Q&A's and Please Welcome My All-Time Favorite Bio-Hacking Babe to the Blog: Michelle Burleson

Hey ladies!

I am so excited to announce I snagged one of the coolest mamma jamma biohacking babes to contribute to this blog and get the backload of all your questions answered. Research, work, family, my heavily-critiqued desire for privacy, and travel don't allow me to get to respond to all of your questions and requests. So, without further ado, please meet Michelle Burleson:

•  Division I athlete
•  Former high school and college lacrosse coach
•  Martial artist
•  Surfer and water woman (next experiment: determine how much of her blood is salt water)
•  Meticulous researcher and experimenter
• screenwriter and author
• the most intellectually curious, hilarious, and hard working person I've ever known.... 

...but most of all a bad ass no bullshit babe. This woman takes N=1 to a whole 'nother level. Go ahead and ask her about the resistant starch potato hack experiment she just completed. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram.

Michelle Burleson

Michelle and I are currently working on a follow-up to No Fail Fat Burning Women that includes new research, recommendations, and more of a deep dive in achieving hormone balance, fat burn, mental focus, athletic performance, and optimal health for women from all walks of life. It will hopefully be available later this year. Thanks for all of your feedback!

Minor note:  Sometimes I receive multiple emails from the same people asking questions that are already answered in the book. Annoying as hell. I'm not as soft and cuddly as Michelle and refuse to waste my time responding. Sorry if that's politically incorrect but like I said in the book: I'm not trying to be a famous public figure masquerading as a best friend to get you to buy bottles of my snake oil. My goal was to get information out there to help women in a world full of protocols designed mostly for men by men.

 Our one agreed upon rule here is to focus our time on helping those who are sincere about helping themselves. Not people looking for short cuts, magic bullets, excuse-makers, or closed minds. Every woman's biological fingerprint is unique. There is no blanket protocol. There are things to try, tweak, test, re-test. It all depends on you. Off the soap box I go..... and now....

 Here's Michelle to answer some reader questions:

---

Hello! Before I begin, I'd like to say how honored I am to be a part of the No Fail Fat Burning for Women family and your journey. I've loved collaborating with Skye in the past and on the upcoming book that tackles so much more for us of Clan Estrogen! It's not a stretch (or insult) to say that Skye is a bit more elusive than Mr. Snuffleupagus... am I fired yet?  I can't blame her in this crazy online world but I think it might help your reference point to give you an idea of where I am on my journey of constant refinement and tweaking. If you show up at my house, or send dick pics to my inbox,  I will not be happy. Kidding. Kind of. Not really. ;)

Besides from the background Skye gave above, I also formerly participated in CrossFit and currently lift heavily three days a week. In another post I will go into why I no longer participate in CrossFit (although I respect those who do). In a nutshell, I plateaued, gained body fat, and after much research discovered the dual modality programming can down regulate metabolism for a lot of women, especially those of middle age like me.

Two days a week (when not lifting) I do some sort of HIIT/Tabata. One day a week a mellow, deep stretch yoga and regeneration. My active recovery is surfing, walking my pup and vacuuming her damn dog hair. I am currently doing three load weeks and one de-load week. On de-load weeks I tend to deplete glycogen (carb depletion). I cycle my carbohydrates to coincide with my lifting along with one massive re-feed a week when not a de-load week. I use MCT oil, grassfed butter and coffee before training in the morning.  I have a high fat, insulin-spiking, whey protein shake immediately after lifting, and continue with the butter coffee until 2 pm. I then eat fat, protein, veggies and then something similar at night. If I'm lifting the next morning I will include roughly 105g safe starches in dinner, 2 tbsp resistant starch at night. So my meals are: butter coffee, shake, lunch, dinner. I try to meditate at least twenty minutes before bed. I also try to win the lottery. Oh well.

I'm like a really bad first date. Enough of me talking about me. Let's talk about you. Here's some questions that have been burning a hole in Skye's mailbox. If you have a question, email us here: burnbodyfatforwomen@gmail.com.

And, as always, these are not definitive answers. I am not a medical doctor and I do not know the details of your health personally. These are only thoughts and suggestions. The responsibility for your health and discovering what works lies with you.

Q: I am 18 years old, 5'2", and I am not obese, but my BMI shows that I am close to being overweight.

I am currently reading "No Fail Fat Burning for Women," and I am very excited to start your program.

My question has to do with the exercise. I typically go to the gym and run early in the morning (alternating treadmill and elliptical), and run about 20 miles a week. When I do not wake up early enough or I do not run as much as I planned I feel sluggish the rest of the day. I also have track season coming up in the spring. Our practices are every day and they vary from doing 400 meter sprints with short breaks between each lap, to running five miles without stopping.

I actually enjoy daily workouts for an hour, and I like long distance running, especially to start my day. My questions are: How important is it to exercise between 3-6 p.m.? And, is running long distance frequently for a few months (during track season) going to be detrimental to the diet, the way drinking alcohol or smoking would be? Am I not allowed to run any more at all?

