Creatine is one of the most popular, well-researched, and effective fitness supplements on the market. Many beginner and experienced gym-goers and fitness enthusiasts take creatine in supplement form to improve their athletic performance, endurance, recovery, and muscle mass.
As intermittent fasting has become quite popular and a lot of people have started practicing it due to its potential health benefits, it’s interesting to know if certain popular supplements like creatine will break your fast.
There are many myths regarding creatine, its effects on your body and insulin levels, and whether creatine poses risks when it comes to fasting.
Does Creatine Break a Fast
First of all, creatine doesn’t contain any calories, so technically it will not affect your fast in any way. However, some people claim that creatine spikes your insulin levels, which is not true. Creatine, on the contrary, improves insulin resistance and glucose tolerance in healthy individuals and in people with type 2 diabetes.
If you already own a creatine supplement or plan on purchasing one, it is important to check the label carefully and make sure that what you are buying is creatine monohydrate and that it doesn’t contain any additional ingredients. If there are sugars and carbohydrates present, it will definitely impact and most likely break your fast.
Key Takeaway
Creatine contains zero calories; therefore, it will not break your fast. Creatine doesn’t affect your insulin and glucose levels. You can supplement with creatine any time during the day—whether it is before or after your workout or before you go to sleep—the timing of creatine doesn’t matter.
So if you want to be extra safe while supplementing creatine, you can simply take it after you finish your workout with a healthy, protein-rich meal. If you prefer to take creatine before your workout while fasted, that is not a problem at all. Just make sure that your creatine supplement is 100% creatine monohydrate and doesn’t contain any extra ingredients.
What Can Break Your Fast?
It’s extremely hard to pinpoint the exact amounts of foods needed to break your fast, as there are numerous considerations like how long you have been fasting, what was the last meal you ate before starting the fast, and how was your activity level during the fast.
Depending on the answers you provide to these questions, the amount of food required to break your fast will vary. For example, if you’ve been physically active and the fast has been going on for 12 hours or more, a handful of peanuts will not break your fast.
To find out exactly if your fast has been broken, you will need to wear a glucose monitor all the time and check if there’s a spike when you consume certain foods.
The primary triggers for glucose spikes are sugary foods, refined carbs, fruit juices, processed foods, and artificial sweeteners.
Now, none of these relate to creatine, as creatine is a nitrogenous organic acid made up of three amino acids: arginine, glycine, and methionine. Creatine doesn’t contain any calories, sugars, or proteins.
However, when purchasing creatine supplements, whether it is in pill form, powder, or capsule, many brands and manufacturers sell it with additional ingredients like artificial sweeteners, food coloring, and more ingredients that will definitely break your fast.
As creatine itself doesn’t fall in the category of foods that will break your fast, it’s crucial to buy a clean supplement product so that we ensure you are on track with your goals and nothing is secretly interfering with your fasting process.
How Does Creatine Work?
Creatine is a naturally occurring compound that our bodies produce daily. About 1 gram of creatine is naturally synthesized by our bodies, as creatine is essential for proper functioning.
Creatine can be naturally obtained from foods like red meat and seafood. Foods like herring, beef, tuna, and salmon are particularly rich in creatine.
Supplementing with creatine is a popular practice among athletes and bodybuilders. On average, people consume between 3 to 5 grams of creatine in supplement form.
Creatine plays a crucial role in energy production. Ninety-five percent of creatine is stored in skeletal muscle, and the remaining can be found in the brain, liver, and testicles.
When we regularly supplement with creatine, it increases the phosphocreatine content in muscles by up to 20–40%. Higher phosphocreatine levels help ATP regeneration during intense exercise.
During resistance training, weightlifting, and generally intense exercise, your muscles use ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for energy, converting it into ADP (adenosine diphosphate).
In simple terms, creatine helps replenish your energy by forming phosphocreatine, which is essential for sustaining high-intensity muscle activity.
It can take up to 2 to 4 weeks to fully saturate your muscles with creatine, depending on the amount you are supplementing daily.
Creatine is crucial not only for building muscle and improving athletic performance but also for brain health. It improves short-term memory, intelligence, and reasoning.
How to Take Creatine while Fasting?
Creatine contains 0% carbs, 0% fat, and 0% protein. Although creatine is technically made up of amino acids, which could qualify it as a protein, there are still zero grams of protein in 100 grams of creatine.
The specific timing of taking a supplement doesn’t affect creatine, as it gradually builds up in your muscle tissue over time, and it doesn’t provide an immediate effect upon consuming a scoop of creatine.
Whether you take your creatine in the morning, afternoon, or evening doesn’t really matter, as the objective is to let the supplement build up in your skeletal muscles, where it is stored.
If you have a certain routine and like taking creatine as soon as you wake up or before your workout, you can keep doing so, as creatine doesn’t impact your glucose levels, and you are not consuming any kind of carbs, sugars, protein, or fat.
When is the best time to take creatine? It is well known that supplementing with creatine is best absorbed into your muscles when eating a carb- and protein-rich meal. The best results in terms of absorption can be achieved if you time your supplement with your meals, preferably after workout meals if you are someone looking to train fasted.
