At Phil's 65th birthday dinner, our daughter asked what we do for our hearts. Neither of us had an answer.
For nine years we've walked the same loop by the river, and we thought that counted. Then Carol from our walking group told us what she and Ron take: one small red softgel with breakfast and another with supper, and it never burns. That's why a red bag sits next to our coffee maker now, and why Jenny finally got her answer.
I'm sixty-two, and I spent most of my working years in the front office of an elementary school here in Knoxville. My husband Phil is sixty-five and retired from the county water department, and he's the driest man I know. He hates a fuss about as much as he hates cold coffee.
For his sixty-fifth birthday we took him to our favorite barbecue place, the one with a roll of paper towels on every table. Our daughter Jenny drove in for it. She teaches high-school math, and somewhere between the ribs and the banana pudding she asked, half joking, what the two of us actually do for our hearts.
Phil said we walk. I said we walk every weekday morning, rain or shine. Jenny set her fork down, and I could tell from her face that the joking part was over. "Dad, walking the same loop since 2016 isn't a plan," she said. "What are you two doing on purpose?"
I said what anybody would say: we both feel fine. And we do. Jenny just nodded, like I'd walked right into it. "That's my point, Mom. Fine is the time to start." Phil asked for the check and announced that was plenty of heart talk for one birthday. He was quiet the whole drive home, though, and Phil is never quiet in the truck.
We'd tried things over the years, the way most people do. There's a cupboard in our kitchen full of half-used bottles to prove it, including some store-bought cayenne capsules Phil quit after one afternoon because, in his words, they burned all the way down. Meanwhile I'd started wearing two pairs of gloves on our winter walks, and Phil's afternoon nap had crept from Sundays to most days of the week. Little things. Phil would tell you none of it was worth a fuss, and most days I'd have agreed with him.
Then Carol Pruitt weighed in. Our walking group has a group text, and it's mostly who's bringing muffins and whether it's too wet to walk. That week somebody asked who wanted to try the long loop up to the overlook in January. I'd told the ladies about Jenny's question on Tuesday's walk, mostly for a laugh. Carol, who is sixty-eight and bossy in the best way, answered a question nobody had asked.
"Donna and Phil, this one's for you, and I'm only saying it once," she wrote. "Start before you need to. Both of you."
I went out on the back porch and texted her directly, which I almost never do.
"Carol, Jenny has a point and I hate it. All we do is walk and eat a little better than we used to. I'm in two pairs of gloves every winter and Phil naps most afternoons. I don't even know what you mean by start. Start what?"
She called that evening while I was loading the dishwasher, and Carol being Carol, she didn't bother with hello.
"Ron and I were the two of you a little over a year ago," she said. "Same loop, same cold hands, and Ron could fall asleep in a lawn chair at two in the afternoon. We started taking something with breakfast and supper, and we haven't missed a day since. Come get coffee after Thursday's walk and I'll show you. And tell Phil it doesn't burn."
What Carol showed us over coffee after Thursday's walk
We met at the coffee shop by the trailhead, still in our walking shoes, and before I'd even sat down Carol had her phone out. A photo of a red bag on her kitchen counter, right next to the toaster: Aurivita Cayenne Pepper softgels. "Ron keeps it there," she said. "He's the one who remembers."
Then she explained it in plain terms. Your body makes its own nitric oxide, the signal that tells your blood vessels to relax and open so blood can flow. You make less of it as the years go by, which is simply part of getting older. Capsaicin, the stuff that makes cayenne hot, switches on something called TRPV1 in the lining of your blood vessels, and that helps your body make its own. "It's your own pathway, Donna," she said. "This just gives it a little help every day." Phil, a water department man for life, said that was the first heart talk that ever made sense to him.
"Ron and I have taken it every day for over a year," she said. "And we're hardly the only ones. Over 20,000 people have bought it, Donna. You think every one of them likes spicy food?" "It's cayenne and a few vitamins and herbs, that's all it is. They give you a 120-day money-back guarantee, so there's no real risk in trying it for a season and seeing for yourself."
I laughed. "Carol, Phil can't get through half a jalapeño." Phil nodded like a man under oath.
"It's a softgel. You won't taste a thing," she said. "One with breakfast, one with supper, and go on about your day. Give it ten weeks." "By spring, you two will be the ones talking somebody else into it."
