Timing Supplements for AMPK and mTOR Activation

by Nils Osmar. September 19, 2023, © 2023
This post is not intended as, and should not be taken as, medical advice.
See full Medical Disclaimer

AMPK is the longevity pathway; mTOR is the growth pathway. We need both for healthy longevity. When one pathway is “on” the other is (usually) switched off.

Fasting (taking a break from eating) activates AMPK. This means we wake up with AMPK activated. It stays activated until we eat. This is one of the primary benefits of fasting.
Exercise further activates AMPK.This is one of the benefits of exercising vigorously in the morning when we’re fasting.
After exercising, if we eat a high protein meal high in leucine, mTOR becomes activated. It then stays activated for around 2 hours, sometimes 3.
So one easy way to cycle between activating AMPK and mTOR is get up in the morning and have some coffee or tea (both are AMPK activators) (skipping breakfast); take (catabolic) supplements that support AMPK activation (with a small amount of food, not enough to turn mTOR on); work out; then have your first meal, making it high in protein so that it activates mTOR. Once you’ve started activating mTOR, it’s time to take our anabolic supplements.

What I’m doing:

I usually stop eating around 7 pm and go to bed around 10.
I get up around 6 a.m. and make some coffee. (These days I’m drinking decaf)
Around 7 a.m., I take some Ca-AKG (an AMPK activator) with the coffee. It has a half life of five minutes so will be out of my system in about an hour.
Around 8 a.m., I take NMN, SIRT 6 activator, berberine, and a few other AMPK activators along with an egg yolk. (The egg yolk is mostly beneficial fats and phospholipids; it doesn’t have enough protein to turn off AMPK and turn on mTOR.
Around 10 a.m, I’ll take a quick shower to warm up, then do some full body resistance training (on my RT days).
My workout is about 1.5 to 2 hours long, but I’m not working out all of that time. It includes some breaks during which I’m standing naked in front of a red light for about 3 minutes (per dose). (We want every inch of our body exposed to the light). During my workout, I periodically push myself to exhaustion, and have a few breaks to “refuel” using the red light.
After exercising, I’ll have some creatine in water with electrolytes. I’ll then have a high protein breakfast and move into the mTOR part of my day. With lunch, or after lunch, I’ll take my testosterone-boosters (like tongkat ali, cistanche and horny goat weed) and hGH-boosters (such as taurine or beta alanine).
Generally speaking, it appears to be beneficial to have AMPK “on” most of the time, but to not be shy about activating mTOR when it’s time to. My current schedule gives me about 17 hours a day of AMPK activation and several hours during which I try to activate mTOR full force.

How it going?

According to PhenoAge and Aging ai.v3, I’m successfully reversing aging on this protocol. So I’d say it’s going well.

My latest Aging.ai v3 result suggests that I’m 29 years younger than my chronological age. I’m 71; it estimates my age as 41.

Yeah, but how accurate is this?

It’s not perfect, but it appears to be a reasonably good way of tracking how we’re aging (or anti-aging). Both Pheno Age and Aging ai correlate pretty well with the Grimage epigenetic clock.
With that said, I don’t take the number literally; I take it, instead, as an indication that internally, my biomarkers are similar to what would be expected in a 41 year old man — and I might have as many healthy years ahead of me as a 41 year old would be expected to (or even more, if I continue using anti-aging interventions).
A 41 year old might be expected to live another 40 years. If I live another 40 years, I’ll be 110, and hopefully in good health. (Which is statistically unusual, but not unheard of; it’s pretty common, for example, in Acciaroli, Italy
It’s also a good comparative marker. My age in previous tests has ranged from 39 to 42. If my “age” (as perceived by the AI) goes up, it may indicate problems. If it goes down, it may indicate I’m going in a good direction.

P.S. Unlike some calculators (such as PhenoAge), Aging.ai v3 does not require that you enter your real age and adjust the answer accordingly. And unlike some methylation tests, it doesn’t require that you enter information on your diet (then lecture you that you should “eat more plants” or whatever the latest supposed consensus is). Instead, it reads your data and gives you a straightforward result.

Some other basics:

I eat an omnivorous diet with lots of fish, meat, raw milk, pastured eggs, root vegetables, avocados, olives, onions, garlic and fermented vegetables, and now and then an apple or some berries. In many ways I’ve tried to model if on the Acciarolin diet, in which fish (anchovies) and the herb rosemary are key staples.
I take about 40 anti-aging supplements a day, including NAD+ boosters, hGH boosters, AKG boosters, glutathione boosters and testosterone boosters, plus one pharmaceutical drug (rapamycin)
Oh, and, my testosterone is 947 ng/dL. My free testosterone is 17.2 pg/mL.

Not medical advice

This article is not intended as, and should not be taken as, medical advice. I’m not advising that people eat any particular diet or take any particular supplement(s), just reporting on what I’m doing. Supplements, like medications and other interventions, can have side effects; I would encourage people to research both possible benefits and side effects before starting on any supplementation regimen, and consult with a medical professional about any issues which might have a medical component. See full Medical Disclaimer

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