NAD for weight loss

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

We all understand that our food choices and exercise affect our levels of body fat, 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 getting 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 saboteurs are lurking to mess up 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 various 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 declines with age, but researchers agree that NAD is #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 process of aging, is the dissipation of NAD – unless we consciously intervene to raise our NAD levels.
2. Alcohol: It’s also a major culprit for all aspects of aging (no, the resveratrol in red wine is minimal and we can’t rationalize more wine to get more resveratrol)
3. DNA alterations from lifestyle, medications…again unless we step in and consciously protect our DNA
4. Lack of exercise – sedentary lifestyle – sitting is the new habit of smoking
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 DNA expression and aging, they manage everything about cells…unfortunately…if NAD levels are declining…so are cellular efficiency and productivity.

Fasting, often used as an effective fat loss tool, may be one of the reasons for this: 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. Caloric restriction has been shown to increase these levels and decrease oxidative stress (see my many articles on OS).

The Sirtfood Diet

Yes, there is a Sirtfood diet. It is 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 a lot of faith in the Sirtfood diet?

Eating enough of these foods to trigger Sirtuin activity, well, that wouldn’t be consistent with the calorie restriction aspect of the diet at all.

I’m a big supporter of intermittent fasting for most people; if your doctor agrees, you are a candidate for intermittent fasting. However, a few things to keep in mind about caloric restriction, which is NOT intermittent fasting.

• When your body is on caloric restrictions, 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 mess with your face!
• The use of glycogen releases the water you used for storage. This is the “weight of water”.
• In the first week of extreme caloric restriction, only about a third of the weight loss comes from fat, with the rest coming from water, muscle, and glycogen.
• As soon as calorie intake increases, the body replenishes its glycogen stores, and the weight returns immediately. How miserable and demotivating.
• the body will often lower its metabolic rate, which nobody 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 enhance performance and recovery, people with aging issues, opioid and alcohol addictions, depression and anxiety, energy, PTSD, chronic fatigue, pain 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.