Episode 160
Tabatha Barber:
Why Fasting Might Be the Missing Piece in Your Wellness Journey
Ever wondered if fasting could be the missing piece in your health puzzle? I chat with Dr. Tabatha Barber about how fasting might transform your wellness journey, especially for us women in or approaching menopause. Tune in for some real talk about fasting, faith, and taking charge of your health!
First Aired on: Oct 7, 2024
Episode 160
Tabatha Barber:
Why Fasting Might Be the Missing Piece in Your Wellness Journey
Ever wondered if fasting could be the missing piece in your health puzzle? I chat with Dr. Tabatha Barber about how fasting might transform your wellness journey, especially for us women in or approaching menopause. Tune in for some real talk about fasting, faith, and taking charge of your health!
First Aired on: Oct 7, 2024
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
Introduction
In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Tabatha Barber, a pioneering functional gynecologist. Dr. Barber shares her journey from a challenging pregnancy at 17 to becoming a doctor, and how her experiences shaped her passion for empowering women in their health decisions.
Episode Highlights
Dr. Barber's Personal Journey
Dr. Barber discusses her transformation from a teenage mother to a medical professional, driven by her desire to give women a voice in their healthcare.
- Experienced a traumatic delivery at 17
- Faced challenges with the healthcare system
- Motivated to become a doctor to empower women
The Importance of Informed Consent
Dr. Barber emphasizes the critical need for true informed consent in healthcare decisions.
- Many women lack full information about their health options
- Conventional medicine often offers limited solutions
- Importance of understanding all available choices
Fasting and Faith Approach
Dr. Barber introduces her "Fast to Faith" concept, combining fasting with spiritual practices for overall wellness.
- Fasting as a tool for physical and spiritual healing
- Importance of listening to your body's needs
- Combining faith with health practices for empowerment
Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy
We discuss the realities of menopause and the importance of understanding hormone replacement therapy options.
- Debunking myths about "natural" hormone balancing post-menopause
- Long-term health implications of hormone decline
- Importance of educated decision-making about hormone therapy
Empowering Health Decisions
Dr. Barber encourages women to be their own health advocates and make informed choices.
- Importance of finding the right healthcare provider
- Being part of the decision-making process in your health
- Investing in your health, even if it means going outside insurance
Notable Quotes from this Episode
Fasting is your superpower at this point in your life. It honestly is. That is how we were created to function.
Dr. Tabatha Barber
You can't heal a body you hate. I've tried. I've been there. I've done that. Um, but you just can't.
Dr. Tabatha Barber
Other Resources:
Connect with Tabatha Barber
Watch this interview:
Episode Transcript
Tabatha Barber:[00:00:00] Fasting is your superpower at this point in your life. It honestly is.
Tabatha Barber: Our bodies were created to go periods of time without food and then feast. So this feast, famines, carb cycling is key for women. Because we don't want to starve the body. We understand that just. Chronic calorie deprivation does turn down our metabolism. It's not helpful, but if you remind your body that you're not starving by doing some carb cycling and you really eat the right foods when you are eating, then fasting becomes really powerful and transformational.
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. Today, we're joined by Dr. Tabitha Barber, who has dedicated her life to giving women a voice and a choice when it comes to their health and wellbeing. Overcoming struggles as a young girl, including self esteem challenges and the hurdles of being a high school dropout and teenage mother, she emerged as a successful physician through faith and perseverance.
Julie Michelson: Her unwavering commitment to women's health is evident through her triple board certifications in obstetrics and gynecology, menopause, and functional medicine. As the driving force behind her thriving medical practice, Dr. Tabatha and her team provide compassionate support and care to women nationwide.
Julie Michelson: Through the Gutsy Gynecologist show, her Gutsy [00:02:00] Gyne supplement line, and her best selling book, Fast to Faith, she shares insights into the importance of gut health, hormone balance, mindset, and most importantly, nourishing the soul to truly heal and become whole. She's a beacon of light in a sea of medical darkness.
Julie Michelson: In today's conversation, we are talking about the power of fasting and faith and how Dr. Tabitha's process can help support women of all ages, regain their clarity and zest for life.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Tabitha, welcome to the podcast.
Tabatha Barber: Thank you so much, Julie. I'm excited about our conversation.
Julie Michelson: I am as well. And I would love to get a little bit of your backstory for listeners. Um, because you really have been pioneering this field of functional gynecology, which is so important. We were just chatting and I thought, Oh, let's just hit record.
Julie Michelson: Um, but share a bit of your journey because, um, I'm guessing when you were a little girl, this [00:03:00] wasn't the direction you thought you'd be going in.
Tabatha Barber: Not at all. Oh my goodness. I liked school because my friends were there and I got to talk to them. Like I lived in detention in Saturday school because I couldn't pay attention or shut up.
Tabatha Barber: Like I just loved the social aspect of it. So I really struggled with school and I thought I was going to be a rock star. That was my main jam. I was going to be an 80s hairband and, um, In 11th grade, I got pregnant and my life changed drastically. And I realized that, you know, dreams of becoming a rock star probably weren't going to happen.
Tabatha Barber: I need to like focus elsewhere. And unfortunately, I was in a position where I ended up having to be on Medicaid and stamps and really depending on On a sense to survive, and I had a grumpy old doctor assigned to me. He made it clear he was making 22 [00:04:00] cents a dollar to take care of me. And so a lot of things were done to me.
Tabatha Barber: Nothing was explained, pills, procedures, lots of pelvic exams. And I had a very traumatic delivery. After three and a half hours of pushing, he ended up using forceps to deliver my baby. And it wasn't until way after the fact that I realized that he was a family practice doctor and not an obstetrician.
Tabatha Barber: And that's why I couldn't have the C section that I needed so badly. And, but, Um, to top things off, I ended up in a hyperthyroid storm after delivery, so my heart was racing, I was sweating, was dropping all kinds of weight while trying to nurse a brand new baby at 17, and, um, it was, A disaster to say the least, right?
Tabatha Barber: So it wasn't until many years later that I really figured out everything that I [00:05:00] had gone through and understood it. But at the time I'm in the lay of livery room crying and begging for a C section. Um, just had to come to Jesus moment. And. My God Downloaded to me like you have to get your life together.
Tabatha Barber: This is unacceptable. You can have to use your voice you can't let people just do whatever to your body and I really didn't know what all that looked like or meant for me But I just knew that I had to like take steps forward to change and I went back to I had dropped out of school, went back on my GED, went to a community college, thought I was going to be a nurse, ended up going to medical school and becoming a doctor.
Tabatha Barber: And it's just been my life's passion to give women a voice and a choice when it comes to their health because I had no idea that A lot of the [00:06:00] stuff that happened to me shouldn't have happened, that there was other choices, that there should have been options, there should have been informed consent, we should have had discussions about, well, here's what we could possibly do, here's the other options, and then actually be part of that decision making process.
Tabatha Barber: And so, That is just really important to me at this point in my life. Like women need to know what they're signing up for or not signing up for, right? And if you don't have true informed consent, then it's not a real patient doctor relationship. And unfortunately, I thought I learned everything when I went to medical school, right?
Tabatha Barber: But what I learned was, as a conventional doctor, I only had a couple tools in my toolbox. I could perform surgery, because that's what gynecologists are, we're surgeons, or I could offer birth control pills. And so when I was providing informed consent, say you signed up to [00:07:00] do surgery for your endometriosis.
Tabatha Barber: I would say, here's your options. Birth control, um, medical menopause with a medication or surgery. I had no idea that there was this whole world of health wellness and that you could actually heal endometrium diet and lifestyle and herbal remedies and all of, you know, healing your gut. So I wasn't truly giving informed consent, right?
Tabatha Barber: Cause I didn't know all of the options. And so. Now I'm just here to explain to women, like, keep asking questions. There's more to the story than probably what your doctor is offering you. And I'm really excited that women like you and functional providers are showing up and they're educating people because we just don't know.
Julie Michelson: It's so true. I was just saying that before we hit record, right? In our little bubble, we know, and then we have [00:08:00] conversations and, and I will qualify for you. Um, you know, physicians are doing the best they can with the training they have. And it's just a matter of, like you said, you needed a bigger tool belt.
