A Female Biohacker's Perspective On Fasting, Biohacking and Beauty

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On this episode, Melanie Avalon and Faraz Khan discuss the lifestyle of a female fasting enthusiast and biohacker. Melanie shares her best fasting, nutrition, biohacking and beauty tips – these could seriously help you save time and money.

Melanie Avalon is a SAG-AFTRA actress author of “What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, and Wine”, and host of the top iTunes podcasts “The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast” and “The Intermittent Fasting Podcast” with NYT best seller co-host Gin Stephens.

Melanie is certified as a wine specialist by the WSET, as a holistic nutritionist by the AFPA, and is a member of Mensa International. Melanie developed the top iTunes app “Food Sense Guide” to help those with food sensitivities, and she currently runs 3 rapidly growing FB groups with over 10K members.

How did Melanie get into health and wellness?

Was trying to lose weight in college
Found Atkins and became obsessed with the science of fasting
Started doing intermittent fasting and paleo lifestyle 10 years ago
Had some personal health challenges which led her to find her own health answers

Melanie Has A Book, Two Podcasts And An App

The Intermittent Fasting Podcast
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking podcast
Food Sense app on iTunes
Author of a book called What, When, Wine – originally self published in 2014
All links are below

Intermittent Fasting – What Does It Mean

Intermittent fasting – Melanie likens this to the umbrella term of different windows of fasting
Time restricted feeding and time restricted eating are also included
Alternate day fasting: Eat normally one day and either fast completely the next day OR just 500 calories on the fasted day
One meal a day (OMAD): Just eat one meal a day at a time of your choosing
Melanie eats one meal a day – at night

Why Melanie Likes To Fast

Your body starts to tap your fat stores for energy, hunger dissipates
Melanie likes the weight loss component and having more energy
She likes to eat the foods she enjoys
Helps reduces brain fog and improve energy
The biggest takeaway is that you should maintain a fasting lifestyle for the long term – instead of doing it temporarily
Check out my podcast interview with Gin Stevens, who co-hosts The Intermittent Fasting podcast with Melanie

Continuous Glucose Monitoring Devices

Melanie is a huge fan of continuous monitoring devices
They track your glucose levels really well
It’s quite eye opening to see how blood sugar can fluctuate even without food
Melanie learned how we individually react to foods are really really different
The takeaway is to experiment with your foods and see what works for you

What Are Melanie’s Top Starter Biohacks?

Take charge of light exposure – wear blue light blocking glasses at night. Helps wind your body down for sleep.
Red and near infrared light – for matching circadian rhythm and for skin benefits
Sleep hacks: blackout curtains, earplugs, mask, keeping the room cold, mattress cooler

What Are Melanie’s Advanced Biohacks?

Somavedic for “blocking EMF’s” – She has seen very good improvements for HRV and readiness
Oura ring – Melanie loves the oura ring to track sleep (deep, light, REM), movement, HRV.
Cryotherapy – cold exposure increases metabolism, turns white fat into the good brown fat, decreases inflammation and improves immunity
Red light therapy wand – red light improves energy production of your cells so they can do their jobs more effectively

Melanie’s Beauty Routine?

Melanie’s biggest concern is cleaning up her beauty products to avoid harmful chemicals
Many existing beauty and bath products have endocrine disruptors (disrupt your hormones), obesogens (cause obesity) and carcinogens (may cause cancer)
Melanie has simple routines for morning and night-time
Get your clean beauty products from Beautycounter – use this link for a special gift

Rapid Fire Community Questions

Biggest disappointing biohack: Iodine supplement
Biggest beginner books: David Sinclair’s Lifespan, Robb Wolff Paleo Solution and Wim Hoff’s The Wim Hoff Method
Melanie’s serrapeptase supplement: Great for allergies, sinuses, inflammation. In the meantime, go to melanieavalon.com/serrapeptase
Top 2 Favorite Actors: Blake Lively, Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp