Melanie Avalon's journey into the biohacking world stemmed from an incessant drive to find answers to her own health challenges, answers which she ultimately started sharing with others, to form a devoted community in the thousands.

What exactly is biohacking? Biohacking - a type of 'DIY biology' - is a broad and rather amorphous term that covers a wide range of topics and activities that purposefully enhance or change one's body's functionalities. These may be approachable avenues like blood test monitoring and supplements, to more foreign gadgets and practices, like continuous glucose monitors, red light therapy, and cold exposure. For most people, biohacking involves making changes to diet and lifestyle which results in measurable improvements in overall health and wellbeing.

What drew Melanie Avalon into the biohacking world?

Melanie Avalon's journey into the biohacking world was born more out of a necessity than an inherent interest in the field. Struggling with her own chronic health challenges, Melanie explored a host of biohacking health and dietary techniques, in the hopes that they would revitalize her life. This quickly turned into an obsession, as she found the unique techniques offered incredible health benefits and stress mitigation, with longer lasting effects supporting longevity.

Inspired by her findings, Melanie Avalon began speaking to experts in the field, eager to learn as much as she could about the various biohacks. She started her top iTunes podcast, The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, and her shows have received millions of downloads.

Melanie Avalon is fulfilled sharing her knowledge and experience with others. "I receive messages daily from listeners, thanking me for creating content which has personally changed their own health journeys for the better," she says. By engaging with the top minds in the biohacking world and making their content comprehensible for her audience, Melanie Avalon hopes others with chronic health challenges and food sensitivities will find solutions, as she has.

Melanie Avalon is passionate about the role diet and lifestyle play in combating chronic health problems. She has been practicing intermittent fasting (colloquially known as "IF") for over a decade, and in that time she strived to increase awareness around the benefits of fasting in combating metabolic diseases, obesity, mood disorders, and a wide range of degenerative diseases. She is the host of the top iTunes podcast, The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, with NYT best seller Gin Stephens (Fast Feast Repeat).

Melanie Avalon
(Photo : Melanie Avalon)

Melanie Avalon: a trailblazer in the biohacking world

Melanie Avalon graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Southern California, with a double BA from the School of Cinematic Arts and the School of Theatre. She holds a certification in Holistic Nutrition from the American Fitness Professionals & Associates, and is a Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) qualified wine specialist. As a SAG-AFTRA actress and author of What When Wine: Lose Weight and Feel Great with Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting and Wine (W.W. Norton, 2018), she admits that her journey was first motivated by personal goals, but that quickly evolved into a greater purpose.

Melanie Avalon dexterously explored various social media platforms as she burst into the biohacking scene. She produced her own top iTunes podcast, The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, which features interviews with the world's top experts, doctors, and researchers in the field of health, wellness, and biohacking. David Sinclair, Wim Hof, Robb Wolf, Dr. Daniel Amen, and James Nestor are only a few of the big names she's crossed paths with. Using her podcast, Melanie Avalon strives to convert nuanced and often complicated knowledge of the benefits of biohacking techniques, into relatable content that her listeners can understand and practically implement into their lives.

Along with her podcasts, Melanie Avalon developed an app called "Food Sense Guide," which has ranked fifth in the iTunes Food & Drinks category. It is a comprehensive searchable catalogue of over 300 foods and their levels of 11 potentially problematic compounds, to help people with food sensitivities. She created "Food Sense Guide" to help herself deal with her own food sensitivities, and is thrilled it now helps others do the same.

On the side, Melanie Avalon also runs the Facebook groups "IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real foods + Life" and "Lumen, Biosense & CGMs: Carbs, Fat, Ketones & Blood Sugar (Melanie Avalon)," with almost 10,000 members, and works to promote companies like Butcher Box, Anya Ferland's Belcampo, and the work of NYT best seller Robb Wolf (Scared Cow) to encourage consumer choices that will benefit the environment.

What's next for Melanie Avalon?

Melanie Avalon is working to convert The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast into a TV show, in which she explores the hottest developments and trends in the biohacking world. A veritable trailblazer in the field, Melanie Avalon is bringing the world of biohacking into the public view, in the hopes that people with chronic health problems and food sensitivities can find benefits and solutions in the many biohacking techniques available today, just as she has.