Going on a cruise, creatine?

[manowar669]

My fiance booked us a 5-day cruise to Bermuda for my birthday. I don't want to try to take creatine through customs/security (small container of white crystalline powder!!). Should I just not worry about it and resume taking it when I get home? I imagine I can't "oversaturate" myself prior to leaving. I'm not worried about EFAs or anything else, since food will be in abundance, and I'm sure salmon will be easily accesible, and there is a gym on board.

[Petey1]

can you not just take the tub so they can see what it is ?

[Al3X]

Just take it in small plastic bags. :D

[MixmasterNash]

Don't take it. It's a cruise. You can eat a lot of beef. Don't load on creatine either -- you'll just waste it.

[kad]

Yeah. And if the gym is anything like the one on the cruise ship I was on... it'll have a ton of cardio equipment, a few machines, and a dumbbell rack. Just a warning. :)

[Flactoid]

Don't take it. It's a cruise. You can eat a lot of beef. Don't load on creatine either -- you'll just waste it.
I agree. Laying off supplemented creatine for 5 days or so isnt gonna matter.

An Orgy of Excess

I’m still amazed that people use so much creatine, especially with all of the data showing how little we actually need. One study showed that after loading, muscle creatine levels were maintained on 0.03g/kg creatine each day (Hultman et al., 1996). This means that a resting 220—pound athlete could maintain creatine levels on a mere 3g/day (and most people using creatine are nowhere near this size)! Keep in mind that this doesn’t not mean that a 100kg guy absolutely needs 3g/day; it simply means that this is as low as researchers have gone while still maintaining elevated levels (i.e. it seems to be the upper limit of what we need).

Now let’s think about this, if most of us will need less than 3g of creatine a day, and we’re probably going to get around 1g from the meat in our diet, this leaves 1-2g a day that we need to supplement. This is supported by another study where weight training subjects ingested the standard maintenance dose (5g/day), and excreted nearly all of it (~4g/day) (Vandenberghe et al., 1997).

In other words, the subjects could only use a gram of supplemented creatine each day! If this seems like a very low amount, you’re absolutely right! In fact, this amount is so low that we probably don’t even need this additional daily supplementation!

^From an interesting article on Testosterone Nation by by David J. Barr.

Here's the link: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=FB28006BA962C6550E062AAC9B8BD44A.hydra?id=459369

[BG5150]

The reason that there is a recommended 5g is that a portion of the creatine taken supplementally is unused and turned into creatinine and flushed out.

I agree. Laying off supplemented creatine for 5 days or so isnt gonna matter.
:withstupi

[RedSpikeyThing]

Enjoy your vacation. Screw the gym. Sit in the sun and stuff your face. That's what vacations are for. If you feel like doing something healthy, swim in the pool and have a rum and diet coke.

[Beast]

Just remember, you paid for all of that food. Eat as much as you can!

[Flactoid]

The reason that there is a recommended 5g is that a portion of the creatine taken supplementally is unused and turned into creatinine and flushed out.


:withstupi

Right, it says this in the article that I linked to. (I didn't post the entire article in my post.) I didn't mean to imply that taking creatine supplements is totally unnecessary, as it might have seemed since this is the last thing stated in the quote from the article I posted. I figured people would go and read the rest of the article on their own.

Now you’re thinking, "Whoa Dave, all that creatine has gone to your head! That dosing schedule would mean that we don’t need to use it at all!" Not so, because we’d still need to supplement after our workouts. If you’re working out and using creatine 4-5 times a week, then you’d only be missing a few days a week of loading, and any minor dips in muscle creatine levels would be bumped back up to max on training days.



There's a bit more from the article. It basically goes on to say that creatine LOADING is unnecessary and much of it can't be utilized by the body.

So to the O/P, missing a few days is fine. When you get back from your cruise, resume normal creatine dosage, and you'll make up for the slightly lower levels you may have experienced on the cruise.

[pbfreak9999]

ya u dont have to bring it..i wouldnt..its vacation, but u probably could..and wouldnt hurt u if u did bring it