EP 144: Intermittent Fasting For Lasting Gut and Gynecological Health With Board-Certified Functional Medicine Gynecologist Dr. Tabatha Barber

Have you tried Intermittent fasting? Did it work for you, why or why not? 

ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

When Dr. Tabatha Barber, a pioneer in functional medicine, faced her own health tribulations, she embarked on a mission to transform women's healthcare. Our enlightening conversation peels back the layers of conventional OBGYN practices, revealing how Dr. Tabatha's personal journey shaped her integrative and faith-driven approach to wellness. Uncover the secrets of the body's innate healing powers as we discuss the critical importance of digging deep into the root causes of health issues, rather than just skimming the surface by treating symptoms.

JUMP RIGHT TO IT:

16:09 Gut Health and Overall Wellness

21:30 Gluten Differences and Fasting Insights

29:25 Understanding Sugar, Carbs, and Fat

39:07 Intermittent Fasting and Healthy Fats

Ready to try intermittent fasting yet? Connect with Dr. Tabatha! 

CONNECT WITH TABATHA:

Instagram: @thegutsygynecologist

Facebook: @DrTabat

Website: www.fasttofaith.com & https://drtabatha.com/

Discover the weight loss and spiritual benefits of intermittent fasting.

https://drtabatha.com/intermittent-fasting-guide/

Get the book Fast To Faith: https://amzn.to/4avpnRR

Revitalize your faith and fitness with a morning routine that does not sacrifice your sleep and does start each day with God's Word and a workout. Join the community today at www.earlymorninghabit.com 

Contact The Show!

Website: http://www.ahnafulmer.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectlyempoweredpodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahnafulmer/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahnadfulmer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi you guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Imperfectly Empowered podcast. Today we have Dr Tabitha Barber on the show. Dr Tabitha is a triple board certified OBGYN physician who specializes in using functional medicine as the primary approach for managing women's health. Featured on CBS, nbc, abc and Fox News, dr Tabitha is the author of Fast to Faith, where she is passionate about equipping women to thrive from the inside out with more energy and joy. Here to share her expert advice on intermittent fasting for lasting gut and gynecological health. Welcome, dr Tabitha Barber. Hello, dr Tabitha, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about this conversation.

Speaker 1: 0:50

Me too. Me too, you have such a unique story. I always resonate with medical professionals who come on and you know the story is that we grew up in conventional medicine. You know, from an education standpoint as well as for many of us personally, sort of as the background, and then through our own personal experiences as well as professional, start to realize like it's not incorrect, but it's incomplete research, because it's just the functional medicine approach is just really not a standard arm in our traditional medical education. So I love your story. Give us a little bit of a rewind in how you went from being a board certified OB and gynecologists to primarily utilizing functional medicine for women's health.

Speaker 2: 1:48

Yeah Well, thank you so much. I love sharing stories. I'll keep it brief, but I think that when we share our struggles and our adversities, like we can connect with people and realize, oh, they're human too, they struggle too. Like I might look like I have it all together on my social feed, right Like, but that's not really what's happening in the background. We're all having struggles.

Speaker 2: 2:18

I had this come-to-Jesus moment during a traumatic delivery where I realized I needed to become some kind of caregiver for women and give them a voice and a choice when it came to their health. I eventually became a doctor Fast forward a decade. I'm practicing as an attending and I was miserable. I was in survival mode. I had women coming to me, looking for me, looking to me for answers as a women's health expert because that's what we see gynecologists as and I was just as broken as they were. I wasn't sleeping, I was eating a terrible diet, I was very depressed, I had a broken marriage. I had a terrible excruciating back pain, Hashimoto's that was flared up, Raynaud's syndrome, heavy periods like soaking through my clothes, having accidents as the gynecologist, Like. How confusing was that. I couldn't fix myself and I couldn't fix my patients. Yet I was revered as like an amazing surgeon and I'm chief of staff and all the things. And it's because I didn't have the right tools in my toolbox as a surgeon, when I don't think a lot of women realize gynecologists are surgeons.

Speaker 2: 3:37

Like I went, I did a four-year surgical residency, you know, learning how to do a hysterectomy four different ways stat C sections, deliveries, procedures in the office. I didn't sit and study the intricacies of hormone balance and gut health and all the things. So I didn't really have an understanding of root cause medicine or why things were happening. But I was really darn good at putting band-aids on the situation and like saving you from dire situations. Like I knew how to save people and get them out of trouble, but I didn't know how to prevent them from getting into trouble in the first place. And the same went for my health. I ended up having back surgery and it failed and I was like in bed for weeks. I couldn't move that. I really had my next come to Jesus moment and he was like you have to find a different way. This is not sustainable. And I went on like this journey.

Speaker 1: 4:39

I took four months off of my work and my life, which was unheard of, you know that I was just going to say, which, for those of you listening and watching if you're not in medicine. No one does that, no you don't even take a week vacation. Correct, you don't even go on vacation.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Not in that role, yeah, and so I took four months off and I just started consuming everything that I had never seen before all of the health and wellness information and studies and research and podcasts and books. And I couldn't believe what was out there, because as a doctor, we are only looking at diagnosis and disease. I had no idea what leaky gut was or adrenal fatigue, or who Mark Hyman was. I didn't watch daytime TV, I didn't read mainstream books. I was in ACOG, american College of OBGYN, I was with NAMS, menopause Society and all of just medicine.