Julie Michelson: Um, and that is why I love having these conversations because I just can't even imagine, first of all, you know, The, I do believe things we go through things, you know, to create impact in the future. Um, but I cannot imagine, I think men and women in general, at least historically were disempowered in the Western medical system.
Julie Michelson: You know, we were just told like, listen to the doctor, the doctor knows everything. And, and, um, and so I can't imagine going through what you went through as such a young girl. And so thank you for listening to that download and, you know, changing the conversation [00:09:00] and, and helping women of all ages. Um, I, and I feel like it is the same thing for women like me and in our fifties, you know, it's so we have like kind of the.
Julie Michelson: The, the childbirth, I guess there's a few phases, you know, you, you've got adolescence where hormones can be crazy. And the, and the, you know, usually it's the pill that gets thrown at you. And then, and then your child rear bearing years, and then menopause is another like, well, that's just how it is.
Julie Michelson: Nothing to do about it. Um, and so thank you for, for women everywhere for, Keeping the conversation going and and allowing people to access the education to empower themselves, um, because when they learn from you and then they go to the doctor and that's not the conversation, hopefully they'll find another doctor, right?
Julie Michelson: So, um, well,
Tabatha Barber: you've made a really important point that we're just asking the wrong people, you know, I was a surgeon. I did four years of a [00:10:00] surgical residency, learning how to do a hysterectomy four different ways and fibroid surgery and colposcopies and delivering babies and c sections. And so we don't study the intricacies of hormone balance and how the gut and the adrenals and the thyroid impact all of that.
Tabatha Barber: Like I had to go on and study functional. Medicine and anti aging medicine and do all this other stuff. So we call OBGYNs women's health experts, but they're really not experts when it comes to hormones and what's happening, you know, at a comprehensive physiologic level. I am there to like save your life, cut things out that are bad, you know, bring babies into the world.
Tabatha Barber: It's just, we're testing the wrong person. I got minimal training about menopause and those types of changes. Like I said, my tool was birth control pills. And [00:11:00] unfortunately, we know there's a lot of issues with that. And so it's really important for women to understand that there's so much foundational stuff that can shift their health that they can do on their own.
Tabatha Barber: They might want a coach or a guide or a functional provider. If you've already been diagnosed with thyroid disease or you are transitioning into menopause, things like that. But if you're not doing the foundational stuff, none of that matters. And I see that in my clinic every day, women come to me like, I need hormone replacement therapy.
Tabatha Barber: I heard it's safe to take now let's do the, the hormones. But they're eating the standard American diet. They're stressed to the max. They're sitting at their job all day. They're not dealing with their messed up relationships. So much stuff that's underlying and destroying their health and that has to be addressed.
Julie Michelson: Absolutely. Amen. It's still the, it's this, that perspective of the magic [00:12:00] pill, right? They're showing up and they're like, you fix me. Like you give me that magic thing. And, and that's, we know that that's a non empowerment and B it doesn't work. So I, I love the, you know, the, the reality of your approach is, is amazing.
Julie Michelson: And we're whole humans. There's never one thing. So I love that. I want to circle back to your download that you got and to faith, um, because I already told you, I would love to have you back for a second conversation, but, but, um, Fasting and faith. Like this is what I think of as just inherently Dr.
Julie Michelson: Tabitha. Um, and it's an important conversation. You hear so many different things about fasting. Um, I understand the importance of faith in, in healing and living well. So let's, let's dig [00:13:00] in a little bit of like why the two together, um, how did, how did that come about? Yeah,
Tabatha Barber: so, you know, when I have gotten many downloads from God, like he is definitely directing me and guiding my life.
Tabatha Barber: And I think it's because I've always been open and ask him to do so. I really just am a follower of Jesus. So that's my jam. If that's not your jam, that's cool. That's just, you know, who I am. And so, you know, I told you, I figured out how to get my GED, go back to medical school, do all the things. Cause I thought that's what women needed from me.
Tabatha Barber: And so here I am an attending physician. I'm out in practice working a hundred hours a week, just Literally, and I was destroying myself. So I realized this is not what God has called me to do. This is the mess that I've [00:14:00] created. And I have been brainwashed into, you know, into this broken medical system.
Tabatha Barber: And so I got to the point where I had a back injury. I couldn't function. I gave in and I had sick surgery. I took six weeks off to heal and my third night back on call, I reentered and I couldn't move. And that was Christmas Eve. Um, that was pretty stressful. So for the next week, I was lying in bed, really couldn't move.
Tabatha Barber: My husband's carrying me to the toilet essentially. And about the third or fourth day, I realized I hadn't really eaten. And, you know, I'm laying there talking to God like, All the typical things. Why did you do this to me? Why would you, you know, forsake me and betray me? And like, why am I struggling? This isn't fair.
Tabatha Barber: All the typical victim mentality things I'm saying to myself. And he, he was like, you just need to read [00:15:00] scripture. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and figure out what's going on. And what I realized was my body was innately. Trying to heal itself. And then I started thinking back to my surgical training and the fact that when I would do surgery on patients, like this is what I learned as an intern.
Tabatha Barber: You write an order to the nurse and PO you don't feed my patient until I tell you to feed my. patient. And it's because we eat, we use a lot of resources just to break down and digest foods and do all those processes in our digestive system. And so when you're trying to heal, you first you need those resources for healing.
Tabatha Barber: So you don't need all that digestion happen. But second, there are mechanisms that come into play, our body starts producing healing cells. And, you know, it's, it's the best part of autophagy and that kicks in around, you know, the 18 to 20 hour mark where our body [00:16:00] starts creating these little cells called macrophages that go around and eat broken cells and DNA and they start cleaning house throughout our body.
Tabatha Barber: I think of it like pac man, the little guy goes around and he eats all the stuff up. And that's what starts to happen when we abstain from food is our body goes into this deeper healing process of cleaning things up. And so, unfortunately, the standard American diet has us eating from dusk until dawn. We have food available 24 7.
Tabatha Barber: You know, we can have a pint of ice cream in 20 minutes if we want, like, there's no stopping us from eating and it's really hard on our pancreas. We're constantly pumping out insulin. We're tapping off our blood sugar. So it's like constantly elevated. It never gets to come back down to normal range because.
Tabatha Barber: As soon as it starts to drop, we get hangry and jittery and irritable. And [00:17:00] we've been trained to like feed that, feed that hanger. Right. So we are just stuck in this super, um, sugar burning mode of like carbs, carbs, carbs, more carbs. And we don't ever tap into our fat burning mode to burn fat for fuel and make ketones, which is a much cleaner fuel for our brain and so many things.
Tabatha Barber: And so. What I really realized was that even though I was trained as a surgeon, I wasn't the healer. I was, you know, that was ingrained in me. Like I'm healing these people, I'm helping them. But when I make those cuts, I cut through your skin, your fascia, your muscle, I do all that stuff. And I sew you back up.
Tabatha Barber: I do not heal you. Your body actually does the healing. Your cells grow back together, your skin and your muscle. They all grow back together. And so we're giving the medical [00:18:00] system way too much credit when it's actually, in fact, your body doing so much of the work. And we just need to get back to supporting your body to be able to do that process and removing what's impeding it or preventing it from doing that process.
Tabatha Barber: And so that's. you know, where fast to faith came from. I was like, Oh my gosh, all this stuff I have learned, I just have to share with women. They need to know how their body works, how to enhance it and stop interfering with it. Because what I've seen over all these years of practice is women are in a constant fight with their body.
Tabatha Barber: They think their body's failing them. They hate their body. They're mad at it. I was, I hated my body. It was like, why can't you function with no sleep? And I'm On donuts and M& M's and coffee, like what's wrong with you? Why are you in so much pain? You know, and I hated my body and my poor body was just crying out asking for help [00:19:00] and I wasn't listening and that's what's really happening for so many women is they just need to get back in tune, learn how to listen to what their body is telling them and then work together and love it back into health and wellness.