I had my doubts. That bottle of store-bought cayenne was still in our cupboard, nearly full, and I'd bought plenty of bottles on a good story before.
But Carol had texted me the link before I got home, and that evening, with Phil watching the ballgame next to me, I ordered the buy two, get one free bundle anyway.
The first week, and what Phil said out on the porch
The box was on our porch a few days later. Carol says they ship within 24 hours, and I believe her. Three red bags, and inside each one, small red softgels, glossy as the cinnamon candies my mother kept in her purse.
I set one bag next to the coffee maker and we each took one with breakfast. It went down easy. I didn't taste a thing, and nothing burned. A little while later I felt a slight warmth, about like the first sip of coffee on a cold morning.
Phil eyed his like it owed him money. After that store-bought capsule he'd sworn off cayenne for life, so I'll admit I watched him. He swallowed it with his coffee, then asked if there was any more bacon.
That's the whole routine. We take them right there at the counter, and since the bag never moves, neither of us has to remember where we put it.
The next morning, same thing. Coffee on, two red softgels.
By day three Phil was taking his without being reminded, which if you've met Phil is about the highest praise he gives anything.
One softgel with breakfast and one with supper, and for once a routine neither of us needed a sticky note on the fridge to keep.
I texted Carol: "Is that really all there is to it? Three days in and Phil hasn't complained once. That's a record."
She wrote back: "Easy is the whole idea, hon. It's made for people our age who are tired of capsules that burn going down and do nothing you can notice. That's why I haven't missed a day in over a year."
I caught myself smiling at a bag of cayenne while I wiped the counter. Silly, I know.
But I did feel a little hopeful. Quietly hopeful, the way you feel after you make that phone call you've been putting off for a month.
And that felt right to me.
One evening that first week, out on the porch, Phil said out of nowhere that he liked the little bit of warmth he got after breakfast. I hadn't even asked. Then he went back to his crossword. And the worry I'd carried home from that birthday dinner felt lighter, now that we'd started.
I felt like a woman who finally had an answer for her daughter.
And that was WEEK ONE.
Why this cayenne went down easy when the store-bought kind never did
Around week three I got home from the morning loop and realized I'd walked the whole thing in one pair of gloves. The second pair was still in my coat pocket. Phil had skipped his afternoon nap three days running. I wanted to hear the whole thing again, slower this time, so I called Carol and grilled her about that little red softgel.
What she told me annoyed me a little, mostly when I thought about the nine years we'd spent counting the river loop as our whole plan.
Why "just keep walking" only gets you so far
The usual advice at our age is keep walking and eat a few more vegetables. Walking matters, and Phil and I will be out on that greenway until somebody makes us stop. But you can do the same loop every weekday for nine years, and we did, and still come home with cold hands and a husband headed for the couch.
The other route is the supplement aisle. You know the one. A whole wall of bottles, most of them ground cayenne powder or fish oil, and the same advice from everybody you ask: give it time, be patient. Phil and I had been patient since 2016.
So you keep walking and keep buying bottles, and the one thing that changes with age keeps right on changing. As the years go by your body makes less of its own nitric oxide, the signal that tells your blood vessels to relax and open so blood can flow.
Why Aurivita does what a powder capsule can't
Carol put it to me like this:
"Most cayenne capsules are ground pepper powder in a shell. Your body can't do much with it, and you feel every bit of it going down. That's the bottle Phil gave up on, and honestly, good for Phil."
Aurivita starts with cold-pressed capsaicin, the stuff that makes cayenne hot, carried in avocado oil inside a small softgel that's easy to swallow. There's 3mg of capsaicin per serving, plus black pepper to help your body absorb it. The softgel stays sealed until it's well past your tongue and throat, which is why neither of us has tasted a thing. Then the capsaicin switches on TRPV1 in the lining of your blood vessels, and your body makes its own nitric oxide, the same signal it has been making all your life.
And it doesn't stop at cayenne. There's beetroot and hawthorn in there, turmeric, cinnamon, berberine and ginseng, plus vitamins D3, K2 and E. I wrote the whole list on the back of a church bulletin while Carol read it off her bag.
What Carol likes is that it works with something your body already does. Your own pathway gets a little support with breakfast and again with supper, and the rest of the day is yours.