Speaker 2: 5:43

And it's like you become biased and you think everybody's sick, everybody's diseased, and this is just how it is. And I had this awakening of God saying remember how I saved you during that delivery. Your body was created to heal and to thrive, but you're not living in the way that I want you to live, according to the Bible. And so I like shifted and I started studying the Bible and I realized, oh my gosh, like I've gotten so far away from how I'm supposed to be and that's why I'm struggling. And that was an epiphany. And that's what I realized I needed to teach women was they need to take back control of their health. Stop looking to the white coats. The answer is actually within them. You know it's kind of like Wizard of Oz-ish, but it's true. Everything you need is in you. But we have to figure out how to tap into that and shift into that and shift.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Yeah, and I think one of the challenges in we're in similar, we have similar stories in terms of where we were and kind of where we are in our mission, you know, is for those of you listening and watching also, I'm always quick to put in the word that we have to hold intention, the like we've talked about the conventional and the functional approach, because disease does happen. We live in a broken world. So for some of you, you have done everything right and you still got cancer, and I'm just giving this word for a second that we do live in a broken world. This is not how it was meant to be, and sometimes unnatural disease requires unnatural treatment and you didn't do anything wrong and God's going to glorify himself because he has to. He's God through disease, through healing, through death is when we're ultimately healed. Praise the Lord.

Speaker 1: 7:34

So you know, just throwing this in there, that the problem is again to hold intention, both sides in the functional and conventional world. When we just look at conventional medicine, we are not being given those tools that Tabitha is so passionate about equipping you with, because we are primarily treating disease. So there are some of you that do have the power to change your circumstances within yourself, and that's the tools that she's equipping us with, especially as women. Women's health is still so far behind, absolutely so far behind.

Speaker 2: 8:18

I just want to encourage women like don't even be mad at your doctor that they don't understand health, Because that's exactly right. I loved my patients. I sacrificed my entire life to become a doctor to serve women. Yet I wasn't serving them the way I should because I didn't know any better, Because that's not what I was taught, and so you can't even be mad at most of the doctors. Obviously there are some egomaniacs, this and that, but we're looking to the wrong people for answers. And so I would encourage women like if you feel like you're being dismissed or gaslighted or whatever the conversations are with your doctor, maybe you just need to search someone else out and find help in a different area, because they are trained to, like you know, do a hysterectomy, do an endometrial ablation, deliver a baby. They're not trained to teach you how to eat right and how to clean up your environmental toxic burden and move your body. Like.

Speaker 2: 9:24

I didn't learn any of that until I went on to study functional medicine, anti-aging medicine. I had to do more years of training to get all of that. So I feel like a unicorn and you're kind of the same way. It's like it's awesome because we have the best of both worlds. We do need acute care medicine. I get women who come up to me crying because I've saved their lives, their baby's lives. It's a real thing, but it's not all the things. Like you said, we need both, and so I'm trying to marry those two worlds and take the best of both of them to help women.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Which is my favorite thing. This is what we call integrative medicine. You guys, we're integrating what we have. It's both things, and we just need more amazing providers like Dr Tabitha willing to do the work. And also a shout out to all of you who are currently in the trenches of medicine we feel you, you're exhausted, you don't have time, you don't have time to educate your patients with all the things that we're talking about. So we see you, we feel you like, yes.

Speaker 2: 10:31

I will say the majority of my patients are probably nurses. Like they're drawn to me because they know I understand their life. They know I understand what they're going through and they also know there's gotta be another way because it's just not sustainable. Like they're watching their colleagues burn out. They're feeling burnt out and, yeah, there is another way.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Yeah, we're not going to like dive into this too deeply, because if you want to dive into this more, then you need to actually go to Dr Tabitha's website and do a consult with her. There's so much knowledge. She has a podcast called the Gutsy Gynecologist Podcast where she dives into more of this. But really briefly, I would love for you to touch on the gut gynecological connection. This is obviously going to be like a. You know we're floating on the surface. This is like we barely even have our masks in the water, but I do want people listening to understand it, because you have such a great foot on both sides of of the fence. But this is something that I only even learned about for the first time. I read Laura Bryden's the Repair Manual several years ago and it was the first I had heard about this connection. So just help women understand this kind of holistic approach to gynecology, especially as it concerns gut health.