A: Nothing drives me nuttier than doctors (and anyone else) still using BMI as an indicator for wellness and body composition. It's complete BS. And, it's such a disservice to female athletes who are most likely carrying more muscle on their frames. You have no idea how many women athletes I know who are told they're obese from doctors and their antiquated BMI tests. From this moment on, BMI does not exist. Poof! Gone! Okay? Like unicorns or Prince/Princess Charming, it's cool in theory but just not something to rely on. If you want a truly accurate idea of your body composition, get a dexa scan. I realize at 18 that might be prohibitive so try to get your body fat tested with something reliable like water displacement. Other instruments tend to be off a couple percentages but if you use them consistently they can give you a ballpark idea of your body fat percentage. 

Cut out the chronic cardio on the treadmill/elliptical. It's not going to help you and most likely, hurt your performance. Replace that with weightlifting a couple days a week when you don't have track workouts. Since you said you're in season right about now, do your track workouts and whatever else is part of your training regimen and enjoy it. Do not worry about fat loss. Do not worry about the exercising between 3-6pm. Skye's book/protocol is for women looking to kick their stubborn fat loss into high gear and get metabolic derangement under control.  You are an athlete with completely different needs and it's imperative you recover just as well as you train.

If you can, do the butter coffee with MCT oil in the morning. On nights before intervals/track workouts (where you will burn fat like crazy, gain muscle and recruit those fast twitch muscles instead of the slow twitch from steady state cardio) I suggest you have between 70-100g safe starches (white rice, sweet potato, boiled-cooled-reheated-peeled white potato, plantains) at dinner. On mileage days where you're going for long distance runs I suggest you take something called SuperStarch. There's a picture of it right there. Make sure to get the drink and not the protein powder. Put it in a little blender bottle with the round metal thingy, shake it up and guzzle. It's way better than some sugary sports drink and will not spike your insulin, preventing you from "hitting the wall" or bonking. I use this stuff religiously when lifting. And.... it's what the 2014 Boston Marathon champ uses to train. ;) So, basically, when you win the Olympics I am expecting a shout out. 

Have a fantastic season and keep us all posted on the world records you're going to break! Keep your nutrition, rest and recovery dialed in. Your speed and strength is going to happen on the track and in the weight room. I ran corporate track for a little while at the tail end of college.  I was a sprinter (my event was the 4x400). There was a huge track and field meet full of Olympians and people trying to qualify called the Mobil 1 Invitational that we were to race in.  I remember feeling like I had to be killing myself for hours upon miles on the track in addition to long, slow base endurance runs for an hour. Then there was this new coach who had me only doing short sprint workouts (literally 20 mins at most) maybe three times a week and I was in the weight room the rest of the time lifting in short, heavy bursts. I remember being completely freaked out.... I didn't feel like I was doing enough... that I wasn't earning it by killing myself. I felt I was resting too much. I didn't understanding how that type of training affects the central nervous system and how rest is just as important as training. Turns out I became the fastest and fittest I'd ever been in my life. I could shred cheese on my quads. Anyway, don't stress about the No Fail Fat Burning protocol for your particular case. And forget about the BMI. You are awesome. Go get more awesome.

P.S. Take some clean fish oil (Nordic naturals) at night to help with recovery. Sleep is when all the good things happen for recovery, repair and growth.

P.P.S. Keep your food as clean as possible (high fat, moderate protein, and veggies during the day). Carbs at night before track/intervals.  SuperStarch on long run/endurance days.

Best of luck to you,

Michelle

Q: I am onto my third day of the 10 day cleanse and was just wondering when you say eat as much coconuts as I like on your Nuts list, I was just wondering if that means all forms of coconut like coconut cream/flour/milk or just the flesh?

Also, in the list of fats is chocolate and I have been eating the Lindt 90% dark.  Is there a limitation to the amount each day?  I know you say no counting calories which I love. I'm really learning to listen to my body, but I feel so naughty to eat it:) I love it!

A: I have never heard of anyone really going overboard on coconuts, but if that's your jam, go for it. The only thing I caution against is the coconut flour, esp. during your carb depletion. The way coconut flour is extracted can sometimes leave yeast behind after the oil has been processed. So you might end up with a fermentable product that might create inflammation. After you've finished the carb depletion, try it and see how it makes you feel. Coconut flour is going to be a baseline thing.... it's not going to contribute to your health but it's not going to harm it too greatly, either. If you need it as a filler or flavor, every now and then isn't going to hurt you. See how your body responds.

Make sure your coconut milk and coconut cream is pure with no fillers or preservatives. Always go for full fat. As far as chocolate, it's not a license to go bananas. Have about three of the squares AT NIGHT. Use it as you would a condiment during the depletion. Good luck! You can do it!


Have a question for Skye or Michelle? Email burnbodyfatforwomen@gmail.com