While it is better to supplement creatine during healthy meals, the difference it makes is pretty small, and as you plan on supplementing creatine for an extended period of time, your skeletal muscles will eventually get saturated with creatine one way or another.
The best way to take creatine during a fast is to do it alongside your post-workout meal, as the absorption rate will be the best. But this is in no way a must, as creatine can be taken at any time of the day, and it doesn’t interfere with your fast in any way.
Side Effects of Supplementing Creatine while Fasting
The extensive research done on creatine proves that it is one of the safest and most effective fitness supplements available. However, this doesn’t mean that creatine has no drawbacks or side effects.
It is well-known that when supplementing with creatine, especially in high doses, it needs to be accompanied by appropriate amounts of water to stay hydrated.
Creatine, especially in high amounts, can cause an upset stomach and, in severe cases, gastrointestinal problems like kidney failure. If you have any existing gastrointestinal issues, consult with a healthcare provider before starting any supplements.
Stomach upset can be noticeable when taking creatine on an empty stomach, especially after prolonged fasting sessions. If you have a history of stomach issues, it would be better to supplement creatine alongside a healthy meal, preferably post-workout, especially if you are training in a fasted state.
Creatine also increases water retention, so you may appear bloated. While this is eventually beneficial for your muscles in the long run, some might get frustrated as the number on the scale may increase.
One more thing to be aware of is the increase in creatinine after supplementing with creatine. Some people have reported blood work showing that their creatinine levels were sky-high, and due to this, they had to stop supplementing creatine.
You should be aware that everyone who trains and eats a high-protein diet will have somewhat high creatinine levels. However, if you are supplementing with creatine in large amounts, like 25g per day, it can be dangerous. Therefore, we advise keeping your intake between 3-5g of creatine per day.
Recommendations for Taking Creatine while Fasting
There are a few recommendations and simple tricks you should keep in mind when supplementing with creatine during a fast. Take a look below and make sure you are aware of these recommendations when pairing creatine supplements with intermittent fasting.
Take it Slowly
Whether you are aware or not, there are two ways to supplement with creatine: the ‘loading phase’ and the ‘maintenance phase’. The loading phase involves supplementing up to 25g of creatine a day to quickly achieve muscle saturation within a week.
We would advise against this if you are inexperienced with creatine, especially during a fast, as it can seriously upset your stomach. Instead, we recommend starting directly with the maintenance phase, which means supplementing between 3-5g of creatine per day and proceeding slowly, as the end result will eventually be the same.
Stay Hydrated
When supplementing with creatine, especially in high amounts, it’s essential to stay hydrated. If you take creatine in a fasted state, pay attention to your water intake and make sure you drink plenty before, during, or after your workout session.
Stay Consistent
Build a habit from your actions. Try to supplement at the same time every single day so that you don’t miss a dose, making it easier to keep your progress in check.
That’s pretty much everything. Fasting and taking creatine is a win-win situation as it helps to maximize your athletic performance, build muscle mass, increase endurance, and push you through those last two hard reps in a set.
Creatine, Coffee and Pre-Workouts
A lot of people like taking creatine before their workouts alongside a cup of black coffee. Please know that drinking coffee or taking caffeine in supplement form is totally okay, and it won’t break your fast.
Pairing coffee and creatine as a pre-workout is a very good idea, as coffee acts as a stimulant and will enhance your workout performance, increase alertness, and make the whole workout more enjoyable.
However, when we discuss pre-workouts and creatine, there are some factors you need to be aware of. Pre-workouts contain multiple ingredients, and depending on the brand you purchase, they can definitely break your fast.
If you are wondering whether a pre-workout can break your fast, read our recently published article. To give you an idea, there are fasting-friendly pre-workout supplements—in other words, fasting-friendly ingredients—that are okay to use during your fast. The fasting-friendly ingredient list may include creatine, caffeine, vitamins, electrolytes, taurine, and more.
Conclusion
Supplementing with creatine while fasting is safe, as creatine doesn’t spike your glucose levels and doesn’t contain any carbs, protein, or fats. Creatine is also safe to take at any time of the day—whether it is in the morning, afternoon, or evening.
However, we need to stay mindful and ensure that the creatine supplement we have purchased is 100% creatine monohydrate and doesn’t contain any extra ingredients, such as BCAAs and EAAs, sugars, carbs, artificial sweeteners, or food coloring.
If your creatine is a multi-ingredient supplement, it is very likely that it will break your fast and spike your glucose levels. To stay safe, we recommend purchasing creatine from a reputable brand or manufacturer.
Lastly, it is advisable to take creatine alongside a healthy meal rich in proteins and carbohydrates, as this improves absorption. So, if you don’t have any specific reasons to take creatine before working out, it’s okay to supplement alongside your post-workout meal.
While this doesn’t significantly affect the way creatine is absorbed into your muscle tissue, it’s still beneficial to know how to maximize creatine absorption.
Creatine is perfectly safe to consume on an empty stomach; it doesn’t break a fast. Whether you consume it alongside a meal or not, as long as you take creatine consistently, the outcome will be the same because your muscles will reach saturation one way or another.