Speaker 2: 13:02

Yeah, so I remember I was in my gut module in my functional medicine training and we were learning about different enzymes that bad bacteria make, one in particular called beta-glucuronidase. And what this enzyme does in your intestines is it cuts the garbage tag off the estrogen that your liver worked so hard to put on. Because the estrogen is trying to leave your body, you're done with it. And this enzyme cuts the garbage tag off and causes you to reabsorb this estrogen back into your bloodstream. And I was sitting there going huh, I wonder what that has to do with endometriosis and fibroids, which is kind of like an estrogen excess, estrogen dominant type picture. And then I started thinking about the decade I spent peeling bowels off of uteruses, ovaries, fallopian tubes in the OR from endometriosis surgery like stage four endometriosis and it turns out that all this inflammation, all these chemical processes happening inside the gut, in the intestines, those chemicals seep through the mucosa and the serosa into the peritoneum, which is the area where all of our organs hang out, and they go into the uterus, in the fallopian tubes, in the ovaries, and I don't think most women realize all of our organs are touching. There's no compartments, there's nothing separating your pelvic organs from your guts. Your guts literally lay on your bladder, your uterus, your ovaries and your tubes, and so whatever's happening in the gut is affecting your pelvic organs.

Speaker 2: 14:47

So it turns out, all these gut problems actually cause chronic inflammation in your reproductive organs. They can even like shut down ovaries. They get so inflamed and cause all kinds of issues, not just endometriosis and fibroids and endometritis. But we're now seeing this chronic hormonal dysfunction where the ovaries are just angry. And now, thank God for science, they are now realizing that we make antibodies against our ovaries, just like we do our thyroid and we do it to our adrenals.

Speaker 2: 15:26

This is all new, but it just goes to show like inflammation is not compartmentalized. So all of our systems are being affected by one another. And if we start to like take a step back and see that full picture, we go, oh my gosh, if we fix the gut, we can calm down everything happening in the pelvis and in the ovaries, and the ovaries are where your sex hormones are made. So it's imperative that we have a nice, healthy pelvis and abdomen, and nobody's talking about that. It blows my mind. So I really want women to understand you don't have to suffer from all of these things. There really are answers out there.

Speaker 1: 16:14

I love the point that you just made, that everything is touching, and so it is true you don't really think about this idea that it's not like they're, it's not like the board game. You know where it's. Like they're really prettily put in their own little spaces. You know they're really all smushed in there, Like when you see surgery. You know you're like holding organs back, You're like pulling things away so that you can even access the organ in question really quickly. Just touch on. How can something leak out of your intestines? So we're putting food into our body? It's going through right, you guys? The esophagus, the small intestine, the stomach, all of that into the large intestine, so they're all there in the stomach. How are things leaking out of that?

Speaker 2: 16:57

So everything from your mouth to your anus, that entire tube of your esophagus, your stomach, your intestines, your rectum, that anything inside of there is still technically outside of your esophagus, your stomach, your intestines, your rectum, that anything inside of there is still technically outside of your body. It hasn't gone into your body until it has crossed the barrier through the cells into the bloodstream. And so if food is sitting in your stomach, it's not in your body until you absorb it, until something goes through. And there's three barriers that we have, or gateways that decide what gets to come into our body and what has to stay out. And so we have something called gap junctions. They're like these little doors between the cells, and in the cells that open, they let the good things in, like the vitamins, the minerals. The cells that open they let the good things in, like the vitamins, the minerals, the amino acids, and they keep out the pesticides and the parasites and all the bad stuff. Well, things break those gap junctions and that is called leaky gut.

Speaker 2: 17:58

But we also have two other barriers. We have something called the IgA immune system. So I think of IgA like the bouncer at the front door of the club. He stands at the door and he decides are you safe to come into the club or do I need to fight you and keep you out? And so we have IgA checking everything that wants to come into the body all of the time and unfortunately, gluten really has become so genetically modified that our body doesn't even recognize it. Our IgA system thinks it's foreign and it's constantly attacking gluten, to the point where every single day in my practice I see stool tests with really low IgA levels. Like these women have no bouncers at the gates, there's no protection because they burnt through their IGA trying to attack all the gluten that they're eating, and so that's something really cool that you can see in a stool test.

Speaker 2: 18:56

And then the other barrier is like this mucus wall that gets built. It gets built by good, healthy bacteria, acromantia focali bacterium, and this wall is a third barrier, so things can't get into your body so quickly. Unfortunately, bacteria like H pylori destroy that wall. They actually eat it, and a lot of times we don't have that good bacteria to make that wall because we're not eating healthy food to feed those good bacteria. So every day pretty much, I see a stool test where somebody has all three barriers compromised, or two barriers or one of those barriers, and so things are getting into their body that should not. And then there are other branches of their immune system have to start attacking their IgG branch, their IgE branch hopefully not, because that's more like the anaphylactic end up in the ER kind of situation. So there's all these things happening before stuff even gets into your body.

Speaker 2: 20:01

And then, once it gets into your body, your body has to then deal with it. But that's really important for women to understand that they can affect their hormone production, how their thyroid functions, all the things based on how healthy their gut is. Initially, because I see thyroid issues, because people don't absorb appropriately, I see adrenal issues. I actually see gut issues from chronic adrenal issues. That's a pretty common thing, like chronic stress equals leaky gut, chronic stress equals depleted IgA levels. It comes back to that every time. But understanding that is super important for regaining your health.

