Try This Plant-Based, AMPK-Activating, NAD-Boosting, Sirtuin-Activating Cocktail

by Nils Osmar. January 16, 2022

I take NAD boosters and sirtuin activators most mornings. I’ll sometimes take them as part of this cocktail:

Green Juice. When I have some in the fridge, I like starting out with either 1/2 cup of Suja organic Uber Greens juice (1/2 cup) This is a really good, very low-carb green juice with no fruit juice added, except for a little lemon, The ingredients include cucumber, celery, grapefruit, green chard, green leaf lettuce, lemon, kale, spinach, parsley, peppermint and spearmint tea.I use celery juice or water instead if I’m out of this juice.
Starting with the juice, I add a scoop of ORA Easy Being Green superfoods greens powder (a really good plant-based source of nutrients). Taking it with my NAD boosters helps me make sure I’ll be getting enough phytonutrients that day. There are lots of good green powders; ORA is my current favorite. It has a small amount of plant-based protein which should keep my AMPK (longevity pathway) activated in the mornings without activating mTOR. (I’m a big fan of both AMPK and mTOR activation. But my goal is to keep AMPK activated most of the time, and only switch mTOR on on days when I’m working out, and only at the end of the workout.)
The (tiny) amount of protein in the green powder should help me absorb the resveratrol (if I’m taking resveratrol that day). It has almost no leucine or isoleucine, so is exactly what I want in the mornings; it’ll activate AMPK, not mTOR.
I add 1 teaspoon Lekithos lecithin (gives me a real mental boost, especially when taken with NMN) (and delicious).

Plus these Supplements:

Jarrow CoQ10 (Two 100-mg capsules) (important for mitochondrial health)
Health Thru Nutrition PureQQ Pyrroloquinoline Quinone (100 mg) (works symbiotically with CoQ10
DoNotAge NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) Powder (1.5 grams) (I add one gram to the ORA powder and take the other 0.5 sublingually) (Note: I sometimes take DoNotAge’s NR (nicotinamide riboside) instead.)
DoNotAge resveratrol (0.5 grams) The research on resveratrol dosage in humans is a little iffy, but it seems best to take resveratrol every other day rather than daily. I take resveratrol two or three days a week.
DoNotAge Vitamin D3, K2 and magnesium (2 capsules)(gives me 10,000 iu of vitamin D, my current baseline with the “flu and cold” bugs going around)
DoNotAge Quercetin and Fisetin (500 mg of each) (I sometimes skip these and do a big blast of quercetin and fisetin once every week or two instead. But I’ll take them to activate sirtuins if I’m not taking )

…Then a Contrast Shower

After taking them – I like to hop in the shower and do a contrast shower (alternating between hot and cold, ending on cold), which I find invigorating and which research has found also raises NAD levels. I’ve never come to “like” the cold parts of the shower but I get through them; setting a timer helps.

Is This Breaking my Fast?

Technically speaking, taking in any nutrients at all would be breaking my fast if I were doing water-only fasting. (Even adding electrolytes such as sodium and potassium would be breaking a water-only fast. But everyone does because fasts that lack electrolytes are not safe.)

In my own case, I’m fasting primarily for autophagy (cleaning gunk out of the cells) and ketosis (burning fat and producing ketones, which are beneficial to brain health). Both processes are supported by the juice, powder and supplements I’m taking.

Both the juice and powder have a few grams of protein and carbs. But the amount we’re talking about here is not enough to interfere with either process. And the cocktail is low in leucine, the amino acid which activates mTOR (and turns AMPK off). (The juice is mainly to make sure that the nutrients in the supplements are being absorbed.) So I’m not concerned about the very small amount of protein and carbohydrates interfering with the fast.

The lecithin does have a lot of calories, but its high choline content has actually been found to promote fat loss. And lecithin, being a fat in itself, does not raise insulin or interfere with autophagy or ketosis.

The Effects

This is purely anecdotal, but I find this combination to be both mentally and sexually stimulating. (Both are likely related to the choline in the lecithin.) The sexual effect is enhanced by taking some testosterone boosters an hour or two later.