Tabatha Barber: And so fasting is just a piece of that. But when you incorporate the faith and you ask God to come on this journey with you, and you're like, I, I don't have the strength for this, you know, like my willpower lasts until the cookie shows up is if you ask God to give you that strength, you're going to be be unstoppable.
Tabatha Barber: Like you're going to be able to do everything you're called to do. And it's so empowering just watching women transform when they actually put all of this together, the functional medicine, the fasting and the faith, like boom,
Julie Michelson: boom is right. And it's amazing, especially for, for our audience. Um, it is to me always the first step of [00:20:00] healing anybody dealing with chronic pain, chronic illness, autoimmunity, any of the things, right, we do their overtime becomes, I think, as a survival mechanism in the beginning, a disconnect, right?
Julie Michelson: I was a single mom and in loss of pain. I had to ignore that pain. I had to disconnect from those signals to get through the day and take care of my three kiddos. And there was no way to heal until I reconnected and realized, you know, my body and I are on the same team. I am not understanding the message is trying to give me, I need to listen and integrate back in order to heal.
Julie Michelson: Um, so, so thank you for highlighting that. Cause I know literally everybody in the audience just leaned in and was like, yup. Um, that's me, whether it was me is me. Um, I, I really truly believe that that is. It's such, it's the key to beginning your healing journey. Um, so I have the, I hear all the time questions about I'm [00:21:00] 55.
Julie Michelson: Um, I mentioned, you know, earlier before we hit record, I, you know, I had a hysterectomy and oophorectomy four years ago. Um, so here I am post menopausal 55 year old woman. Is it safe for me to fast?
Tabatha Barber: Yeah, fasting is your superpower at this point in your life. It honestly is. That is create the how we were created to function.
Tabatha Barber: Our bodies were created to go periods of time without food and then feast. So this feast, famines, carb cycling is key for women. That's what makes my program because we don't want to starve the body. We understand that just. Chronic calorie deprivation does turn down our metabolism. It's not helpful, but if you remind your body that you're not starving by doing some carb cycling and you really eat the right foods when you are eating, then fasting [00:22:00] becomes really powerful and transformational.
Tabatha Barber: So the key is to focus on the food when you are eating. So in the book I talk about. Faith foods versus frankenfoods, which are like all these foods we've created in the lab. They're not real foods. Like if it didn't grow out of the ground or have a mama, then it's a frankenfood probably because it's process is just to the degree, like what's added, what's changed.
Tabatha Barber: But if you can start to understand that and that. It's affecting how you feel and your ability to fast. So I love eating healthy fats, protein, vegetables for fiber. Like that should be your focus at every meal. And then fasting is going to feel good because you've actually nourished your body and you can really, get to a point of thriving and controlling your weight and having so much brain clarity and so much energy.
Tabatha Barber: It's [00:23:00] just so many good things. You know, women often complain that they can't sleep, they're waking up in the middle of the night, and it's almost always that they're drinking alcohol in the afternoons, evenings, or they're eating desserts, they're elevating their blood sugar, they're not getting that fat and protein in their diet.
Tabatha Barber: And So it's just little tweaks like that can make such a huge impact on how you feel and how you function. So it's really important to focus on what you are eating when you eat. I've
Julie Michelson: heard that so many times, you know, Oh, well, I fast, you know, like people think if they just fast a day a week, that, you know, takes the balances out the crap that they're putting in their system.
Julie Michelson: And the reality is the way the frankenfoods, our body doesn't, doesn't see that as food. Like it may feel good when you're putting it in your mouth because it's designed to, um, [00:24:00] but our body can't use, there aren't, I don't care if they're adding stuff back in, like you shouldn't have to add nutrients back into food.
Julie Michelson: It should just. Have nutrients because it's real. So I love that and I, it is such a, and people don't want to hear it, right? Like they, that's, I just had a conversation with a gal yesterday who was really, you know, she's like, well, I don't want to test that because I don't want to know. And I'm like, well, do you want to feel better?
Julie Michelson: Like, come on. Um, but also
Tabatha Barber: you to want to know, like, yeah, there's the empowerment.
Julie Michelson: Right. Right. Um, and I love the, that is the, a huge difference too, when you're eating real foods and your diet is packed with healthy fats, good, you know, clean proteins and veggies, you, you don't have that hangry, then you can fast.
Julie Michelson: Right, like that you don't, you don't have, I'm not saying, you know, your first go round is going to be. Easy and or [00:25:00] successful, you know, but it is different when your body's not used to being fed all the time. And when it's used to being fed, I always say, just think of nature. You've been referring to that, right?
Julie Michelson: Our bodies weren't created to have this surplus and abundance of food around, even if it is real food around us all the time, we shouldn't always be shoving something in our mouth. Um, because we weren't, we didn't find food like that in nature.
Tabatha Barber: Exactly. So our bodies aren't created to have these huge dumps of water because carbohydrates are just a bunch of sugars connected.
Tabatha Barber: So once we start them in our mouth and in our stomach, they just get broken down into sugar and that's what we absorb. And so we're. Most of us are not using that much sugar or energy when we eat it. We're not training for triathlons and, you know, working out for two hours a day. Let's just be honest.
Tabatha Barber:[00:26:00] Most of us are sedentary. Most of us are at the desk. I'm guilty of that too. And so my daughter who's 13 can get away with eating carbs all day long because she's moving her body constantly. I cannot do that. Most grown women cannot. And that was one thing that I really took, you know, a lot of time to research and study when I was creating fast to faith is how do we eliminate that hangry jittery, Terrible feeling fit.
Tabatha Barber: You can't fast because it doesn't feel good and what it turns out is we just have to get you into fat burning mode again. We have to remind your body how to burn fat for fuel. And so I love the ketogenic diet for that transition. Not saying gaggle full on ketogenic all the time, always my program is set up so that you get to ketosis, you [00:27:00] start burning the fat that you're eating, and it reminds your body how to burn fat for fuel, you stop relying on sugar, and then when you take the food away, your body will continue to look for fat to burn.
Tabatha Barber: And so you will tap into your own fat stores and start burning your fat for fuel. So you need that little transition. So the program is a progressive fast where you're getting into ketosis, you're getting rid of the snacks, breaking up with sugar, you're shortening your eating window. Going a dinner to dinner fast, which is really amazing because then you're starting to get into the repair work.
Tabatha Barber: You can do a three day water fast, which has been incredible. I've seen women reverse their diabetes and all kinds of issues. And then you learn how to just live a beast famine carb cycling life where this is just my life now and it's so Like for me, I travel a lo to [00:28:00] eat the garbage in the the airplane and all of t my body now knows how to food for a day and I can amazing, but you have to Fast to faith has been a game changer for women in that regard.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And that is the key, you know, the, the cycling and the, like, we weren't meant to do any one thing day in and day out, like that's just not how we're designed and, and so that is the key. And I see, you know, a lot of people get so stuck on the, like how many hours they're fasting or, and they, they get stuck and then they're not feeling well or, or, They're not carb cycling.
Julie Michelson: Right. And, and so, and I lived, but I always did carb cycle, but part of my healing journey, that's why I was excited for this conversation was, you know, keto and, and fasting [00:29:00] and, and, um, cyclical keto, like, again, never, I didn't even know, like, luckily I was just following a program at the time. That was right.
Julie Michelson: And so I never got stuck in the doing the one thing all the time, but I do believe there is this bit of meant to be guessing, you know, we, we really want our body to be resilient and to be able to burn. sugar when we need to and burn fat. Like you want it to be able to do both. And it just takes some retraining, but, but the retraining starts in our brains first.
Julie Michelson: Um, and I,
Tabatha Barber: yeah,
Julie Michelson: yeah.
Tabatha Barber: Our body has amazing innate intelligence. It is always trying to get into homeostasis. So if you start doing something on a regular basis, it reads those patterns and figures it out and says, Oh, now we know how much we have to burn to stay where we're at. And it's not trying to get extreme on you.
Tabatha Barber: So if you [00:30:00] want to drop 60 pounds, you have to shake things up. You have to change things up, not go 16 eight every day, the same five meals all week long, the same. workout routine, you are not going to lose weight. Your body knows how to maintain at that place. You are completely correct. You have to change it up.