Speaker 1: 20:45

Understanding that is super important for regaining your health and it was so well explained because I think there's even a lot of people in fitness nutrition who can't. They know it, but they can't fully explain how it's all connected, which is why we have experts like Dr Tabitha explaining these things.

Speaker 1: 21:02

Now this is like a nerd out research question. I went to John Hopkins so I was like research is like a nerd out research question. I went to John Hopkins so I was like research is like ingrained into my brain. But I'm curious have you ever seen studies controlling the quality of gluten, meaning somebody who for years has been consuming organic gluten primarily, versus somebody who has not been controlling that and consuming highly modified gluten? I have not seen those studies, but anecdotally.

Speaker 2: 21:35

on a regular basis I have people who travel to European countries, south America, southern countries, and they don't have the same issues with gluten that they do in the United States Fascinating.

Speaker 2: 21:50

United States because they have not genetically modified their gluten the way that we have. I have women regularly go to like Italy, greece, you know, australia, those areas and they're like I could totally eat the gluten, and these are women who, like, cannot handle it at all. In this country I personally I can eat gluten. In Mexico I limit it because I'm afraid. But in the United States if I eat gluten I am depressed and on the couch for two days. My eczema is flaring up to the point of weeping and like open sores and my back pain is out of control to the point where I can't exercise. So it's like super obvious when I eat it here, I go to Mexico, I can eat it.

Speaker 2: 22:39

It's pretty wild.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Yeah, and it's so fascinating to hear that anecdotal approach because I have experienced the same thing with my own clients. My big thing is the pantry makeover. All natural that's kind of the thing that I push is whole food nutrition and understanding how to keep it natural and not modified, and my clients have had very similar experiences where that was really what made the difference for them. And when you are more conscious of eating all naturally, you're also not just that you're eliminating something, but you are filling your body with more of those beneficial nutrients, like you talked about the things that those gap junctions do want when you prioritize all natural food. So anyway, that's so insightful, so helpful.

Speaker 1: 23:32

Love that, before we dive into Dr Tabitha's expert advice on how to heal your body and mind with fasting, we're going to play a quick speed round of would you rather? We're going to get to know her a little bit? She didn't know she signed up for this. Awesome, all right, here we go. Would you rather camp in the woods or be at a house in the beach, or on the beach, I should say.

Speaker 2: 23:58

Oh my gosh, that's a hard one. I want both. I want both. I tend to go to the beach and do the beach thing because it's been a long time since I camped and my kids are not down with it. My daughter thinks it's gross. So that would be my answer the beach.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Where are you guys located? Actually, I don't know where you're based.

Speaker 2: 24:21

We are in Michigan, on Lake Michigan, so I require water. Water feels like life to me.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:38

What beach do you?

Speaker 1: 24:39

go to.

Speaker 2: 24:40

So Lake Michigan is pretty huge. It is, I mean, cold, like not always in the summer. It warms up. You know we're used to it.

Speaker 1: 24:47

I'm a wuss, though. Oh man, I'll take the Caribbean for my beach.

Speaker 2: 24:51

Yes.

Speaker 1: 24:52

That's so funny. Well, okay, so maybe for your daughter we'll get her camping at some point. Camping is about nostalgia. It's not about relaxing who relaxes camping. It's about nostalgia. Camping is a lot of work, let's be honest. It is. Would you rather a personal yacht or a private jet?

Speaker 2: 25:19

I think a private jet, because I love to travel and I want to go places quickly and I do enjoy working on a plane, like that's my thing. Oh, interesting, I travel. I know what I'm gonna get through on that plane that day, like it's oh, we were meant to be friends, because I resonate with this so much.

Speaker 1: 25:32

it's like you're confined to a space. You have to sit there, so you might as well be productive. Yeah, my brain just goes.

Speaker 2: 25:37

I get it Work mode and I'm so productive.

Speaker 1: 25:41

I love it and I resonate. I totally get that. It's actually why sometimes I avoid driving, even though it would be cheaper and even more convenient. Because the work time yeah, so funny we convenient. Because the work time yeah, so funny, we're type A's over here.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Would you rather coffee or tea? I usually coffee. I enjoy tea, but I like one good cup of coffee in the morning.

Speaker 1: 26:10

I just really enjoy that. What is your go-to? All health conversations aside, like if you could have one guilty pleasure? Maybe no guilt at all, because it's just that good and you're just going to enjoy it. Sweet coffee drink. Do you have one?

Speaker 2: 26:24

I don't like sweet, sweet drinks, but I love a mocha latte with just like good whole milk, you know, real cocoa.

Speaker 1: 26:35

Yeah, yep Mocha latte.

Speaker 2: 26:38

Maybe an extra shot of espresso.

Speaker 1: 26:41

That's exactly right, y'all. She's a medical provider. We always need the extra shot of espresso. And then I was going to ask you. So you have your private jet, you're taking your family, you have two girls.

Speaker 1: 27:00

I have a 31 year old daughter, a 15 year old son, a 13 year old daughter and a five year old grandson. So you have a 31 year old daughter. You did say a teen pregnancy. Wow, that's amazing. So you're taking your family and where are you going? You're taking your wide range of children we have 31 to teenager. So it's a party. Where are you guys all going?