Phil takes his with his scrambled eggs and hasn't said one word about it since.
Carol called it a pilot light. It does its little job every day, and you only think about it on a cold morning.
It helps your body make its own nitric oxide, and that support builds the longer you keep it up.
What's inside the red bag
Here's the list off that church bulletin, copied out neatly, so you can see what's in Aurivita:
3mg of capsaicin from cayenne: cold-pressed and carried in avocado oil inside a small, easy-to-swallow softgel. It stays sealed until it's well past your tongue and throat, so you won't taste it or feel it burn. Many people feel a light, gentle warmth shortly after taking it, and that's normal
Beetroot, hawthorn and the rest: turmeric, cinnamon, berberine and ginseng, all in the same softgel, plus black pepper to help your body absorb the capsaicin. Cayenne has been used for circulation for centuries, and the whole formula is made with people our age in mind
Vitamins D3, K2 and E · Third-party tested · FDA-registered facility · Non-GMO. The vitamins come in the same softgel, so there's nothing extra to keep track of. Aurivita is checked by an independent lab in the USA for heavy metals and microbes, and it's made in an FDA-registered facility under GMP standards. It's backed by a 120-day money-back guarantee and rated 4.6 out of 5 from 996 reviews
One softgel with breakfast and one with supper, and that's all it asks. The night I ordered, I went with the Buy 2, Get 1 Free bundle, so the free bag went straight into the pantry, and with the guarantee the two of us had four months to make up our minds.
The frosty morning at the overlook I didn't see coming
We were about ten weeks in. It was a frosty Saturday in January, and the walking group had talked us into the long loop, the one that winds up to the overlook above the river.
We hadn't planned anything special. Same greenway, same frosty boardwalk, Phil in the old orange hat Jenny keeps threatening to throw out.
Neither of us had said one word about the cold.
Breakfast, a softgel each, coats on and out the door. That was our whole morning by then, and I'd stopped standing at the hall closet counting layers.
At the railing Phil was pointing out the water plant downriver like he still worked there. A minute later Linda and Mike Ostrander from the walking group came up behind us, Linda in two pairs of gloves and stamping her feet.
They'd walked with us all last winter. They'd seen me in two pairs of gloves with my hands tucked in my armpits, and Phil grumbling about the wind off the water.
Linda grabbed my bare hand to say hello and held on to it. "Donna Whitaker, your hands are warm," she said. "Where on earth are your gloves?"
I laughed and looked down at my hands.
That's when it sank in.
My gloves were still on the passenger seat of the car, and I'd walked the whole long loop without missing them. All that frost and wind off the river, and I hadn't once pulled my hands up into my sleeves. Last January I'd have had the second pair on before we left the parking lot.
Then Linda asked the question I keep coming back to.
"All right, I have to ask. What are you two on these days?"
"It's Aurivita. A cayenne softgel with breakfast and another with supper, and you can't taste a thing. Carol put us onto it."
Linda had her phone out before I'd finished the sentence, thumbs ready to type the name. One warm hand turned into fifteen minutes at the railing while the coffee in Mike's thermos went cold.
"Phil, you're the only man I know who likes this weather," Mike said.
"Hang on, let me spell it for you. A, U, R, I, V, I, T, A."
We took the long way back to the car, along the water, and for the first time in years I wasn't counting the minutes until I could crank up the heater.
We had our mornings back.
The ten weeks I marked on the kitchen calendar
One softgel with breakfast and one with supper, both of us, and the change crept in week by week, right up to that frosty Saturday at the overlook.
Day 1: Set two softgels by the coffee maker and swallowed mine with my first bite of toast. No taste at all. Phil checked his tongue in the toaster, just in case. Nothing dramatic, and I wasn't looking for anything yet.
Weeks 1-2: Mostly the routine sticking. One with breakfast and one with supper, kept by the coffee maker where we couldn't miss them. Most mornings I'd feel that light warmth a little while after breakfast, and Carol said that was normal. By the second week Phil was setting them out before I came downstairs.
Weeks 3-6: The first changes I could point to. I did the whole morning loop in one pair of gloves and kept the second pair in my pocket out of habit. Phil's afternoon naps went back to being a Sunday thing. Jenny called one Wednesday at three and couldn't believe her dad picked up.
