Intro:
Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking at recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I am going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good in your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals and how to get them on the table make food that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly, and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies. Well in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.
Main Episode:
Hey there friends. Welcome to today’s episode. Thank you so much for being here. I am very excited to dive in today to talk about a supplement that you may or may not be familiar with. And why am I talking about this on the podcast? Well, a couple of reasons. Number one, creatine is something spoiler alert, you already knew, if you saw the title, creatine that we’re talking about creatine is something that I have thought about. For a long time like it’s been it’s been in the back of my mind, it might have been in the back of your mind before to Oregon, this might be totally brand new to you. I was very drawn to it for a lot of reasons that I will talk about, and I have never taken it. So at this point, I’m telling you, we’re going to talk about something that I have never even taken. But I did want to talk about this so that maybe if you’ve never it’s been a little bug in your ear, like it’s in my ear of like, Oh, that’s interesting to know about I like to learn about new things, and what they can, you know, the benefits, the downfall, etc. Number two is, it’s more recent. For me, this was not my norm. Number two, but I’m going on a tangent already, um, my husband started taking it recently. And so it’s in our house, I’m seeing it more. It’s right up by the Greens powder and the protein. And overall, I will say I’ve several episodes about supplements and I 100%. My approach is that supplements are there to do exactly that to supplement the rest of your diet, the rest of your nutrition intake, I am all about getting nutrients in what you need vitamins, minerals from whole clean foods as much as you can. I am also about using supplementation where it benefits you. So I’ve shared before supplements that we’ve used not used. Currently, right now I’m just using whey isolate, and I’m using greens powder. And then it’s not even a supplement because I just drink bone broth, which is a collagen source. So I’m not taking collagen right now, I just drink bone broth as a way to get collagen. So that’s all I’m doing. My husband, like I said has added in creatine there. So we’ve had just more conversations around it. Reason number three I’m bringing this up is because some of you have asked me about it. It’s been more in private settings when I have coaching calls, or I’m training somebody one on one who usually has dove off a little more into the deep end of like science of nutrition, sports nutrition or you know, different things like that they’ve gone down the rabbit holes right there over on bodybuilding.com and things like that. And they’re saying like, Hey, so what’s this about creatine and so that’s why some of you might have gone down that rabbit hole yourselves and some of you might, you know, be sticking with whole foods and not know about this. So it’s absolutely not an essential thing. Obviously, I’m not even taking it essential as a supplement, I should say because we are getting it in our diet, which we’ll talk about. But I just wanted to make you aware of it. And if it is something that you’ve thought about or might want to add to your routine, just something to be aware of. We talked about all different kinds of health and fitness things on this podcast. I had fun talking about the upcoming trends for 2024. And this has been popping up a little bit so I figured we would chat about it. Now. The first source I’m going to share with you this is from Cleveland clinic.org And it just defines it what is creatine? Creatine is a natural source of energy that helps your skeletal muscles flex. So that’s contract, okay? It helps create a steady supply of energy in your muscles. So they keep working, especially while you’re exercising. So and also, I’m going to take a pause here to tell you, you might hear my baby in the background, and I want you to know that my husband is home. And he is equipped with bottles and is probably trying to give him a bottle right now. And Mike is probably very mad that I’m not just nursing him. So I will get this information to you and I will probably go give him what he wants, which is not a bottle. But just so you know, if you’re like us, you’re gonna get him like there is an adult taking care of him right now. All right, so Korea teen, I said helps create a steady supply of energy and muscles, right? So the deal with creatine is we do get it from food. So we are naturally getting it from red meat, seafood, animal milk, like how goat sheep, alright, and it says, according to Cleveland clinic.org, that about half of our body’s supply of creatine comes from our diet. Now, whereas the other half come from our body produces it, survivors produce it naturally in your liver, kidneys, and pancreas, they deliver about 95% of the creatine to your skeletal muscles to use during physical activity. The rest goes to your heart, brain and other tissues. So you have it, your body’s making it, you’re getting it from food. The reason for supplementing with it then is and this is according to the article, some people take creatine supplements because they work out a lot or don’t get enough creatine in their diet. So this is why it’s popped in my head. I you know, right now, this is a bad example of saying, you know, working out because right now I’m still kind of falling my postpartum protocol of rebuilding my core, it’s still working out. But it’s nothing like you know, it’s a high level athlete, okay, far away from that right now. But it’s kind of that like, why I use whey protein powder. And why I use greens powder is just to make sure like, I was not using greens powder every single day, I was trying to get all of my vegetable sources from Whole Foods. However, this is, you know, seasonally, I don’t have romaine, and spinach is outside to go pick in the summer, we eat a ton of sales, we were drowning in sales this past summer. And I love it because I grow in the yard, I could just go pick it and it’s great, fantastic. I am not buying fresh vegetables every other day at the grocery store right now. So it looks like a lot like relying on frozen vegetables using more like root vegetables that are seasonal right now. So I have started using your greens powder every day in my shake. I might not do that when I get it’s better to like salad season and whatnot. So that’s kind of how the way I think about creatine is something to think about, in case I’m not having red meat that often I’m not having animal fat, that often that kind of thing. So that’s just why some people are taking it. It says creatine supplements exist as powders, tablets, capsules, liquids and energy bars. Is it healthy to take creatine. And then there’s a list that says, Well, studies show it’s safe for many people to take it however, there isn’t enough evidence to know if it’s safe for you if and then it goes through a list of like if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, have diabetes, have kidney disease have kidney disease or liver disease. And, as always talk to your health care provider before taking something. So another interesting this was years ago when I was hearing about the benefits of it, about the cognitive benefits of it and and I in the podcast that I was listening to about this years ago again, so I do not remember which one it was. They were talking it was like a high level doctor talking about the benefits of creatine for kids actually. And I have not done more research on that. I’m not rushing to go get my six year old creatine. It’s just something to think about if your kids are athletes to look into to maybe talk to a doctor that you trust that’s a little bit more open to these kinds of things. And not again, it’s naturally in meats. It’s naturally being produced by your body. It’s just kind of one of those if you think your self or maybe your kids this is totally again at your own discretion. Just something to think about something that I’ve thought about with having four boys who are you going to be they’re already active, but as they grow and progress in teenagers, those kinds of things are what I think about I for me, I’ve not even looked into it with BT with breastfeeding currently. But that’s probably another whole rabbit hole to go down.