Tabatha Barber: You have to eat with the seasons. You have to have diversity in your diet and in your exercise and all of that. You have to shake it up. You got to get a little bit drastic sometimes. I love it.
Julie Michelson: Shake it up. Absolutely. So you're saying even somebody like me, this is safe. This isn't going to, well, first of all, mess with my hormones, obviously that's not even, but what about, you know, say, yeah, can we address
Tabatha Barber: that?
Tabatha Barber: Yes. Please. You don't even have sex hormones. Not my own. They didn't
Julie Michelson: start in my [00:31:00] body, that's, but I do, but they're, but yes.
Tabatha Barber: Okay. You're not producing anymore. So I think a lot of women have this idea or they've been fed this idea that, um, you can balance your hormones somehow after menopause, or you can replace them naturally.
Tabatha Barber: And that's just not true. So our ovaries. have a lifespan, and it's unfortunately shorter than the rest of our body. So they do close up factory permanently for good at some point. Our adrenals act like our backup ovaries. So our adrenal glands will continue to produce a little bit of testosterone and estrogen from the DHEA.
Tabatha Barber: So you're not completely devoid of sex hormones. You're pretty much devoid of progesterone once your ovaries stop producing and your estrogen declines drastically. That's why women feel that big shift. They have the hot flashes, the night [00:32:00] sweats, the vaginal dryness, all the things. So you never make the same amount of hormones again, once you go into menopause.
Julie Michelson: Even with herbs or seeds? You can't,
Tabatha Barber: you can't herb your way into hormone replacement therapy. I really invite women to have a conversation at this change in their life because you should have the informed consent. You should have the option to know I'm either going to go down this full menopause pathway and understand what that looks like long term or I'm going to consider bioidentical hormone replacement therapy for these reasons.
Tabatha Barber: And if you don't have that conversation with a provider who understands hormones. Then you're going to be misinformed and you're going to make the wrong decision and I, unfortunately, I see this every single day. Women come to my medical practice and say, I was told hormones are dangerous. I didn't go on them.
Tabatha Barber: It's been 10 years and now I'm [00:33:00] miserable. So the problem is. You might feel okay. You might get through the hot flashes and night sweats. Some women don't even have them. Lucky for them. But your hormones impact your entire body. We have estrogen and progesterone and testosterone receptors everywhere. And so once those levels are permanently declined, the way your body function does change.
Tabatha Barber: And so, We see the risk of diabetes starts to go up, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, bone loss, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's, dementia, all of it, loss of vaginal health to the point where women give up being intimate with their partners and they're peeing their pants. They can't hold their bladder.
Tabatha Barber: They have, you know, chronic lichen sclerosis or prolapse and all of these things that come not right away, But later down the line and no one is [00:34:00] addressing them. So there's really two reasons that you consider hormone replacement therapy, and it's for symptom management. Let me get over these hot flashes, night sweats.
Tabatha Barber: Or I want to slow down the aging and disease process that is impending because of the loss of these hormones. And there's no right answer. It's Whatever you're comfortable with what you and your provider decide, but there are some things like fasting. I've seen so many women like just thrive in menopause without hormones because they fast.
Tabatha Barber: They eat clean. They don't eat frankenfoods. They move their body. All of that other stuff, but they still have those diseases setting in, they're still having bone loss and cardiovascular disease risk and insulin resistance and all the things. So that's just something that you need to [00:35:00] be aware of and be excited that you actually have options in this day and age, you know, and.
Tabatha Barber: I, I just, I'm so excited that we're finally getting the truth out there that hormones aren't dangerous. Because when I first came into practice, um, I inherited a very mature practice. The doctor I was replacing was in his eighties. And so he had like delivered these women, they went through menopause.
Tabatha Barber: They were up into their seventies and eighties with him still all on hormones. So it was unheard of. Like I was the only one. prescribing hormones where I was because I had this older population and he didn't believe I When it came out and thankfully he didn't because I learned so much from him He was like hormones don't cause cancer.
Tabatha Barber: Don't be afraid of hormones. And so I got to see How these women thrive they're still playing pickleball. They're still having sex. They're enjoying their lives [00:36:00] full length Yeah, it's totally different than the 70 and 80 year olds who were 30 years without hormones. And so That impacted me big time. And I really just want women to have the option.
Tabatha Barber: I'm not saying get on hormones, but I'm a personally on hormones and I can't function without them. And I don't apologize for that. Right.
Julie Michelson: I would hand over my wallet in an alley, but not, you know, not my hormones. Don't take those away, you know, but for me personally, but I love that it's, it's get educated.
Julie Michelson: Find the right provider. I want to add kind of the from personal experience. You touched on it earlier to, um, a lot of OBGYNs or even just GYNs may even, think they're trained in hormone replacement therapy. Um, I went through this personally, love my surgeon. She was my [00:37:00] gynecologist for 20 years. She did an amazing job with my surgery.
Julie Michelson: Everything was amazing. You know, and I asked her, I went from fully functional ovaries to no ovaries. in the OR and I asked her post op in the morning, you know, did you put a patch on and an estrogen patch on during, you know, in, in the OR? And she said, no, are you already having hot flashes? And I was like, well, no, it's only been a few hours, you know, like, and she said, you know, talk to me when you come in for your post op check, if you're, if you're having symptoms.
Julie Michelson: And I thought, well, no, I'll, I'll, okay. You know, I just said, okay. And I went home and, and, you know, the, I had some estrogen patches waiting for me when I got home because I'm, I was blessed enough to be prepared. I was already on progesterone at the time. Um, and when I came back from my post op, she said.
Julie Michelson: You can stop your progesterone. You don't have a uterus anymore. You [00:38:00] don't need it. And I, again, I just said, okay, but, but the reason I'm bringing it up is because on her website is all about how she can help women with hormones, but obviously she doesn't have a clear understanding of all of the impacts of hormones.
Julie Michelson: You know, it shouldn't be, let's not, you don't get a conversation because you don't have a uterus. So do your homework. It's part of the empowerment. Dr. Tabatha is giving you not only the education and the tools, but also the permission to, to, and almost the orders, like be your own advocate. And if you go and have a conversation and something doesn't feel right.
Julie Michelson: It might not be the right provider, even if on their website, they say they are so, so just understand that, that when it comes down to it, once you educate yourself on your options, [00:39:00] you are the one who needs to make the decisions for your own body. And it doesn't make you, you know, naughty if you don't listen to your doctor and you go find somebody who's a better fit.
Tabatha Barber: Absolutely. And I also want women to understand that there are different schools of thought. Sure. I'm certified by the North American Menopause Society. That is like the preeminent certification for OBGYNs for menopause training, right? So I learned what I learned as an OBGYN. I went on to learn this through NAMS and NAMS very much Follows ACOG guidelines, American College of OBGYNs.
Tabatha Barber: And so they're very conventional and they are very, I won't say antiquated. They, they were, they're catching, finally changing and updating their recommendations and their standard. care, but [00:40:00] that is where the discrepancy and the confusion comes in because you have this whole camp of health and wellness providers in the functional, integrative, holistic space, anti aging space, who really understand what hormones are doing.
Tabatha Barber: And they're not saying the same things. So conventional doctors are telling you, you know, Progesterone is only for your uterus. Estrogen is only for vasomotor symptoms, hot flashes and night sweats. There's dangers with estrogen. You should only take it shortest, you know, time for lowest dose. And none of that is true.
Tabatha Barber: That is based on very old dated evidence that has been debunked, but those committees are very slow to change what they recommend and So, that is why you have so much confusion going on and I feel very blessed that I get to understand both sides because I've, I'm part [00:41:00] of both camps. So I understand where conventional doctors are coming from and what they were trained.
Tabatha Barber: I understand where integrative medicine, anti aging medicine is coming from and there's a place to meet in the middle. But like you said, if your provider doesn't want to have a conversation. doesn't know how to test hormones, just tells you, Oh, you don't need them that you should look for another provider.
Tabatha Barber: You know, I did a whole podcast episode on like five reasons. Find a new doctor because in this day and age, doctors are not paternalistic. They don't just walk in the room and tell you what to do. You should be part of that decision making process. Not all doctors are created equally and you pay their salaries and it's okay for you to say no thank you.
