single 2021 review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Here's what they found — answering, in order, the exact questions I had.
Won't creatine make me gain weight? Any initial weight change is water being drawn into your muscle cells — not fat. Across multiple studies, including trials lasting up to two years, creatine had no effect on fat mass. At my lowest effective dose of 3 grams, I haven't seen this change at all.
Can creatine cause kidney damage? The evidence simply doesn't support it. At recommended doses, creatine is safe for kidney function in healthy adults. If you have a pre-existing kidney condition, that's a different conversation — but for the rest of us, it's not a concern unless we're drastically misusing it.
Isn't creatine a steroid? No. Creatine is a naturally occurring compound your body already produces, with zero hormonal activity. The association likely came from decades of it being shelved next to actual performance-enhancing drugs in supplement stores.
Do I need to do a loading phase? The classic protocol — 20g a day for a week — is optional. Lower daily doses of 3–5g work just as well. It just takes a few weeks instead of a few days to build up your stores. For someone cautious about what goes into their body, the slow and steady approach felt right.
Does timing matter? Before your workout, after, with meals — the research shows it largely doesn't matter. What matters is consistency.
How does it help women specifically? This one surprised me. In postmenopausal women, creatine showed measurable improvements in muscle mass, strength, and functional performance. That said — the supplement works in conjunction with strength training, not instead of it. Passively taking anything without intentional lifestyle change doesn't move the needle much in the long run.
Why Your Dose Probably Isn't My Dose
The recommended maintenance dose is 3–5g per day, or 0.1g per kilogram of body weight. Smaller people need less — which means most of the serving sizes on the back of tubs are probably more than you need. And this matters beyond just being economical.
Just like any medication or regimen, eventually our bodies calibrate. The effects plateau. Our inputs and environments are always changing — and we have to be willing to adapt accordingly. I always ask myself first: is there a natural way to get this? And then I look at the time versus cost factor honestly.
Creatine is found in chicken, red meat, fish, nuts, yogurt, milk, and cheese — things I already eat. Great, I thought. I don't need a supplement. Then I looked at the dosage math. To hit 3 grams a day through food alone at my body weight, I'd need roughly 6 pounds of raw chicken daily. At Whole Foods, that's $30 a day just for creatine. The cost, the prep, and the prospect of eating 6 pounds of chicken wasn't going to work.
What I Actually Take and Why
My priority was finding the purest form — least processed, fewest additives. To figure out what that actually meant, I started using the NOVA framework as a rough filter. NOVA is a food classification system developed by researchers in Brazil that sorts everything we eat into four groups based on how industrially processed it is — from whole unprocessed foods all the way to what they call ultra-processed. A practical rule of thumb used by UK health organizations: more than 5 ingredients you don't recognize, and it's likely ultra-processed. That number stuck with me. So that became my filter — more than 5 ingredients I can't identify, I put it back. The one exception is when the benefit clearly outweighs the cost. Thorne became my go-to — their micronized version mixes easily, doesn't taste gritty, and absorbs well.
How I Take It: The Strawberry Matcha Creatine Latte
Here's where it gets practical — and a little fun. I mix my creatine into a homemade strawberry matcha latte for an early afternoon pick-me-up, right around the 1–3pm window when my energy starts to slow. Low calorie, antioxidant rich, and honestly better than anything I'd get at Blank Street or Starbucks — because I know exactly what's in it and how much of everything.
Matcha in its truest form is one of the most antioxidant dense foods you can consume. It contains L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes calm focus without the jittery spike of coffee — and it has been used in Japanese tea ceremonies for centuries as a ritual of presence and clarity. Strip away the syrups and the aesthetics and what's left is genuinely worth drinking.
I also pay close attention to how much matcha I use because caffeine, like creatine, is something I believe in dosing by body weight. The recommended range is 3–6mg per kilogram per day, with an upper limit of 400mg per person. I'm 5'1" and 105 pounds — that 400mg ceiling hits me very differently than it hits my 6'4" friend. I start at the low end, around 140mg per day, which works out to about 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of matcha. Since I also have black coffee in the morning, I use closer to half that in my latte.
A full breakdown — exact recipe, ratios, and why each ingredient is in there — is coming soon. But here's what I'm working with:
Matcha — $15/month
Thorne Creatine — $24/month
Elmhurst Milk — $32/month
Brad's Organic Coconut Water — $30/month
Minimo Nutrition in Vanilla — $24/month
If you're someone who buys a fun drink every day, we know that adds up. A more intentional homemade version runs about $4.17 per cup — versus $7–8 at Starbucks or Blank Street. Over a year, you'd spend nearly $2,750 at a coffee shop versus $1,500 making it yourself. That's over $1,200 back in your pocket. For me, that's an international vacation. I'll take it.