Speaker 2: 27:20

Oh, I love Mexico. Honestly, I love Mexico so much it feels like home to me. I've been there a gazillion times and there's just so much you can do. You can go zip lining and atving and go swimming in the cenotes which are incredible and see the mayan ruins and do the whole beach thing, ride the waves and just chill by the pool, and so that's always an easy situation to make every age range happy and it's pretty convenient.

Speaker 1: 27:52

I do love mexico as well. I've been there a bunch and it's you're not like changing time zones significantly and it's not, and I'm spoiled like most people there will speak english, so my broken english doesn't have to like get us too far.

Speaker 2: 28:07

And yeah, our currency, like it's just so easy we, we really are spoiled as Americans. Honestly, oh, 100%.

Speaker 1: 28:15

Agreed with that. Where in Mexico do you go? Do you have a favorite?

Speaker 2: 28:20

I usually like anywhere in the Maya Riviera, that whole area. Cancun, south of there.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Yeah, yeah, love that. I love Mexico too. So we're going to dive into this concept of fasting and how we are healing our body. What you talked about with a lot of the gut health issue is ultimately cellular dysregulation, if you will. Whether it be you know, we talk about metabolic dysregulation, but ultimately, from my understanding, it's really the cellular level is dysfunctional.

Speaker 1: 28:59

Fasting is one of those quote unquote fads. It's gotten really popular. There's all different kinds of ways to do it. We've got the eat stop the. I've heard of the warrior diet. There's like the 24 cycle. There's so many different ways to practice intermittent fasting and I'm personally I've been practicing the 16, eight method. For what? My daughter's six, so for six years, and it's what I'm a huge proponent of. But before we even dive into fasting, intermittent fasting and your book Fast of Faith, we're going to touch on some of the things that you talk about in your book, which number one? We need to start with an understanding of sugar and, ultimately, the breakdown in our body when we consume it, and also understanding its relationship to carbohydrates, which for some of you are like what? That's a weird thing. A lot of people don't understand carbs and sugar.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Yeah, well, here's the thing In the 1800s the average person ate two pounds of sugar a year. So you ate two pounds in a year, I ate two pounds in a year. Now we average 60 pounds in a year. For one person, that's a pound a week. And we don't realize it's happening because sugar has just crept into the standard American diet over the decades into the standard American diet over the decades and pretty much it went crazy. When they went the low-fat, no-fat fad, they removed the fat from the food so it tasted terrible, so they had to add tons of extra sugar to make it palatable for us to want to eat it, and then this whole snacking industry came about. Thank you, doritos. And we've never been the same since.

Speaker 2: 30:57

The most recent statistic is 37 million people in America have diabetes and 96 million have prediabetes. I will tell you, as an OBGYN I never checked a hemoglobin A1C or a fasting insulin on patients. I was taught that insurance will only cover that if you're already diabetic. So we didn't even think about blood sugar issues in women. When I started seeing women and doing functional medicine on them, I was ordering these tests on everybody and I couldn't believe how many women had outright insulin resistance or prediabetes, like it was shocking to me, and so it really shifted how I started to see perimenopause, especially in menopause, and what I realized was we don't understand what we're putting in our bodies.

Speaker 2: 31:52

Like you said, we don't understand what the heck are carbohydrates. So we have three main macros carbohydrates, proteins and fats. So fats are essential for life. A low-fat diet, a no-fat diet, will take you down the disease path quicker than anything that or really unhealthy fats like saturated fats that you deep fry your foods. But fats are the main building block for the cell membranes. All of our trillions of cells have a phospholipid bilayer and that fat is required for things to move in and out of the cell. So we need healthy fats.

Speaker 2: 32:34

Cholesterol is the main ingredient we use to make all of our sex hormones testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, dhea, cortisol, our blood pressure, aldosterone hormone. We need cholesterol. So cholesterol is a good thing and we actually make most of our cholesterol in our liver. We don't actually eat it. So that's another myth that's out there. But so we have these fats.

Speaker 2: 33:01

Then we have proteins. Proteins are just a bunch of amino acids combined. So I think of Lego blocks, like you have all these tiny individual Legos that are different colors, different shapes and sizes and they all get connected and built up to create something that's a protein. So you break down that protein when you digest it and absorb it, and it gets turned into amino acids and then your body uses it to make new proteins based on your DNA. Your DNA says make these proteins, and so your Legos get reconstructed inside your body, these proteins and so your Legos get reconstructed inside your body and then we have carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are just, they're like a necklace. They're a big string of sugars all connected together like a pearl necklace, and your body cuts all those pearls up, and so you have all of these carbohydrates that get digested and broken down into different sugars, and so it doesn't matter if it's the healthiest vegetable or the healthiest fruit. It is still sugar in some form.

Speaker 1: 34:02

Say that one more time. Say that one more time because the number of times I've had this conversation the diabetic that consumes a half a pound of grapes, but it's healthy. Okay, I understand that it's healthy, but sugar is sugar is sugar. Now, there's qualities, right, Like you can have the cup of orange juice that has a lot more sugar in than just simply the whole orange. So we're not saying that sugar is necessarily created equal in that sense, Like there's better nutrient density than others. But the reality is sugar is still sugar, whether it be super healthy or not.

