Can Creatine Help You Lose Weight​?

Published: February 09, 2025

Updated: February 10, 2025

4 mins

Creatine is a popular supplement that many athletes and fitness enthusiasts swear by. It’s known for its ability to boost energy during high-intensity workouts. This helps to improve athletic performance and promote muscle growth. Whether you’re lifting heavy weights or sprinting at full speed, creatine plays a key role in giving your muscles the extra push they need to perform at their best.

While creatine is a go-to for strength and endurance, there’s a common question about its role in weight loss. Opinions vary, but we’ll get down to what health experts believe creatine actually does and whether it could be a helpful addition to your weight loss journey. 

What is Creatine and How Does it Work?

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound found in small amounts in foods like red meat and fish. It’s also produced naturally by your body. It’s stored in your muscles and helps produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the primary source of energy for short bursts of high-intensity activity. So, when you're doing something like sprinting, lifting weights, or any exercise that requires quick energy, creatine is there to give you that extra fuel.

When you take creatine as a supplement, you’re essentially increasing the amount of creatine in your muscles, which means you have more ATP available. This helps improve strength, endurance, and overall performance during high-intensity workouts. As a result, you might find you can push harder, lift heavier, or go for longer without feeling fatigued.

Creatine also plays a role in recovery. After an intense workout, your muscles need to repair and rebuild, and creatine helps with this by reducing muscle damage and inflammation, speeding up recovery so you can get back to training sooner. Essentially, creatine gives your muscles more energy to work harder, recover faster, and ultimately get stronger.

Does Creatine Make You Gain Weight?

One of the most common concerns people have when it comes to creatine is whether it causes weight gain. The short answer is yes, but not in the way you may think. When you take creatine, your muscles absorb more water, which leads to water retention. This is what causes “weight gain”. It’s not fat, it’s water that’s stored in the muscles. This increase in water content helps muscles perform better and recover faster – even if you see the scale’s number go up. 

Fortunately, water weight is temporary. Once you stop taking creative or your body adjusts to the supplement, the extra water will be flushed out.

Can Creatine Help You Lose Weight?

Creatine’s primary role is boosting performance, and that boost can indirectly help with weight loss. Here’s how:

• Increased strength and energy: With more energy available from creatine, you’re able to push yourself harder in your workouts. That means you might be able to do more sets, lift heavier weights, or keep going for longer during your cardio sessions. Essentially, creatine gives you that extra push to work out harder and burn more calories, which can support your weight loss goals.

• Improved muscle mass: Creatine also helps you build muscle. More muscle means a higher resting metabolism because muscle tissue burns more calories even when you’re not working out. So, over time, as you build more muscle with the help of creatine, your body may become more efficient at burning calories and fat.

While creatine can definitely help you build muscle, it’s not a direct fat-burning supplement. This means that creatine can’t make fat disappear on its own. However, by supporting your strength and endurance during workouts, it helps you burn more calories and maintain muscle mass, which can lead to fat loss over time, especially if you’re also following a calorie deficit diet.

In other words, creatine isn’t a quick fix for weight loss, but it can definitely be a useful tool in your overall fitness routine, helping you get stronger and potentially lose fat as you build lean muscle. 

Where Can I Learn More About Effective Ways to Lose Weight?

If you’re looking to take your weight loss journey to the next level, you might want to consider professional support. With the right guidance and tools, you can achieve lasting results and feel healthier overall.

The Rex MD Weight Management Program may be able to help you achieve your weight loss goals. Rex MD provides access to quality care from licensed clinicians alongside groundbreaking GLP-1 medications for qualifying patients. All patients also get clinical oversight, metabolic testing and ongoing support from licensed healthcare providers to help you lose weight and feel healthier overall.

There’s no commitment to get started! See if you qualify to lose weight with Rex MD today.