Tabatha Barber: And find someone else. And unfortunately you might have to go outside of your insurance and pay out of pocket and [00:42:00] invest in your health. We need to change the way we think about our health. You know, we pay more to take care of our car and keep our car in good condition. We do the oil changes and the car washes and all the things, but we don't do that for our body.
Tabatha Barber: It's like, what you were just. So we have to like undo a lot of bad thought, honestly. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Well, which is what you're helping us do. So I love that. And, and it is, I say it all the time. I, my qualifier, you know, I, I share my life with, with a physician, right. And there's no bashing. And if I need surgery, I'm going, you know, give me Western.
Julie Michelson: I'm not going for acupuncture. If I need surgery,
Tabatha Barber: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: so, and I do look forward to, I love that you did, you know, you brought up the, there is change in the works. It's just a really slow process and I, and I look forward to hopefully, I'm still, still around when, you know, [00:43:00] that is just standard of care that, that there is this.
Julie Michelson: A deeper understanding of nutrition and lifestyle and hormones and all the things that we think of as functional integrative anti aging, which are just. wellness, um, creeping its way into medical school, you know, for more than like a three hour lecture or something. So we're, we're getting there. It's just a slow process, but I truly believe that that's the direction we're moving and it's, it's doctors like you helping us get there.
Julie Michelson: So thank you.
Tabatha Barber: Yeah. My pleasure.
Julie Michelson: So we're at the point of the podcast where I get to ask you for one step listeners can take starting today to improve their health and you can pick from anything you want.
Tabatha Barber: Oh my goodness. I know it's tough. Well, yeah, I'm trying, I'm thinking about your listeners, you know, they're most likely autoimmune like I am.[00:44:00]
Tabatha Barber: Um, giving up gluten was the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. I will just say that. But, um, I have a method called faith it that I love to teach women because it's really powerful and it kind of incorporates the fasting and the faith and If you use the faith that method you are really getting into a space because when you fast you get mental clarity and things start to open up and you can start to have a conversation with your creator and you want to start journaling and writing down and get clarity on what what it is you want in your life and what you don't want in your life.
Tabatha Barber: And when you hear. When you see that you hear from God and you start to initiate action, so many things can shift. So I love this little hack. It's called faith that you can just, you know, look it up on my website, but when you start doing that process once [00:45:00] a day, Those tiny little changes they add to big things, you know?
Tabatha Barber: So I would say get into this attitude of gratitude. Start thinking about how can I get in tune with my body? How can I listen to my body? How can I hear what God's trying to say for me? And take this time to actually listen and love your body because you can't heal a body you hate. I've tried. I've been there.
Tabatha Barber: I've done that. Um, but you just can't. So try, just love your body and, and then see, it might actually change. You know, women are like, what do you mean? You want me to love the body that I hate? Yeah, that is literally the only way to change. You have to treat your body, you would your child or your, your best friend or your partner, like you just never would talk to it the way you talk to your body or treat it the way you would, you know, and so start taking it from that perspective.
Tabatha Barber:[00:46:00] And if you start getting into this fasting mode, Asking God for clarity, writing it down, getting into action, trusting his timing, like the whole faith process can really be a game changer for women. So, um, we can definitely give you a free download on like how to incorporate fasting. They'll be super helpful.
Tabatha Barber: We have a free app that you can go in, we have recipes, we have a community, like we have so much support because If you feel like you've tried it before and you failed or you didn't feel good on it, I just invite you to try again and maybe just make some tweaks because I think you might just be missing a couple pieces.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check out the show notes, where is the best place to find you? Just
Tabatha Barber: fast to faith. com. Yep.
Julie Michelson: So easy. I love it. And all those resources are there really cannot encourage you enough to check it out. Um, Dr. Tabitha, I so [00:47:00] appreciate not only your time, but just all of the gold you've given us today.
Julie Michelson: Oh, my pleasure for everyone listening. Remember you can get those show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living. show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
​[00:48:00]
Tabatha Barber: Our bodies were created to go periods of time without food and then feast. So this feast, famines, carb cycling is key for women. Because we don't want to starve the body. We understand that just. Chronic calorie deprivation does turn down our metabolism. It's not helpful, but if you remind your body that you're not starving by doing some carb cycling and you really eat the right foods when you are eating, then fasting becomes really powerful and transformational.
Julie Michelson:[00:01:00] Welcome back to the Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. Today, we're joined by Dr. Tabitha Barber, who has dedicated her life to giving women a voice and a choice when it comes to their health and wellbeing. Overcoming struggles as a young girl, including self esteem challenges and the hurdles of being a high school dropout and teenage mother, she emerged as a successful physician through faith and perseverance.
Julie Michelson: Her unwavering commitment to women's health is evident through her triple board certifications in obstetrics and gynecology, menopause, and functional medicine. As the driving force behind her thriving medical practice, Dr. Tabatha and her team provide compassionate support and care to women nationwide.
Julie Michelson: Through the Gutsy Gynecologist show, her Gutsy [00:02:00] Gyne supplement line, and her best selling book, Fast to Faith, she shares insights into the importance of gut health, hormone balance, mindset, and most importantly, nourishing the soul to truly heal and become whole. She's a beacon of light in a sea of medical darkness.
Julie Michelson: In today's conversation, we are talking about the power of fasting and faith and how Dr. Tabitha's process can help support women of all ages, regain their clarity and zest for life.
Julie Michelson: Dr. Tabitha, welcome to the podcast.
Tabatha Barber: Thank you so much, Julie. I'm excited about our conversation.
Julie Michelson: I am as well. And I would love to get a little bit of your backstory for listeners. Um, because you really have been pioneering this field of functional gynecology, which is so important. We were just chatting and I thought, Oh, let's just hit record.
Julie Michelson: Um, but share a bit of your journey because, um, I'm guessing when you were a little girl, this [00:03:00] wasn't the direction you thought you'd be going in.
Tabatha Barber: Not at all. Oh my goodness. I liked school because my friends were there and I got to talk to them. Like I lived in detention in Saturday school because I couldn't pay attention or shut up.
Tabatha Barber: Like I just loved the social aspect of it. So I really struggled with school and I thought I was going to be a rock star. That was my main jam. I was going to be an 80s hairband and, um, In 11th grade, I got pregnant and my life changed drastically. And I realized that, you know, dreams of becoming a rock star probably weren't going to happen.
Tabatha Barber: I need to like focus elsewhere. And unfortunately, I was in a position where I ended up having to be on Medicaid and stamps and really depending on On a sense to survive, and I had a grumpy old doctor assigned to me. He made it clear he was making 22 [00:04:00] cents a dollar to take care of me. And so a lot of things were done to me.
Tabatha Barber: Nothing was explained, pills, procedures, lots of pelvic exams. And I had a very traumatic delivery. After three and a half hours of pushing, he ended up using forceps to deliver my baby. And it wasn't until way after the fact that I realized that he was a family practice doctor and not an obstetrician.
Tabatha Barber: And that's why I couldn't have the C section that I needed so badly. And, but, Um, to top things off, I ended up in a hyperthyroid storm after delivery, so my heart was racing, I was sweating, was dropping all kinds of weight while trying to nurse a brand new baby at 17, and, um, it was, A disaster to say the least, right?
Tabatha Barber: So it wasn't until many years later that I really figured out everything that I [00:05:00] had gone through and understood it. But at the time I'm in the lay of livery room crying and begging for a C section. Um, just had to come to Jesus moment. And. My God Downloaded to me like you have to get your life together.
Tabatha Barber: This is unacceptable. You can have to use your voice you can't let people just do whatever to your body and I really didn't know what all that looked like or meant for me But I just knew that I had to like take steps forward to change and I went back to I had dropped out of school, went back on my GED, went to a community college, thought I was going to be a nurse, ended up going to medical school and becoming a doctor.
Tabatha Barber: And it's just been my life's passion to give women a voice and a choice when it comes to their health because I had no idea that A lot of the [00:06:00] stuff that happened to me shouldn't have happened, that there was other choices, that there should have been options, there should have been informed consent, we should have had discussions about, well, here's what we could possibly do, here's the other options, and then actually be part of that decision making process.