Speaker 2: 34:42

God created fruits and vegetables to be eaten as a whole fruit or a whole vegetable. It turns out that you need the fiber component along with the carbohydrate piece so that your blood sugar doesn't spike when you eat it. So when we take the fiber away and only consume the carbohydrate as orange juice or something like that, our blood sugar does spike and it is not beneficial to the good microbiome either in our gut. So and it because it's quote unquote healthy. It's healthy with because of the phytonutrients, the antioxidants, all the healing properties. But more doesn't make it better. It's not a free-for-all. You can't eat like a pound of grapes and just because they're quote-unquote healthy mean that it's going to be beneficial for your body. There is a dosage, breakage point where it's no longer beneficial. Okay, and the problem is we're also consuming what I call frankenfoods, all these foods we've created in the lab. It's everything in the boxes, in the bags that are in the middle of the store, that are not in the periphery, refrigerated. You know produce section, and when we eat all of these boxes and bags, produce section, and when we eat all of these boxes and bags, frankenfoods, that wreaks havoc on our blood sugar. And so I want women to realize that by doing something as simple as shifting their macros and I'm not talking, you don't have to get crazy and count every little macro like, but it helps in the beginning if you have some basic understanding of that count, because you can quickly start to be in tune with like oh, this is how I feel better. This amount of fats and this amount of proteins and this amount of carbs.

Speaker 2: 36:25

And women, they shift every single time. It doesn't matter their age or their situation. When you decrease the amount of carbohydrates you're eating and you increase the amount of fats and protein, your metabolism will shift. Because and this is I know you want to talk about this we have something. Well, we're born with something called metabolic flexibility, our ability to burn fats for fuel instead of carbohydrates or sugar. But because of how we've been trained to eat nowadays in society, we've lost that ability to burn fat for fuel. So our body's always looking for the next sugar tap, the next carbohydrate hit to make energy.

Speaker 2: 37:10

And so if you don't eat every couple hours, you get hangry, you get irritable, you get jittery. People are like oh, don't talk to her, she hasn't eaten. Like. That's a dysfunction, that's a metabolic derangement, because your body has forgotten how to burn fat for fuel, so you need to remind it, and this was what I found to be so helpful for women trying like you can tell women to fast, but if they feel like crap, they're not going to do it. So you have to teach their body how to do it again. And I promise you, your body was created to fast. We didn't have grocery stores on every corner 2000 years ago. Like we were created to go a long time without eating and then feast and then go fast again. That's how our bodies are designed. We just have to remind them of that.

Speaker 1: 38:04

Yes, and just you know, like you mentioned this thinking about for centuries, you know, for several thousands of years, the amount of work it took the human body to even eat and to stay fed, like you just said. When you even consider where we have come in the last couple of decades and the accessibility of food, that is not our physiological history. Since we've been made, it has not been nearly that accessible. So, yeah, the idea of needing to have however many small meals a day is, like you said, I would say, a very modern day concept, because we have the food available, which is simply not been the case for the majority of human existence. So we're talking, you know, we're trying to help you guys those of you listening and watching be able to sort of set this foundation. We're talking about the idea of the cellular dysfunction that is happening within our bodies thanks to, you know, our gut health, thanks to what we're consuming, environmental issues, et cetera. And then we also want to talk about sugar. We're understanding, okay, how does sugar play into this systemic inflammatory process and this dysregulation that we're seeing? And then we're going to touch a little bit.

Speaker 1: 39:24

I know some of you are already thinking this Okay, well, what is a healthy fat? What is healthy protein? What should I be eating? We're going to touch on that, but first let's talk about this concept of intermittent how to do it. Well, you're a proponent of the 16-8 technique. I'm a proponent of the 16-8 technique. I think it's got the best research behind it and I have multiple other reasons why I prefer it. But talk to us about the 16-8 intermittent fasting, why it helps heal and repair and how to do it well.

Speaker 2: 39:57

Yeah, so I actually. You know, when I first started a fasting program online, maybe six years ago, I did the whole fasting without the faith piece, and so I did it in a couple different variations, and what I kept finding was women couldn't get into ketosis easily. They were really struggling to go from sugar burner to fat burner. So we had to come up with a process to make that smoother for women to shift, and it's usually a sign that you have some insulin resistance or even prediabetes diabetes, and so I realized that we had to shift how they were eating before we just started the fast. So we had to remind their body how to burn fats again, and so I do recommend women start out with a more ketogenic diet in the beginning to get their body to burn fat for fuel. So you can eat fat and get into beta oxidation and make ketones, and that will tell your body oh, we're going to use fat for fuels, let's make some ketones. This is awesome and it feels amazing Like your brain has so much clarity. You feel energized. It feels really good, like if somebody on here has never just had a shot of MCT oil during fasting. Give it a try. It feels amazing to bump up those ketones. But if you can remind yourself your body how to get into ketosis, then you get rid of the snacking and you eat enough healthy fat and protein during those three meals to feel satiated. You can drop off those snacks in between, then you can shrink your eating window and maybe even drop off breakfast and still feel good and not get the hangry, the jitters, all the stuff. Because now your body knows how to fast, it knows how to burn fat for ketones and then it starts tapping into your stored fat, which is what most women want. We want to burn the fat on our hips right and not our thighs. And unfortunately this is a common thing I see is that women don't lose weight for the first few weeks and they get frustrated Like what's wrong with me? I'm in ketosis and I'm not losing weight. And here's the deal it's because they have fatty liver.