Now why I was so drawn to this years ago beyond Okay, so yes, you could take it to essentially, maybe get some benefits to enhance your workouts and to feel stronger in your workouts. and those kinds of things. But why I was very drawn to it years ago when I heard about it on a podcast is, this is still according to Cleveland clinic.org. Studies suggest creatine supplements may help brain function in people 60 and older. This includes short term memory, reasoning, neuro protection, keeping groups of nervous nerve cells saved from injury or damage, and said researchers are still studying whether creatine supplements may help people with cognitive mental conditions, including dementia. I’m sure I’ve shared on the podcast before that my grandma has dementia. I was just chatting with this about this with our chasing greatness group. On our January live zoom together so if you were there, shout out. You watch the replay. Shout out to you do, you don’t know what that is? Go look at the website chasing greatness group is our monthly workout group. And we were I was sharing that. We were talking about sweeteners and sugars and things like that. And my grandma has dementia. And there have been lots of studies linking artificial sweeteners to dementia, but it’s been in very big amounts. Because we were talking about if it’s okay to have artificial sweeteners in there sparingly, which SPOILER ALERT sparingly, there’s not really any research to show, in my opinion, I have to be so careful on top of this stuff, my opinion, the research really only shows that it’s like a lot like big amounts of aspartame, sucralose, etc, are going to lead to dementia. But my grandma did drink a lot. She drank a not alcohol, you drink a two liter of Diet Coke a day. And thinking about that I’m like, man, like, again, so many factors. We don’t know something to just to mill around up there. Right? So I’m always thinking of things that, you know, the books the book by Max lluvia genius foods he his mom had, I believe dementia might have been Alzheimer’s, but it was one of those cognitive illnesses. And he talks a lot about foods to safeguard your brain, hopefully trying to be proactive and preventative. So when I heard about this, I was like, wow, that is very interesting that that could put even if it could potentially help against something like dementia and there’s, you know, very few risks. That is something to think about. Still list a little bit here from Cleveland. clinic.org said, the most common creatine supplement is creatine monohydrate. It’s a dietary supplement that increases muscle performance in short duration, high intensity resistance exercises such as weightlifting, sprinting and biking. So that’s the most common one. Now another source I had for you today’s that was all from Cleveland Clinic. But another one this was so interesting, this was on PubMed Central, just a journal published here that’s talked about the gist of the article was that way more is known about there’s been way more studies done with men and creatine than with women. But it did say that, let’s see. Huh, creatine supplementation among pre menopausal females appears to be effective for improving strength and exercise performance. postmenopausal females may also experience benefits in skeletal muscle size and function when consuming high doses of creatine, and favorable effects on bone when combined with resistance training. This is huge. We are here to talk about longevity and protecting ourselves and we know that protein and having muscle mass all helps safeguard us against injury and protect us long term slow down the aging process like feel even better for longer all of that. So that’s really, really huge. And then it also said that the currents because people talk about the risks like well, what is the risks that are there any risks to this and again, do your own research, talk to your doctor before taking anything but this is again according to PubMed, the current body of literature that has evaluated the effect of creatine supplementation in females suggests that the risk to benefit ratio is low with most studies indicating that there are numerous metabolic hormonal and neurological benefits Whoa, so it’s looking good. It’s looking in favor of to elbow though, to me, it’s looking like a why would you not again, this has to do with the information that you will, like I shared with you guys too. There’s always a you know, cost factor to how much you want to prioritize. There are certain things my husband I were just talking about, we used to take fish oil, we haven’t taken fish oil and forever because I said, Okay, I’m gonna stop buying it. I’m just gonna make fish at least once a week, more times a week. Well, I haven’t been really making fish once a week, or multiple times a week and we’re not buying fish oil. So we need to get back to one of those that we all have to pick and choose right grocery prices are high I get that. We’ve got to pick and choose what we’re going to supplement with what we’re gonna get through Whole Foods, and just make informed decisions do what’s best for you from there, but two books that I would love to recommend to you if you have not read already, our genius foods by Maxwell gear that do just talk about whole foods that can help safeguard your brain and your body. And forever strong by Dr. Gabriel lion, which I’m still finishing up a time recording this, but it’s just been, well a wealth of information, supporting animal protein, high protein diets, all of that. So, I hope this was helpful. Maybe got your wheels spinning a little bit to something to chat about. For us. This is something to chat about at the dinner table. Because that’s what we do here. Next podcast episode I am going to do just kind of one more in the nutrition department and then veer off a little bit.
Next episode, we’re going to talk about five tips to help stop bloating. That’s an issue that a lot of us face. I’ve heard this a couple times from the ladies in my challenges, things like that. So we’re gonna talk about that next episode. Till then I hope you have a great rest of your day and I’ll talk to you soon
