Why I Started to Supplement with Nicotinamide Mononucleotide (NMN)

My name is Vince Cording and on the 7th of April 2019 I ordered two bottles of Nicotinamide Mononucleotide (NMN) from Amazon.com. I was 55 on the 22nd of April 2019 and I started ‘My NMN Experiment’ on that day.

I am making a series of podcasts, videos on YouTube and a library on Medium to map My NMN Experiment. I am recording my progress for myself and also to help or inform others both now and in the future.

So, if you’re reading this, I expect you too are at least middle aged and interested in longevity — and if not longevity then how to make the years you do have left as enjoyable and rewarding as possible.

So, how or why did my journey start? For me I started to notice a marked decline in my stamina and recovery from exercise and from injury as I entered my fifties.

I joined the Army at the age of 17 and obviously had to remain fairly fit until I retired at the age of 40. Going to the gym and keeping active was a habit, and a habit I was happy to keep. I was also acutely aware that men and women of my age, even veterans, were getting fatter — much fatter!

I assume, that like me they were listening to the general advice of eat low fat food, eat pasta, drink skimmed milk or fruit juice and keep animal fat, eggs etc. to a minimum. BUT it wasn’t working, I was feeling bloated and getting fat, I had to exercise for an hour a day, five or six times a week just to maintain…not lose weight just stay the same!

As a boy I remember my father and my uncles, they never went to the gym a day in their lives. Up until the early eighties they ate loads of red meat, bacon and eggs all cooked in lard. But when our diets changed and my father started to eat cereal in the morning, eating more bread etc. he started to put on weight.

So, the first step of my journey opened my eyes up to the ketogenic or Keto diet and the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) lifestyle. I’ll be honest, most — actually nearly all my research was done on YouTube where I met the likes of Dr Eric Burg, Dr. Josh Axe and The Diet Doctor, check them out if you too are finding that the in-vogue low-fat lifestyle is actually keeping you fat. Those people who say eat less and move more have got it so wrong. I urge you to watch their videos on Keto and Low Carb diets, the main thing to remember is the diet should be a dietary regimen and not a fad type unstainable diet like the cabbage soup or zone diet or even juicing.

The first and biggest shock was the fat lie put forward by Ancel Keyes, (check out the YouTube video ‘Big Fat Lies’ by Fat head Movie; if one man is responsible for the epidemic of obesity related diseases like cancer and diabetes it is him. The mantra I go by now is ‘always follow the money’ — so who said breakfast is the most important meal of the day, maybe the cereal companies that want you to buy their products maybe?

Why is the American food pyramid the shape it is with bread, cereals and pasta holding the greatest quantity at the base? Could it be because the US is the second biggest producers of cereal and fourth largest producers of wheat in the World?

So, my first step was to change my diet by reducing my Carbs; really mostly processed sugar, and I started to read the labels on food; let me tell you the food companies make it difficult for you understand them. They mix up the measurements so you can’t easily work it out, they will say measurements are based on a serving size of two cups, then list the actual measurements in grams.

The most confusing or most annoying deletion on the nutritional facts label is the percentage daily allowance for sugar, it is never listed, that’s because in the majority of cases one serving either exceeds or constitutes a large chunk of the normal daily allowance and companies know this would stop you buying it, remember just follow the money!

I’ve learnt that there are three macros, the things that all food is made up of, they are fat, protein and Carbohydrates. If you don’t have enough fat or protein in your diet, you can become sick or in severe cases you could die. Not so if you reduce or even cut out carbs, the Keto and carnivore diet are testaments to this.

Not that only eating meat and fatty fish etc. is the key, I think it is cutting out or greatly reducing processed food and therefore sugar — that is the REAL game-changer.

So, by cutting carbs and sugar in my diet and by that I mean bad Carbs such as bread, pasta, chocolate, mainly processed foods and getting my Carbs from cruciferous vegetables, I lost about six inches from my waist in just over a year, with no increase in exercise — I now ensure that I go to the gym at least twice a week, but no more than three times a week and I don’t exercise for more than forty minutes during each visit. This will not change during this experiment.

I do currently stick to a low carb diet for five or six days a week and I intermittent fast too. For one or two days a week I do indulge myself, I eat pizza with my family on pizza night and I drink wine at the weekend, but not to excess. Even though it is only for a few days, I do feel the difference with my energy levels and general well-being, and if you ask my wife my attitude also changes, allegedly I am even crankier.

I reduced my alcohol intake when I switched to my LCHF diet and I now very rarely drink beer, although I do drink red wine in moderation at the weekend. Now I generally only drink vodka and diet coke, the reasons for only drinking white spirits are explained very convincingly by Thomas Delauer in his YouTube video ‘How Alcohol Affects a Ketogenic Diet.’

I will record key markers on my 55th birthday and will give regular updates as my NMN experiment continues. I will also produce content on NMN related topics such as reasons to take it, things to consider before taking NMN, the best type of administration, where to buy NMN, costs etc.

I don’t think NMN is a panacea for a long and healthy life, I think it is just an element; but what appears to be an important element…we shall see.