Speaker 2: 42:29

What happens is when you consume those carbohydrates all day long, you're not out running marathons and training for triathlons. You're not out running marathons and training for triathlons. So your body has to do something with all that sugar you consume because you aren't actually using it up right away, and so insulin has to come and take the sugar out of your bloodstream and store it. Insulin's a fat storage hormone. The first place it will store it is in the liver, thinking that's a quick tap into for next time you need energy. So it will just keep storing it in your liver. Look at, and you get all of a sudden you're like fatty liver because you consumed all this sugar that has nowhere to go and it gets turned into fat in your liver. So you have to burn through all of that before you start burning off your hips and your thighs.

Speaker 2: 43:23

And I don't think a lot of women realize that and unfortunately a lot of conventional doctors aren't really understanding fatty liver. And actually what a huge warning sign it is. Like every I don't know once a week I have somebody who goes yeah, my liver enzymes were elevated. My doctor says I have fatty liver. They're just going to watch it and I'm like that's a huge red flag, like we have to turn this around. Right now it's actually fatty liver is becoming the number one reason for liver transplant in this country. It's like surpassing alcoholic cirrhosis liver. That's crazy. That is so sad. And now we're seeing it in children as well. So this is a big deal, you guys.

Speaker 2: 44:16

It really, really is, because your liver has to do a bunch of other processes and if it's full of fat and unable to do its processes, you're going to get estrogen dominance, you're going to get hormone imbalances, you're going to get so many toxicities because your liver is trying to remove toxins all the time and deactivate medications and metabolize alcohol and all these things, and it can't do that. If you have fatty liver, it can't do that appropriately. So fasting is not about weight loss, it's actually about health, right?

Speaker 1: 44:57

Say that one more time, say that one more time. The fasting part of intermittent fasting. Why do we intermittent fast? Say it one more time. I'm serious. Say it one more time in case the people in the back missed it.

Speaker 2: 45:08

Fasting is not about weight loss, but weight loss is an amazing side effect. It's an awesome side effect. I was 30 pounds overweight as an OBGYN and now that I live like this, my weight fluctuates maybe two pounds because whether I've pooped or not, you know what I mean or if I'm going to have my period. I am not on the weight roller coaster anymore because I live this fasting lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 45:37

And you've paired it with this is where people miss intermittent fasting. And you talk about this in the book. You guys want to check this out, fast to Faith, but what we miss is the eating window. So intermittent fasting is not a diet, it is a schedule of when to eat at its simplest form. That is what it is. But if you miss the eating window part, if you're, intermittent fasting is a great way to start, I always tell people start there, because time-restricted feeding is one of the easiest ways. It's one of the easiest habits to change. But eventually then you want to get to that part where the macronutrients you are putting into your body, what you are feeding yourself in that window, that's really then where that extra magic happens, because now you are in combination with the cellular repair happening through fasting. Now you're really introducing, if you're doing it right, all of the things the body loves, wants and needs. So let's really quickly touch on. So what should people be eating? What are the like? What are the healthy fats, for example? So I'll put this plug in here as well you need to know your risk factors.

Speaker 1: 46:46

I come from a very, very significant cardiac disease history. We have a genetic dyslipidemia in our family. We're super low LD, super low HDL, a super high triglycerides. That is a killer, literally. It's taken my uncle and my dad's first heart attack at 40, my grandfather at 50, um, despite being healthy. So you know, for me, I do really look at that cholesterol and you know the LDL is more connected to saturated fats, like you said. My point, you guys, is um, there's good cholesterol, there's good fat, there's also fat that will kill you. So you just need to understand what you're consuming. So let's just start with fats, because you mentioned that. What are the fats we want to consume that our body is like, yes, we love these fats, this is the cholesterol we want.

Speaker 2: 47:37

Yeah, think about saturated fats, bad fats, things we deep fry food in. Those are what kill you, and at room temperature those fats are solid. It's like you're crispo At room temperature. Good oils are usually liquids. Think of olive oil. So the most important piece of it is you want to focus on the healthy fats that your body requires. They're called essential and you want to look at olive oil, mct oil, which comes from coconut oil. You know I said you want to watch out for fats that are solid at room temperature. Coconut oil gets a lot of flack for that reason, but it turns out that the benefits the omega-3s and 6s in there are much better. So they try to vilify coconut oil.

Speaker 1: 48:40

The benefits outweigh the risk at the end of the day.

