Why I Eat Carnivore
September 10, 2026
Creatine spent years looking like it belonged on Venice Beach.
Now it’s everywhere. More women are asking me about it, influencers love talking about it, and like most things that catch fire on social media, you can pretty quickly find somebody claiming it does just about everything.
The difference with creatine is that there’s actually a legitimate body of research behind it. It’s one of the few supplements where I can say, yes, there’s something worth talking about here.
That does not mean every claim you hear about creatine is true.
Creatine is a compound your body already makes, and you also get some through foods, particularly meat and fish. Most of it is stored in your muscles, where it helps provide energy for short, high-intensity efforts.
That’s why creatine has been studied so much in connection with strength training. Taking supplemental creatine increases the amount available in the body, which can help support training performance and, when combined with resistance training, gains in strength and lean mass.
In other words, this isn’t some mystery powder somebody invented on TikTok.
Yes, there’s good evidence that creatine can help when you combine it with resistance training.
A 2024 meta-analysis of adults under 50 found that people using creatine while resistance training gained about 1.14 kilograms more lean body mass on average than people doing resistance training alone.
But notice the important part of that sentence: while resistance training.
Creatine is not sitting in the cabinet building muscle for you.
This is where I want to be a little more careful than the internet usually is.
A lot of the creatine research historically involved men. A 2025 systematic review looking specifically at active women found some positive results, but most of the individual studies did not find a significant performance advantage over placebo. The researchers also pointed out that the female-specific evidence base is still relatively small.
That doesn’t mean creatine doesn’t work for women. It means we shouldn’t take every finding from male-dominated research and pretend every question about women has already been settled.
There’s a difference.
This is an area I think is worth watching.
A 2026 analysis of research in postmenopausal women found small improvements in lean mass and leg-press strength with creatine supplementation. The benefits were most apparent in studies combining at least 5 grams per day with resistance training. The analysis did not find an overall improvement in bone density.
So if somebody tells you creatine is definitely going to fix your bones, build a bunch of muscle and solve menopause, we have gotten ahead of ourselves.
But for women who are getting older and already doing resistance training? There is enough evidence here to make creatine a reasonable conversation.
You can make this very complicated if you want to. The supplement industry will be happy to help.
You’ll see loading protocols, different doses, different formulations and plenty of products promising that their version is somehow special.
For most people considering basic supplementation, creatine monohydrate is the place to start. It’s the form with the deepest research base, and daily doses in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 grams are common in studies and recommendations. Some research uses more, particularly loading protocols or studies involving older adults, but more is not automatically better.
If you have kidney disease, are pregnant, take medications that affect kidney function or have another medical concern, this is where you ask your healthcare professional instead of letting your personal trainer become your doctor.
I know my lane.
No.
Creatine monohydrate has the research behind it.
You will find micronized creatine, flavored creatine, creatine blends and containers designed to look like they should be stored next to ammunition.
Buy whatever you want. Just understand that a more aggressive-looking label does not make the creatine more effective.
You do not need to turn this into a hobby.
Possibly, and this is worth understanding before somebody steps on the scale and panics.
Creatine can increase water stored in muscle, so some people see an increase in body weight, particularly early on. Over time, when creatine is combined with resistance training, increases in lean mass can also affect what the scale says.
That is not the same thing as saying creatine is making you gain body fat.
If you’re strength training, this is also a good example of why I don’t want the scale being the only thing you use to decide whether something is working.
This is the part that matters most to me as a trainer.
Creatine may help support your training. It does not replace your training.
If you’re sleeping four hours, barely eating, training randomly and hoping a scoop of powder is going to fix the situation, I have bad news.
Do the basics first. Train consistently. Eat reasonably well. Get enough protein. Sleep. Then decide whether adding creatine gives you something useful on top of that.
Supplements are supposed to supplement something.
Kind of the point.
I think creatine is a reasonable supplement for a lot of women to consider, especially women who are resistance training. It has a much better research base than most of the stuff taking up space in the supplement aisle.
But I also think we should be accurate about what we know. The research specifically in women is still catching up, and creatine does not suddenly become necessary because your Instagram feed discovered it.
If you want to take a supplement, take one because the evidence makes sense and it fits what you’re trying to accomplish—not because the label looks serious.
Then go lift something.
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