Weeks 7-10: This is when it settled in. The softgels were part of the morning now, same as the coffee, and nobody had to remind anybody. The cold stopped sending me back to the closet for another layer, and Phil said his afternoons felt steadier, more like his own, with the Sunday nap back where it belonged.
Small things added up. One pair of gloves here, a skipped nap there. By the tenth week we had a habit that stuck.
Somewhere in there I stopped bracing for January. One with breakfast and one with supper, and on with the day.
Nothing else about our routine changed. Same 7am loop, same red bag by the coffee maker. And for the first time in years we weren't planning our winter around the cold.
Why nobody mentions nitric oxide to people our age
And this is the part that still gets my goat:
Ask anybody our age what you ought to do for your heart and you'll hear the same two things. Keep walking, eat your vegetables. Phil and I have done both for nine years, and we'll keep on doing them. In all that time nobody once mentioned nitric oxide. Nobody told us our bodies make less of it as the years go by, or that there's an easy way to give your own body a hand with it.
If one small softgel with breakfast and another with supper helped your body make its own nitric oxide, and it never burned on the way down, most people our age would start tomorrow. And yet hardly anybody brings it up.
Think back. When did anybody last tell you something new about looking after your heart, something you could start on Monday morning?
Folks have used cayenne for circulation for centuries. Go look in the supplement aisle and most of what you'll find is ground pepper powder packed in a capsule, the same kind still sitting in our cupboard. Those sell, so the store keeps stocking them. Phil calls that aisle the bottle graveyard.
Over the years we'd filled a kitchen cupboard with half-used bottles, and we never finished a single one.
Here's what Phil and I take.
It's 3mg of cold-pressed capsaicin per serving, carried in avocado oil inside a small softgel, with beetroot, hawthorn and vitamins D3, K2 and E alongside. The capsaicin switches on TRPV1 in the lining of your blood vessels, and your body makes its own nitric oxide. We take ours with breakfast and supper and never taste a thing.
The people we know who take it keep taking it. Carol and Ron haven't missed a day in over a year, and Ron misses everything.
You've probably never heard of it, since it's sold online only and isn't on any store shelf. Most people hear about Aurivita from a friend. We heard about it from Carol, over coffee after a Thursday walk.
Carol put it in that dry way of hers: "Nobody gets rich telling you to help your own body do what it already knows how to do. So you hear about it from a nosy friend holding a coffee."
Why you start ten weeks before winter
This was the line of Carol's that stuck with me:
"Circulation support takes a little time to build, Donna. The earlier you start, the steadier it gets. Wait until it's already cold out and you'll spend the whole winter waiting on it."
I'll say it plain.
It's one softgel with breakfast and one with supper. Ours sit in the red bag by the coffee maker, and you swallow yours with your eggs and forget about it until supper. Phil calls it the least fuss he's ever been talked into.
Then Carol said the thing that really got me: the years go by at the same speed while you think it over.
Every week you put it off is a week that doesn't count toward your ten. And winter shows up right on time, same as always.
You may not have to wait the whole ten weeks to feel something, either. Phil noticed that bit of warmth after breakfast in week one, and plenty of people feel a gentle warmth early on. He still brings it up some mornings.
For the full picture you want ten weeks or more, every day, because circulation support takes a little time to build. That's why the guarantee runs 120 days, so you get four months to decide. It's easy to tell yourself you'll get to it once things settle down. Then it's March, and then somebody's birthday comes around again. Ordering the bag is the one step that gets the clock running.
Believe me, I wish we'd started the year Phil turned sixty. We spent those winters buying bottles we quit by Friday and calling the same old loop a plan. Apart from the walk, we did nothing on purpose for our hearts.
Those winters are gone. The morning the box came, we each took our first softgel with breakfast, right there by the coffee maker.
And honestly: your first softgel could be on the breakfast table inside a week, and your ten weeks would already be running.
If you keep putting it off, I can tell you how it goes:
In the next few weeks:
You pull on a second pair of gloves for every morning walk, same as last winter
You try another bottle of powder cayenne, and it burns its way to the back of the cupboard
You keep meaning to get to it, right after the holidays
The red bag you looked at is still sitting in your online cart, right where you left it
This time next year:
Another birthday dinner, and still no answer
You walk the same loop every morning and sit on the same bench at the turnaround
The couple who started this winter are doing the long loop up to the overlook, and you still mean to order
You put it off again, and another year goes by just like the last one
Now for the part nobody likes to hear:
Your body makes less nitric oxide as the years go by. That's simply part of getting older, and it doesn't wait for anybody to get organized. Every month you leave it is one more month of meaning to get around to it. One softgel with breakfast, one with supper, and let your body do the rest.
