Our body is a magical and mysterious labyrinth of chemical reactions governed by the dictates of our DNA and yes, the daily choices we make.

We all understand that our food and exercise choices affect our body fat levels, but we also need to understand more about our internal chemistry. As we’ve all learned the hard way, losing fat is NOT as simple as taking calories in and out!

By focusing on manipulating the edicts of our DNA, we can influence our chemistry to work with us in our fat loss efforts, not against us.

Our goal: to take the chaos and cacophony that happens with daily life and orchestrate our chemistry into a beautiful symphony.

We’ve all felt that there are spoilers lurking to spoil our fat loss efforts, it’s true.

Here, we are going to talk about a big one: losing NAD.

Bottom line: NAD allows sugars, fats, and proteins to be converted into energy

Research on NAD for fat loss focuses on the various building blocks of NAD, most notably vitamin B3. Milk is a good source of B3. Don’t just take B3 supplements, there are several forms of B3. B3 in larger doses can cause side effects, even though it is a water-soluble vitamin, and too much of the wrong form of B3 can be counterproductive in efforts to increase NAD.

NAD (= Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) is found in every cell in the body and is an absolute necessity for mitochondrial function – those powerhouses or energy producers in our cells.

NAD decreases with age, but researchers agree that NAD is number 1 in the anti-aging process, as it dictates turning off genes that contribute to the aging process.

How do we lose NAD?

1. Aging… a normal aging process, is the dissipation of NAD – unless we consciously intervene to raise our NAD levels.
2. Alcohol: It’s also a major culprit in all aspects of aging (no, the resveratrol in red wine is minimal and we can’t rationalize more wine for more resveratrol)
3. DNA alterations by lifestyle, medications…again unless we intervene and consciously protect our DNA
4. Lack of exercise – sedentary lifestyle – sitting is the new smoking habit
5. Certain foods can lower our levels over time, but certain foods can help increase our levels.

sirtuins

Sirtuins (also known as longevity genes) are a group of 7 proteins that play a role in aging by regulating cellular health. Sirtuins must have a good supply of NAD. Sirtuins control the expression and aging of DNA, they manage everything to do with cells… unfortunately… if NAD levels are declining… so are cellular efficiency and productivity.

Fasting is often used as an effective tool for fat loss, perhaps this is one reason: fasting has been shown to increase NAD, which activates sirtuins.

There is great hope in sirtuin research with cancer, metabolic problems, glucose metabolism, HIV, and neurodegenerative disorders.

Clinically healthy but obese people have been shown to have lower levels of NAD/Sirtuin in studies. Calorie restriction has been shown to increase these levels and decrease oxidative stress (see my many articles on OS).

The sirt food diet

Yes, there is a Sirtfood diet. It’s also affectionately known as the “skinny gene diet hack.”

Sorry, I’m not going to vote for that, as good as it sounds in theory.

The sirtfood diet combines caloric restriction and “sirtfoods”. I have no problem with SIrtfoods (except red wine) because they are great foods for us for many reasons: nuts, olive oil, blueberries, coffee, turmeric…

Why do I have so much faith in the Sirtfood diet?

Eating enough of these foods to activate sirtuin activity, well, that would not be consistent with the calorie restriction aspect of the diet at all.

I’m a big fan of intermittent fasting for most people; if their doctor agrees, the person is a candidate for intermittent fasting. However, a few things to note about calorie restriction, which is NOT intermittent fasting.

• When your body is calorie restricted, it uses its emergency energy stores, or glycogen, and also burns fat and muscle… it’s never good to sacrifice muscle – the definition of biting your nose to piss off your face!
• The use of glycogen releases the water it used for storage. This is the “water weight”.
• In the first week of extreme calorie restriction, only about a third of the weight loss comes from fat, while the rest comes from water, muscle, and glycogen.
• As soon as calorie intake increases, the body replenishes its glycogen stores and the weight immediately returns. How miserable and demotivating.
• the body will often lower its metabolic rate, which no one wants, making it easier to gain weight in the future.

Yes. – We need to support our NAD production. NAD is a necessity for life. IV NAD infusions have been used successfully for several years by athletes to naturally increase performance and recovery, people with aging issues, opioid and alcohol addictions, depression and anxiety, energy, PTSD, chronic fatigue, mood repair. DNA and neurodegenerative disorders. Finding more ways to increase NAD and reduce oxidative stress are the real keys to living a proactive and healthy lifestyle.