What Are the Downsides?
Part of what I try to do here is give you the full picture so you can make an informed decision for yourself — not tell you what to take. Here's what the study actually flags as potential downsides:
The most consistently noted side effect is water retention in the first few days. Creatine draws water into your muscle cells, which can show up as a slight bump on the scale. For most people this resolves — and at the lower maintenance dose of 3 grams that I take, I haven't noticed it.
At higher doses — anything over 10 grams at a time — some people experience GI distress, bloating, or diarrhea. This is dose dependent. Another reason I believe in starting low and going slow.
Then there's the hair loss question. One study found that creatine loading increased levels of DHT — a hormone linked to hair loss in people who are genetically predisposed to it. Here's the thing though: that finding has never been replicated in any other study, the DHT levels in question remained within normal clinical limits, and no study has actually documented anyone losing hair from creatine. But the study is out there.
If you have a pre-existing kidney condition, this is a different conversation entirely and one you should have with your doctor before adding anything new.
And finally — something I think about whenever I read research. Several of the authors of this study sit on the scientific advisory board of Alzchem, a company that manufactures creatine. The study discloses this transparently, but I think you should know it too. It doesn't invalidate the findings — the research is still the most comprehensive review of creatine that exists — but a discerning reader deserves the full picture.
The Bottom Line
Creatine monohydrate is one of the most studied supplements in existence. The concerns I carried for years — kidney damage, fat gain, only for people who want to bulk — are not supported by the evidence. What is supported: it's safe, effective, and significantly underutilized outside of athletic populations.
Why One Study Is Never Enough
It’s important to note, a single study — even a well-designed one — is just one data point. What makes research reliable over time is when findings are replicated, when multiple independent teams arrive at the same conclusions, and when the scientific community continues to cite and build on the work. The number of times a study has been cited by other researchers is one of the clearest signals of its credibility and influence.
I'll be putting together a dedicated breakdown of the top research on creatine — the most cited, most peer reviewed, and most relied upon studies in the field — so you have a real reference point rather than just taking anyone's word for it, including mine.
In the meantime, here are five of the most cited and authoritative studies on creatine that form the backbone of what we know:
1. Kreider et al. (2017) — ISSN Position Stand International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. Cited over 1,000 times. This is considered the gold standard reference on creatine. It's a comprehensive evidence-based review covering performance, recovery, injury prevention, aging, clinical populations, and safety. What makes it reliable: it was produced by the International Society of Sports Nutrition, peer reviewed, and draws on decades of accumulated research.
2. Harris et al. (1992) — The Seminal Paper Elevation of creatine in resting and exercised muscle of normal subjects by creatine supplementation. Clinical Science. Cited over 2,000 times. This is the paper that started it all — the first to demonstrate that oral creatine supplementation could increase intramuscular creatine stores in humans, verified through muscle biopsies. Without this paper, the modern creatine supplementation era doesn't exist. What makes it reliable: it used direct muscle biopsy data, rigorous methodology, and has been replicated consistently for over 30 years.
3. Hultman et al. (1996) — Loading vs. Maintenance Muscle creatine loading in men. Journal of Applied Physiology. Cited over 1,500 times. This is the study that established the loading protocol and compared it to lower daily maintenance doses — finding that 3g per day for 28 days achieved the same muscle saturation as 20g per day for 6 days. Directly relevant to the weight based dosing argument in this post. What makes it reliable: it used a controlled design with direct measurement of intramuscular creatine and has been the reference point for dosing recommendations ever since.
4. Antonio et al. (2021) — The Misconceptions Review Common questions and misconceptions about creatine supplementation: what does the scientific evidence really show? Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Cited over 430 times since 2021 — an unusually high citation rate for a paper less than five years old. What makes it reliable: it was produced by eleven independent researchers across multiple institutions, drew on over 500 peer reviewed publications, and addressed the most common real-world questions people actually have about creatine. The conflicts of interest are disclosed, which is itself a marker of research integrity.
5. Rawson & Volek (2003) — Cognitive and Performance Effects Effects of creatine supplementation and resistance training on muscle strength and weightlifting performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Cited over 400 times. Frequently cited for its examination of creatine's effects beyond basic muscle building — including cognitive performance and fatigue resistance, which is directly relevant to the sleep debt and brain fog angle in this post. What makes it reliable: independently conducted, peer reviewed, and its findings have been supported by subsequent research.
A note on how to evaluate research yourself: citation count matters, but so does independence. Look for studies conducted at multiple institutions, funded without industry ties, published in peer reviewed journals, and replicated by other teams. One study with 400 citations that has been independently replicated carries far more weight than ten studies funded by the same supplement company. That's the filter I try to apply — and the one I'd encourage you to use too.