A question I’ve seen being asked a lot is whether creatine supplementation is the cause of increased appetite.
In general, creatine supplementation does not directly affect your appetite and hunger. However, you can experience increased appetite from the change in diet, workout efforts, physical activity, and muscle growth while taking creatine supplementation.
There are various reasons why your body may start to have increased hunger. Creatine monohydrate is a great supplement to increase performance in the gym.
But this increase in performance can lead to the reasons why your body may feel hungry. Most tend to blame creatine for the increased appetite. They fail to realize that it can be caused by other changes and factors they are making within their lifestyle.
Below, I’ll discuss why it may feel like creatine increases appetite, what are the other reasons you may be feeling hungry, what you can expect from taking creatine and more…
Does Creatine Make You Hungry
Creatine is a naturally occurring compound found within our body. Our body creates creatine as a source of fuel for our muscles.
As a whole, creatine does not increase hunger. The results from creatine supplementation, like changes in workout intensity, changes in lifestyle or diet, dehydration, and increased energy expenditure from taking creatine are the main causes of increased appetite.
When many people start taking creatine supplementation, they start to change their entire lifestyle…
They may start to limit food intake to try and lose fat. They start to feel the benefits of creatine monohydrate and have more intense training sessions.
And they may even start to increase muscle mass!
These are the main reasons people may feel increased hunger or appetite…
And if you’re interested in the best deal on creatine monohydrate. Check the prices on Amazon here.
Now let’s dive into each of these reasons below…
Reasons Why Creatine Supplementation May Make You Feel Hungry
These are the most common reasons why you may feel hungry or have an increased appetite while consuming creatine.
More Energy Expenditure
Creatine can give you better performance in the gym. This leads to expending more calories. When you burn more calories, you’ll feel more hunger pangs and want to increase your food intake.
Increased Muscle Mass
Obviously, plenty of people would love to build muscle mass. This is the type of weight gain most bodybuilders and athletes want to achieve.
But it comes at a cost…
The more muscle mass you have. The more you’ll need to consume to feed those muscles. This can lead to increased hunger levels.
Dehydration
This reason is often overlooked. However, one of the side effects of creatine is dehydration. (1)
This can lead to being thirsty, and most people confuse hunger with thirst. That’s the reason why most nutrition coaches recommend drinking water first when you’re “feeling hungry.”
Changes In Workout Intensity
increase physical activity and athletic performance can be seen when using creatine. This can lead to more energy expenditure with intense workouts.
This can be the reason you’ll notice your hunger levels increase.
Change In Diet And Nutritional Status
Last but not least…
Most people start a huge change in diet and lifestyle all at once. They go on a diet, start exercising, and start supplementing with creatine.
If you go on a diet and start doing regular exercise (especially when you’ve been living a sedentary lifestyle for a while), then this change alone will start to make you hungry.
So, now you know the main causes of why you may start to feel hungry. Now, let’s go over what you can expect from supplementing with creatine…
What To Expect When Taking Creatine
Creatine is very popular with many bodybuilders and athletes. Mainly because of all the benefits creatine can give you…
And if you’ve ever wondered, “Do natural bodybuilders take creatine,” then be sure to check out that post.
Below are the benefits you can expect when using creatine on a daily basis…
More Endurance
You’ll notice a slight increase in muscle endurance while lifting at the gym, especially during workouts that require short bursts of high-intensity exercise performance.
Boost In Physical Performance
Creatine will not only help with endurance but also with performance.
Some people may claim to see a slight increase in strength while supplementing with creatine.
Studies have also shown that creatine helps with the contraction of your muscles. (2) This is the reason some people may notice a gain or increase in their strength.
Possible Gain In Muscle Mass
The reason why I say “possible” is that muscle building depends on your diet.
If you are trying to gain weight and your eating habits support that weight gain in muscle mass, then creatine can help you achieve these goals.
But if your balanced diet is designed to lose weight, then your goal should be muscle retention while in your cutting phase.
Weight Gain
Finally, you can expect to gain weight while consuming creatine. This can come in the form of lean body mass and weight gain from water retention.
Creatine is known to hold onto water, and you can see a slight increase on the scale because of this “water weight.”
Final Thoughts On Does Creatine Make You Hungry
Now you should have an answer to the question: does creatine make you hungry?
While creatine alone will not influence your appetite or hunger, the results from using this supplement can influence your hunger.
When you take this supplement, you can see an increase in endurance and physical performance in the gym. This might make you push harder and exert more energy while working out.
And this is the true reason why you may start to feel hungrier while supplementing with creatine.
Also, there are changes in diet and lifestyle that people tend to make when they start taking supplements. These changes can also be responsible for why you start to feel like you have an increased appetite.
Lastly, if you start to put on more muscle mass, it can lead to you needing to consume more food and increase your food intake to help support this gain in muscle cells.
I hope I was able to answer your questions about this subject. And thank you again for being here and checking out my blog post. I hope to catch you in the next one!
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