Tabatha Barber: And so, That is just really important to me at this point in my life. Like women need to know what they're signing up for or not signing up for, right? And if you don't have true informed consent, then it's not a real patient doctor relationship. And unfortunately, I thought I learned everything when I went to medical school, right?
Tabatha Barber: But what I learned was, as a conventional doctor, I only had a couple tools in my toolbox. I could perform surgery, because that's what gynecologists are, we're surgeons, or I could offer birth control pills. And so when I was providing informed consent, say you signed up to [00:07:00] do surgery for your endometriosis.
Tabatha Barber: I would say, here's your options. Birth control, um, medical menopause with a medication or surgery. I had no idea that there was this whole world of health wellness and that you could actually heal endometrium diet and lifestyle and herbal remedies and all of, you know, healing your gut. So I wasn't truly giving informed consent, right?
Tabatha Barber: Cause I didn't know all of the options. And so. Now I'm just here to explain to women, like, keep asking questions. There's more to the story than probably what your doctor is offering you. And I'm really excited that women like you and functional providers are showing up and they're educating people because we just don't know.
Julie Michelson: It's so true. I was just saying that before we hit record, right? In our little bubble, we know, and then we have [00:08:00] conversations and, and I will qualify for you. Um, you know, physicians are doing the best they can with the training they have. And it's just a matter of, like you said, you needed a bigger tool belt.
Julie Michelson: Um, and that is why I love having these conversations because I just can't even imagine, first of all, you know, The, I do believe things we go through things, you know, to create impact in the future. Um, but I cannot imagine, I think men and women in general, at least historically were disempowered in the Western medical system.
Julie Michelson: You know, we were just told like, listen to the doctor, the doctor knows everything. And, and, um, and so I can't imagine going through what you went through as such a young girl. And so thank you for listening to that download and, you know, changing the conversation [00:09:00] and, and helping women of all ages. Um, I, and I feel like it is the same thing for women like me and in our fifties, you know, it's so we have like kind of the.
Julie Michelson: The, the childbirth, I guess there's a few phases, you know, you, you've got adolescence where hormones can be crazy. And the, and the, you know, usually it's the pill that gets thrown at you. And then, and then your child rear bearing years, and then menopause is another like, well, that's just how it is.
Julie Michelson: Nothing to do about it. Um, and so thank you for, for women everywhere for, Keeping the conversation going and and allowing people to access the education to empower themselves, um, because when they learn from you and then they go to the doctor and that's not the conversation, hopefully they'll find another doctor, right?
Julie Michelson: So, um, well,
Tabatha Barber: you've made a really important point that we're just asking the wrong people, you know, I was a surgeon. I did four years of a [00:10:00] surgical residency, learning how to do a hysterectomy four different ways and fibroid surgery and colposcopies and delivering babies and c sections. And so we don't study the intricacies of hormone balance and how the gut and the adrenals and the thyroid impact all of that.
Tabatha Barber: Like I had to go on and study functional. Medicine and anti aging medicine and do all this other stuff. So we call OBGYNs women's health experts, but they're really not experts when it comes to hormones and what's happening, you know, at a comprehensive physiologic level. I am there to like save your life, cut things out that are bad, you know, bring babies into the world.
Tabatha Barber: It's just, we're testing the wrong person. I got minimal training about menopause and those types of changes. Like I said, my tool was birth control pills. And [00:11:00] unfortunately, we know there's a lot of issues with that. And so it's really important for women to understand that there's so much foundational stuff that can shift their health that they can do on their own.
Tabatha Barber: They might want a coach or a guide or a functional provider. If you've already been diagnosed with thyroid disease or you are transitioning into menopause, things like that. But if you're not doing the foundational stuff, none of that matters. And I see that in my clinic every day, women come to me like, I need hormone replacement therapy.
Tabatha Barber: I heard it's safe to take now let's do the, the hormones. But they're eating the standard American diet. They're stressed to the max. They're sitting at their job all day. They're not dealing with their messed up relationships. So much stuff that's underlying and destroying their health and that has to be addressed.
Julie Michelson: Absolutely. Amen. It's still the, it's this, that perspective of the magic [00:12:00] pill, right? They're showing up and they're like, you fix me. Like you give me that magic thing. And, and that's, we know that that's a non empowerment and B it doesn't work. So I, I love the, you know, the, the reality of your approach is, is amazing.
Julie Michelson: And we're whole humans. There's never one thing. So I love that. I want to circle back to your download that you got and to faith, um, because I already told you, I would love to have you back for a second conversation, but, but, um, Fasting and faith. Like this is what I think of as just inherently Dr.
Julie Michelson: Tabitha. Um, and it's an important conversation. You hear so many different things about fasting. Um, I understand the importance of faith in, in healing and living well. So let's, let's dig [00:13:00] in a little bit of like why the two together, um, how did, how did that come about? Yeah,
Tabatha Barber: so, you know, when I have gotten many downloads from God, like he is definitely directing me and guiding my life.
Tabatha Barber: And I think it's because I've always been open and ask him to do so. I really just am a follower of Jesus. So that's my jam. If that's not your jam, that's cool. That's just, you know, who I am. And so, you know, I told you, I figured out how to get my GED, go back to medical school, do all the things. Cause I thought that's what women needed from me.
Tabatha Barber: And so here I am an attending physician. I'm out in practice working a hundred hours a week, just Literally, and I was destroying myself. So I realized this is not what God has called me to do. This is the mess that I've [00:14:00] created. And I have been brainwashed into, you know, into this broken medical system.
Tabatha Barber: And so I got to the point where I had a back injury. I couldn't function. I gave in and I had sick surgery. I took six weeks off to heal and my third night back on call, I reentered and I couldn't move. And that was Christmas Eve. Um, that was pretty stressful. So for the next week, I was lying in bed, really couldn't move.
Tabatha Barber: My husband's carrying me to the toilet essentially. And about the third or fourth day, I realized I hadn't really eaten. And, you know, I'm laying there talking to God like, All the typical things. Why did you do this to me? Why would you, you know, forsake me and betray me? And like, why am I struggling? This isn't fair.
Tabatha Barber: All the typical victim mentality things I'm saying to myself. And he, he was like, you just need to read [00:15:00] scripture. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and figure out what's going on. And what I realized was my body was innately. Trying to heal itself. And then I started thinking back to my surgical training and the fact that when I would do surgery on patients, like this is what I learned as an intern.
Tabatha Barber: You write an order to the nurse and PO you don't feed my patient until I tell you to feed my. patient. And it's because we eat, we use a lot of resources just to break down and digest foods and do all those processes in our digestive system. And so when you're trying to heal, you first you need those resources for healing.
Tabatha Barber: So you don't need all that digestion happen. But second, there are mechanisms that come into play, our body starts producing healing cells. And, you know, it's, it's the best part of autophagy and that kicks in around, you know, the 18 to 20 hour mark where our body [00:16:00] starts creating these little cells called macrophages that go around and eat broken cells and DNA and they start cleaning house throughout our body.
Tabatha Barber: I think of it like pac man, the little guy goes around and he eats all the stuff up. And that's what starts to happen when we abstain from food is our body goes into this deeper healing process of cleaning things up. And so, unfortunately, the standard American diet has us eating from dusk until dawn. We have food available 24 7.
Tabatha Barber: You know, we can have a pint of ice cream in 20 minutes if we want, like, there's no stopping us from eating and it's really hard on our pancreas. We're constantly pumping out insulin. We're tapping off our blood sugar. So it's like constantly elevated. It never gets to come back down to normal range because.
Tabatha Barber: As soon as it starts to drop, we get hangry and jittery and irritable. And [00:17:00] we've been trained to like feed that, feed that hanger. Right. So we are just stuck in this super, um, sugar burning mode of like carbs, carbs, carbs, more carbs. And we don't ever tap into our fat burning mode to burn fat for fuel and make ketones, which is a much cleaner fuel for our brain and so many things.
