Creatine Calculator: Your Daily Dose, Loading Plan and Scoops

Enter your bodyweight to get a daily creatine dose, a loading plan if you want one, and a rough date your muscles will be full. It also tells you how many scoops that is and how long a tub will last.

How the calculator works

It follows the dosing in the International Society of Sports Nutrition's position stand on creatine (Kreider et al., 2017), the same numbers our creatine dosage guide uses.

The weight cut-off is a rounding choice, not a hard line. Someone who weighs 58 kg won't go wrong on 5 g a day, and someone at 62 kg won't miss out on 3 g. Bigger muscles hold more creatine, so heavier and more muscular people sit toward the top of the range.

Should you load?

Only if you want the effect quickly. Loading fills your muscles in about a week. Taking 3 to 5 g from the start gets you to the same place in three to four weeks.

The catch with loading is your stomach. The calculator splits the loading dose into four smaller ones for a reason: in a study of soccer players, a single 10 g dose gave 56% of them diarrhea, while the same amount split into two 5 g doses was no worse than placebo (Ostojic & Ahmetovic, 2008). If you have a sensitive stomach, skip loading altogether. Our page on creatine bloating covers the rest.

Checking your scoop

Don't trust the scoop that came in the tub to hold 5 g. Some hold 3 g, some 2.5 g, and a few hold more. The serving size on the Supplement Facts panel tells you what the scoop is meant to hold. A cheap kitchen scale settles it in ten seconds, and you only need to check once.

A note from me, Tom: I've taken 5 g a day for about ten years. Getting the number exactly right matters much less than taking it every day.

Who shouldn't use this

The calculator assumes you're a healthy adult. Talk to a doctor before taking creatine if you have kidney or liver disease, are pregnant or breastfeeding, are under 18, or take medication that affects your kidneys. Our page on whether creatine is safe explains why.

Questions people ask

How much creatine should I take for my weight?

3 g a day if you weigh under about 60 kg (132 lb), and 5 g a day if you weigh more. Very muscular people can go up to about 0.1 g per kg of bodyweight, split into two doses.

How long does a 500 g tub of creatine last?

At 5 g a day, 100 days, or a little over three months. At 3 g a day, about 166 days. A loading phase uses roughly 100 to 150 g in its first week.

Is a scoop of creatine 5 g?

Often, but not always. Some scoops hold 3 g or 2.5 g. The serving size on the Supplement Facts panel tells you what the scoop is meant to hold, and a kitchen scale confirms it.

TD

Written by Tom D

Tom has trained in the gym for years and has taken 5 g of creatine every day for about a decade, with magnesium on and off for most of the year. Reading the research behind supplements started as a hobby; this site is where he writes it up. He isn't a doctor or dietitian, so every claim links to the study behind it.

Sources

1. Kreider et al. 2017, ISSN position stand on creatine safety and efficacy (JISSN)
2. Antonio et al. 2021, Common questions and misconceptions about creatine (JISSN)
3. Ostojic & Ahmetovic 2008, Stomach upset and creatine dose in athletes

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