Speaker 2: 48:43

Yes, at the end of the day, coconut oil is really healthy and beneficial for you like would you say that's true even if you have that cardiac disease risk?

Speaker 1: 48:52

or you have that because it is very high in saturated fat as well. Yeah, so you want to?

Speaker 2: 48:57

limit that you want to. I would focus on MCT oil as opposed to straight up coconut oil.

Speaker 2: 49:05

MCT oil is just a component of it. So most of the vegetable oil, the canola oil, the palm oil, those have been modified and and really we what's the word? I'm totally blanking on the word, but the way that we process them removes a lot of the health benefits. Refining them yeah, the way we refine them and then we let them sit in like see-through plastic containers on the shelves for years and it makes them rancid, it gets them oxidized and that process is actually what is damaging to our cells more than the actual oil. So when you are eating palm oil and soybean oil in your granola bars, in your boxed and bagged processed foods, it's how they've handled those oils and manipulated them. That's what causes destruction inside of our cells. So you know that's confusing to people. But what I just say keep it easy. Like, if you avoid those major seed oils and focus on olive oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, you're going to be much healthier. Like, just keep it simple, it's so easy that way.

Speaker 2: 50:29

And you mentioned, like, how important it is to eat in your eating window. That's why I love the program that I created, because we focus on the food first. Like we get you eating the healthy foods, we get you feeling satiated and happy and loving your food, and then we shrink your window down, whereas what I typically see is people try to shrink their eating window down and they don't feel hungry anymore, so they don't eat as much. Because that's a really important thing Fasting actually gets rid of your cravings. People think, oh my gosh, if I don't eat for three days, I'm going to lose my mind, I'm going to be so hungry, and it's actually the opposite.

Speaker 1: 51:11

I'm living proof of this. Yes, when I first started, your ghrelin hormone goes down. You stop having the cravings, eat breakfast Because life happens right and it's like you're on vacation or you're wherever and it's like you eat whatever. So it happens. But I see that if I break my fast too early, I do. I'm 10 am to 6 pm typically, but if I start eating breakfast for a couple of days, I will start feeling hungry in the morning. If I am consistent to my eating window, I actually don't feel hungry in the morning. So it seems totally backwards, but it's 100% true that when you actually stay in that lane you will not be as hungry you talked about. So we touched on the healthy fats.

Speaker 1: 51:55

You guys, I'm literally in her book right here. It is on page 103. She talks about healthy carbs. Healthy is on page 103. She talks about healthy carbs, healthy proteins, healthy fats. She talks about healthy oils, herbs, gut healing foods, preferred sweeteners. This is literally just two pages of this book that has over 200 pages of amazing resources. We haven't even touched on the. You know the fasting from the spiritual standpoint, but it's not a stretch to understand that. There's clarity. There's clarity and when we are thinking clearer and we're eliminating some of the human fog. That happens. It is understandable that we're going to be able to hear the voice of truth in our lives much clearer.

Speaker 2: 52:36

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 52:37

Fast and faith.

Speaker 2: 52:39

Yeah, I just want to say, like, if you believe in the word, I always go back to first corinthians 6, like do you not know your body is the temple of the holy spirit? You are not your own, you were bought at a price and you know this is holy, so this is really a big deal. So therefore, honor God with your body.

Speaker 2: 53:02

That is spoken in scripture to honor our body and a lot of us, especially in the faith space, we think well, I'm spiritually mature, like I'm in touch with God, I have this relationship, I'm trying to do all the right things. But they're neglecting their body because they think that's superficial or that's not important. But God is saying like I actually gave you this body to house the Holy Spirit and you need to honor me by honoring it. And when I realized that that was like a slap in the face, I was like, oh my gosh, I treat my body like a garbage can. And God is telling me I'm supposed to be loving it and honoring it. And that shifted idea. You know, fasting it's easy to see it as deprivation.

Speaker 1: 54:01

But when you start to flip the script to that, you know, taking care of your body it feels like such a burden oftentimes and that's a lot of societal driven because we should look a certain way. But we can flip that to living well. We take care of our bodies so that we can fulfill our God-given purpose with more joy, with more energy, with more mental, emotional, spiritual freedom. So it is, it's not a burden, it's a blessing. But it takes a lot of work to flip that script. But it is definitely that biblical sense of let's take care of the temple. Fasting is an amazing way to do that, fast of faith. You guys, there's a link in the show notes. Of course we also included a link. Dr Tabitha has an intermittent fasting guide, a free one. You type in your email and she'll get you started, and then, of course, the book, her website. She has virtual consult. She does all kinds of things. You just need to check her out at drtabithacom. Is there anywhere else you want to send people to follow you learn more?

Speaker 2: 55:02

Oh my gosh, they could also go to fast to faithcom. That's where you can get the book, and there's a bunch of free resources, all the recipes that I couldn't put in the book because of the publisher like we can give all of those to you, and so that's an amazing resource. But thank you so much for this. This has been awesome.

Speaker 1: 55:21

It was an honor to have you. Thank you, I pray God's richest blessing over your heart, your home and all the women's lives that you are touching and changing. Oh amen.