Tabatha Barber: And so. What I really realized was that even though I was trained as a surgeon, I wasn't the healer. I was, you know, that was ingrained in me. Like I'm healing these people, I'm helping them. But when I make those cuts, I cut through your skin, your fascia, your muscle, I do all that stuff. And I sew you back up.
Tabatha Barber: I do not heal you. Your body actually does the healing. Your cells grow back together, your skin and your muscle. They all grow back together. And so we're giving the medical [00:18:00] system way too much credit when it's actually, in fact, your body doing so much of the work. And we just need to get back to supporting your body to be able to do that process and removing what's impeding it or preventing it from doing that process.
Tabatha Barber: And so that's. you know, where fast to faith came from. I was like, Oh my gosh, all this stuff I have learned, I just have to share with women. They need to know how their body works, how to enhance it and stop interfering with it. Because what I've seen over all these years of practice is women are in a constant fight with their body.
Tabatha Barber: They think their body's failing them. They hate their body. They're mad at it. I was, I hated my body. It was like, why can't you function with no sleep? And I'm On donuts and M& M's and coffee, like what's wrong with you? Why are you in so much pain? You know, and I hated my body and my poor body was just crying out asking for help [00:19:00] and I wasn't listening and that's what's really happening for so many women is they just need to get back in tune, learn how to listen to what their body is telling them and then work together and love it back into health and wellness.
Tabatha Barber: And so fasting is just a piece of that. But when you incorporate the faith and you ask God to come on this journey with you, and you're like, I, I don't have the strength for this, you know, like my willpower lasts until the cookie shows up is if you ask God to give you that strength, you're going to be be unstoppable.
Tabatha Barber: Like you're going to be able to do everything you're called to do. And it's so empowering just watching women transform when they actually put all of this together, the functional medicine, the fasting and the faith, like boom,
Julie Michelson: boom is right. And it's amazing, especially for, for our audience. Um, it is to me always the first step of [00:20:00] healing anybody dealing with chronic pain, chronic illness, autoimmunity, any of the things, right, we do their overtime becomes, I think, as a survival mechanism in the beginning, a disconnect, right?
Julie Michelson: I was a single mom and in loss of pain. I had to ignore that pain. I had to disconnect from those signals to get through the day and take care of my three kiddos. And there was no way to heal until I reconnected and realized, you know, my body and I are on the same team. I am not understanding the message is trying to give me, I need to listen and integrate back in order to heal.
Julie Michelson: Um, so, so thank you for highlighting that. Cause I know literally everybody in the audience just leaned in and was like, yup. Um, that's me, whether it was me is me. Um, I, I really truly believe that that is. It's such, it's the key to beginning your healing journey. Um, so I have the, I hear all the time questions about I'm [00:21:00] 55.
Julie Michelson: Um, I mentioned, you know, earlier before we hit record, I, you know, I had a hysterectomy and oophorectomy four years ago. Um, so here I am post menopausal 55 year old woman. Is it safe for me to fast?
Tabatha Barber: Yeah, fasting is your superpower at this point in your life. It honestly is. That is create the how we were created to function.
Tabatha Barber: Our bodies were created to go periods of time without food and then feast. So this feast, famines, carb cycling is key for women. That's what makes my program because we don't want to starve the body. We understand that just. Chronic calorie deprivation does turn down our metabolism. It's not helpful, but if you remind your body that you're not starving by doing some carb cycling and you really eat the right foods when you are eating, then fasting [00:22:00] becomes really powerful and transformational.
Tabatha Barber: So the key is to focus on the food when you are eating. So in the book I talk about. Faith foods versus frankenfoods, which are like all these foods we've created in the lab. They're not real foods. Like if it didn't grow out of the ground or have a mama, then it's a frankenfood probably because it's process is just to the degree, like what's added, what's changed.
Tabatha Barber: But if you can start to understand that and that. It's affecting how you feel and your ability to fast. So I love eating healthy fats, protein, vegetables for fiber. Like that should be your focus at every meal. And then fasting is going to feel good because you've actually nourished your body and you can really, get to a point of thriving and controlling your weight and having so much brain clarity and so much energy.
Tabatha Barber: It's [00:23:00] just so many good things. You know, women often complain that they can't sleep, they're waking up in the middle of the night, and it's almost always that they're drinking alcohol in the afternoons, evenings, or they're eating desserts, they're elevating their blood sugar, they're not getting that fat and protein in their diet.
Tabatha Barber: And So it's just little tweaks like that can make such a huge impact on how you feel and how you function. So it's really important to focus on what you are eating when you eat. I've
Julie Michelson: heard that so many times, you know, Oh, well, I fast, you know, like people think if they just fast a day a week, that, you know, takes the balances out the crap that they're putting in their system.
Julie Michelson: And the reality is the way the frankenfoods, our body doesn't, doesn't see that as food. Like it may feel good when you're putting it in your mouth because it's designed to, um, [00:24:00] but our body can't use, there aren't, I don't care if they're adding stuff back in, like you shouldn't have to add nutrients back into food.
Julie Michelson: It should just. Have nutrients because it's real. So I love that and I, it is such a, and people don't want to hear it, right? Like they, that's, I just had a conversation with a gal yesterday who was really, you know, she's like, well, I don't want to test that because I don't want to know. And I'm like, well, do you want to feel better?
Julie Michelson: Like, come on. Um, but also
Tabatha Barber: you to want to know, like, yeah, there's the empowerment.
Julie Michelson: Right. Right. Um, and I love the, that is the, a huge difference too, when you're eating real foods and your diet is packed with healthy fats, good, you know, clean proteins and veggies, you, you don't have that hangry, then you can fast.
Julie Michelson: Right, like that you don't, you don't have, I'm not saying, you know, your first go round is going to be. Easy and or [00:25:00] successful, you know, but it is different when your body's not used to being fed all the time. And when it's used to being fed, I always say, just think of nature. You've been referring to that, right?
Julie Michelson: Our bodies weren't created to have this surplus and abundance of food around, even if it is real food around us all the time, we shouldn't always be shoving something in our mouth. Um, because we weren't, we didn't find food like that in nature.
Tabatha Barber: Exactly. So our bodies aren't created to have these huge dumps of water because carbohydrates are just a bunch of sugars connected.
Tabatha Barber: So once we start them in our mouth and in our stomach, they just get broken down into sugar and that's what we absorb. And so we're. Most of us are not using that much sugar or energy when we eat it. We're not training for triathlons and, you know, working out for two hours a day. Let's just be honest.
Tabatha Barber:[00:26:00] Most of us are sedentary. Most of us are at the desk. I'm guilty of that too. And so my daughter who's 13 can get away with eating carbs all day long because she's moving her body constantly. I cannot do that. Most grown women cannot. And that was one thing that I really took, you know, a lot of time to research and study when I was creating fast to faith is how do we eliminate that hangry jittery, Terrible feeling fit.
Tabatha Barber: You can't fast because it doesn't feel good and what it turns out is we just have to get you into fat burning mode again. We have to remind your body how to burn fat for fuel. And so I love the ketogenic diet for that transition. Not saying gaggle full on ketogenic all the time, always my program is set up so that you get to ketosis, you [00:27:00] start burning the fat that you're eating, and it reminds your body how to burn fat for fuel, you stop relying on sugar, and then when you take the food away, your body will continue to look for fat to burn.
Tabatha Barber: And so you will tap into your own fat stores and start burning your fat for fuel. So you need that little transition. So the program is a progressive fast where you're getting into ketosis, you're getting rid of the snacks, breaking up with sugar, you're shortening your eating window. Going a dinner to dinner fast, which is really amazing because then you're starting to get into the repair work.
Tabatha Barber: You can do a three day water fast, which has been incredible. I've seen women reverse their diabetes and all kinds of issues. And then you learn how to just live a beast famine carb cycling life where this is just my life now and it's so Like for me, I travel a lo to [00:28:00] eat the garbage in the the airplane and all of t my body now knows how to food for a day and I can amazing, but you have to Fast to faith has been a game changer for women in that regard.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And that is the key, you know, the, the cycling and the, like, we weren't meant to do any one thing day in and day out, like that's just not how we're designed and, and so that is the key. And I see, you know, a lot of people get so stuck on the, like how many hours they're fasting or, and they, they get stuck and then they're not feeling well or, or, They're not carb cycling.