The good news is you can order your first bag today.
Aurivita was made for people our age. Cold-pressed capsaicin in avocado oil helps your body make its own nitric oxide, and the beetroot, hawthorn, turmeric and vitamins ride along in the same small softgel you never taste. For us that's meant one pair of gloves on most cold mornings and Phil's naps mostly back to Sundays, and we're glad we started.
All it asks of you is a glass of water with breakfast and another with supper, and Phil has yet to complain.
So I'll ask you the same thing Jenny asked us.
Be honest: What do you do for your heart, on purpose, besides walking? And what would you like the answer to be by next winter?
At the moment Aurivita has a bundle offer on. There's buy 2, get 1 free, and there's buy 3, get 2 free. If there are two of you taking it, the bigger one is worth a look.
I'm telling you all this because I wish somebody had told us at Phil's 60th, five winters and one very full cupboard ago.
The catch: you can only get it direct from Aurivita
Aurivita is sold online only, direct from their own website, so you won't find it on any store shelf.
The upside is that it's quick: Orders ship within 24 hours from the US, and most US orders arrive within a week, so the bag is on your porch before you can talk yourself out of it.
Carol told us right off to keep it simple and stay at it. One softgel with breakfast, one with supper, always with food, every single day. Consistency is what matters most. Taking it Monday and Tuesday and then forgetting until Saturday is like watering your tomatoes once a month and wondering why they look so sorry. Every day, with your meals, and let it build.
One of the men in our walking group ran out for two weeks over Christmas. By the end of the first week, he told Carol, he missed that bit of warmth with his eggs.
We keep a spare bag in the pantry now so we never get caught short. Carol and Ron are on Subscribe and Save, which means free shipping and a fresh bag turning up on its own. You can cancel anytime. Ron says that part is the only reason he signed up.
Here's the quick math. Buy 2, get 1 free gets you three bags for the price of two. Buy 3, get 2 free gets you five bags for the price of three. Our first order was the smaller bundle, because I still had my doubts. The second time, with both of us taking it every day, we went with the bigger one and quit worrying about running out. And all of it comes with the 120-day money-back guarantee: if you're not happy within 120 days, you get your money back. Phil read that line out loud to me twice.
Everyday circulation support, one softgel with meals
3mg of capsaicin from cayenne per serving, with beetroot, hawthorn, turmeric and vitamins D3, K2 and E, in an easy-to-swallow softgel that never touches your taste buds.
CHECK AVAILABILITY →What customers are saying
Verified reviews from the Aurivita store
I take natto and a few other heart supplements. These capsaicin softgels work perfectly alongside them, all supporting circulation through different mechanisms without conflicting. Been stacking them 6 weeks with zero issues.
You feel a slight warmth going down, but zero spicy taste. No burning mouth, no aftertaste like eating actual peppers. The softgel keeps it off your taste buds.
Wasn't expecting much honestly, but around the two-week mark I noticed my hands and feet weren't cold all the time anymore. Also don't hit that afternoon slump like I used to. Easy to remember since it's just with meals.
If you've read this far, don't wait for the next birthday dinner
For nine years we walked the same river loop every weekday morning and called that a plan.
Jenny's question over the ribs. Me in two pairs of gloves every winter morning, and Phil asleep in his recliner by two o'clock. That bottle of powder cayenne still sulking at the back of the cupboard.
And then that frosty Saturday at the overlook, my gloves still in the car, Linda Ostrander typing the name into her phone. The two of us stood at the railing trying not to look too pleased. Phil was worse at it than me.
One softgel at breakfast and one at supper, quietly helping our own bodies along a little every day, while we got on with our lives.
For a few winters there we'd let the cold decide how far we walked and how long Phil napped. We'd quietly started planning our mornings around it.
This January we walked the long loop up to the overlook together, Phil pointing out every culvert he ever fixed, the red bag waiting by the coffee maker back home. Jenny got her answer, too. Phil gave it to her before I could open my mouth.
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