errr it's suppose to be taken before the workout.

remember to drink PLENTY of water while on creatine.

i remmeber the 1st time i took creatine, my stool was hard as rock. then when i drank lots of water my stool went back to normal.

How come I perspire significant more after taking creatine?

My training last night, I perspire as many as 2 t-shirts during my weight session once and my cardio session once as well. I mean like really wet those type.

Fortunately, I did drink like 1.5 litres of water during workout.

Water retention by creatine = more water transported into your muscle fibers. If you're sweating a lot while on creatine, you'd better rehydrate more too, bro. While I was on creatine I also used to piss more often during the workout session (perhaps also because I was taking in more water to prevent dehydration).

The size gain is temporary, but it helps you squeeze out some extra reps, or lift slightly heavier than before, thus contributing to actual strength gains 'cause you can subject your muscles to greater stresses while on creatine.

I only use creatine when I'm trying to get past a plateau. Otherwise, I won't load up so much on it because the "size increase" after 2 to 3 weeks of creatine use will vanish within 1 week of ceasing creatine intake. So I don't use creatine to look forward to the temporary size gains.

Some say that it's real, it works, even beginners should use it, etc. but let's just look at it logically. If you can't run 10km in less than an hour, what would you do? Will you load up on EPO so that you can run 10km day after day effortlessly, or will you train your body to adapt to the greater stress before giving it a helping hand? If someone just whacks EPO and has elevated endurance, what happens when he gets off it? No doubt his performance will be slightly better than before, but he won't be able to perform as well as when he was on EPO.

Same goes for creatine. Once you lay off it, usually you won't be able to push for as many reps as you could while on it. You can still push the extra poundages but not for as many reps. It would take some time for you to push as many reps at the higher poundages after you lay off creatine. Hence, some people prefer to continuously use creatine all the time to consistently maintain their heavy poundages in the gym.

Sounds reasonable.

No offense, but since I started using creatine I think I've shrink somewhat or maybe that's just in my mind. Or maybe I have managed to burn more fat, have to measure that sometime next month.

Also my intention was not to heavier but to lift more, and hence burn more energy. Hopefully more than enough to create a caloric deficit after including my meals.

I don't take fat burners as I had a real bad experience with hydroxy cut (the headaches). Therefore I am just giving creatine a go.

In the long run, I'll like to be able to just maintain by doing supersets more frequent like 3 times less lengthy gym session.

Sounds weird I know.

*PS jswong, My employer will be moving to 1Utama by May, probably will see you in Celebrity Fitness (if the firm decides to sponsor that as well)

Doesn't matter when you take the creatine. If you take it before it'll give you the energy to make longer reps and give you more explosive power, if you take it after then it'll be easier for your body to absorb it and better for recovery. If you take it and don't work out, your body will just store it for future use, unless it's plateau-ed then it'll come out in your urine.

Creatine provides the necessary energy for your muscles to contract (like ATP). Naturally when your muscles work, it creates head, the body sweats to dissipate heat. One of the side effect of taking too much creatine (i.e. more than what the body needs) for a prolonged period makes your body intolerant of heat (a.k.a you will sweat a lot more). Not a good thing.

Creatine doesn't work for everyone. There are some who don't feel any effects at all.
I have 2 friends suffered from heart palpitation after taking creatine even on low dosage.

Sometimes it's also due to the creatine quality. I tried E-Excel's creatine and I hardly feel anything. But when I used GNC's pure creatine, I got pumped easily midway through my workouts and I get the benefits of creatine - longer sets and heavier poundages. More fuel for anaerobic activity.

I've also tried Twinlabs' creatine loading drink, that has creatine together with some glucose and sucrose sources to trigger an insulin spike for increased creatine uptake. It works too but you need massive scoops for that, so it gets expensive pretty quickly.. and all those calories from the sugars will need to be gotten rid of too.

I've tried creatine serum, which is creatine suspended in some ester or some shit. Doesn't work, and it costs almost 300 bucks for a small bottle. What a waste of money.

I've also tried creatine ethyl ester, and it works pretty well. Not sure if others who have tried CEE experienced this, but despite regular water intake during workouts, I tend to pee less with CEE than with regular CM. Maybe it's more effective at transporting water into muscles compared to CM, I dunno.