Julie Michelson: Right. And, and so, and I lived, but I always did carb cycle, but part of my healing journey, that's why I was excited for this conversation was, you know, keto and, and fasting [00:29:00] and, and, um, cyclical keto, like, again, never, I didn't even know, like, luckily I was just following a program at the time. That was right.
Julie Michelson: And so I never got stuck in the doing the one thing all the time, but I do believe there is this bit of meant to be guessing, you know, we, we really want our body to be resilient and to be able to burn. sugar when we need to and burn fat. Like you want it to be able to do both. And it just takes some retraining, but, but the retraining starts in our brains first.
Julie Michelson: Um, and I,
Tabatha Barber: yeah,
Julie Michelson: yeah.
Tabatha Barber: Our body has amazing innate intelligence. It is always trying to get into homeostasis. So if you start doing something on a regular basis, it reads those patterns and figures it out and says, Oh, now we know how much we have to burn to stay where we're at. And it's not trying to get extreme on you.
Tabatha Barber: So if you [00:30:00] want to drop 60 pounds, you have to shake things up. You have to change things up, not go 16 eight every day, the same five meals all week long, the same. workout routine, you are not going to lose weight. Your body knows how to maintain at that place. You are completely correct. You have to change it up.
Tabatha Barber: You have to eat with the seasons. You have to have diversity in your diet and in your exercise and all of that. You have to shake it up. You got to get a little bit drastic sometimes. I love it.
Julie Michelson: Shake it up. Absolutely. So you're saying even somebody like me, this is safe. This isn't going to, well, first of all, mess with my hormones, obviously that's not even, but what about, you know, say, yeah, can we address
Tabatha Barber: that?
Tabatha Barber: Yes. Please. You don't even have sex hormones. Not my own. They didn't
Julie Michelson: start in my [00:31:00] body, that's, but I do, but they're, but yes.
Tabatha Barber: Okay. You're not producing anymore. So I think a lot of women have this idea or they've been fed this idea that, um, you can balance your hormones somehow after menopause, or you can replace them naturally.
Tabatha Barber: And that's just not true. So our ovaries. have a lifespan, and it's unfortunately shorter than the rest of our body. So they do close up factory permanently for good at some point. Our adrenals act like our backup ovaries. So our adrenal glands will continue to produce a little bit of testosterone and estrogen from the DHEA.
Tabatha Barber: So you're not completely devoid of sex hormones. You're pretty much devoid of progesterone once your ovaries stop producing and your estrogen declines drastically. That's why women feel that big shift. They have the hot flashes, the night [00:32:00] sweats, the vaginal dryness, all the things. So you never make the same amount of hormones again, once you go into menopause.
Julie Michelson: Even with herbs or seeds? You can't,
Tabatha Barber: you can't herb your way into hormone replacement therapy. I really invite women to have a conversation at this change in their life because you should have the informed consent. You should have the option to know I'm either going to go down this full menopause pathway and understand what that looks like long term or I'm going to consider bioidentical hormone replacement therapy for these reasons.
Tabatha Barber: And if you don't have that conversation with a provider who understands hormones. Then you're going to be misinformed and you're going to make the wrong decision and I, unfortunately, I see this every single day. Women come to my medical practice and say, I was told hormones are dangerous. I didn't go on them.
Tabatha Barber: It's been 10 years and now I'm [00:33:00] miserable. So the problem is. You might feel okay. You might get through the hot flashes and night sweats. Some women don't even have them. Lucky for them. But your hormones impact your entire body. We have estrogen and progesterone and testosterone receptors everywhere. And so once those levels are permanently declined, the way your body function does change.
Tabatha Barber: And so, We see the risk of diabetes starts to go up, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, bone loss, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's, dementia, all of it, loss of vaginal health to the point where women give up being intimate with their partners and they're peeing their pants. They can't hold their bladder.
Tabatha Barber: They have, you know, chronic lichen sclerosis or prolapse and all of these things that come not right away, But later down the line and no one is [00:34:00] addressing them. So there's really two reasons that you consider hormone replacement therapy, and it's for symptom management. Let me get over these hot flashes, night sweats.
Tabatha Barber: Or I want to slow down the aging and disease process that is impending because of the loss of these hormones. And there's no right answer. It's Whatever you're comfortable with what you and your provider decide, but there are some things like fasting. I've seen so many women like just thrive in menopause without hormones because they fast.
Tabatha Barber: They eat clean. They don't eat frankenfoods. They move their body. All of that other stuff, but they still have those diseases setting in, they're still having bone loss and cardiovascular disease risk and insulin resistance and all the things. So that's just something that you need to [00:35:00] be aware of and be excited that you actually have options in this day and age, you know, and.
Tabatha Barber: I, I just, I'm so excited that we're finally getting the truth out there that hormones aren't dangerous. Because when I first came into practice, um, I inherited a very mature practice. The doctor I was replacing was in his eighties. And so he had like delivered these women, they went through menopause.
Tabatha Barber: They were up into their seventies and eighties with him still all on hormones. So it was unheard of. Like I was the only one. prescribing hormones where I was because I had this older population and he didn't believe I When it came out and thankfully he didn't because I learned so much from him He was like hormones don't cause cancer.
Tabatha Barber: Don't be afraid of hormones. And so I got to see How these women thrive they're still playing pickleball. They're still having sex. They're enjoying their lives [00:36:00] full length Yeah, it's totally different than the 70 and 80 year olds who were 30 years without hormones. And so That impacted me big time. And I really just want women to have the option.
Tabatha Barber: I'm not saying get on hormones, but I'm a personally on hormones and I can't function without them. And I don't apologize for that. Right.
Julie Michelson: I would hand over my wallet in an alley, but not, you know, not my hormones. Don't take those away, you know, but for me personally, but I love that it's, it's get educated.
Julie Michelson: Find the right provider. I want to add kind of the from personal experience. You touched on it earlier to, um, a lot of OBGYNs or even just GYNs may even, think they're trained in hormone replacement therapy. Um, I went through this personally, love my surgeon. She was my [00:37:00] gynecologist for 20 years. She did an amazing job with my surgery.
Julie Michelson: Everything was amazing. You know, and I asked her, I went from fully functional ovaries to no ovaries. in the OR and I asked her post op in the morning, you know, did you put a patch on and an estrogen patch on during, you know, in, in the OR? And she said, no, are you already having hot flashes? And I was like, well, no, it's only been a few hours, you know, like, and she said, you know, talk to me when you come in for your post op check, if you're, if you're having symptoms.
Julie Michelson: And I thought, well, no, I'll, I'll, okay. You know, I just said, okay. And I went home and, and, you know, the, I had some estrogen patches waiting for me when I got home because I'm, I was blessed enough to be prepared. I was already on progesterone at the time. Um, and when I came back from my post op, she said.
Julie Michelson: You can stop your progesterone. You don't have a uterus anymore. You [00:38:00] don't need it. And I, again, I just said, okay, but, but the reason I'm bringing it up is because on her website is all about how she can help women with hormones, but obviously she doesn't have a clear understanding of all of the impacts of hormones.
Julie Michelson: You know, it shouldn't be, let's not, you don't get a conversation because you don't have a uterus. So do your homework. It's part of the empowerment. Dr. Tabatha is giving you not only the education and the tools, but also the permission to, to, and almost the orders, like be your own advocate. And if you go and have a conversation and something doesn't feel right.
Julie Michelson: It might not be the right provider, even if on their website, they say they are so, so just understand that, that when it comes down to it, once you educate yourself on your options, [00:39:00] you are the one who needs to make the decisions for your own body. And it doesn't make you, you know, naughty if you don't listen to your doctor and you go find somebody who's a better fit.
Tabatha Barber: Absolutely. And I also want women to understand that there are different schools of thought. Sure. I'm certified by the North American Menopause Society. That is like the preeminent certification for OBGYNs for menopause training, right? So I learned what I learned as an OBGYN. I went on to learn this through NAMS and NAMS very much Follows ACOG guidelines, American College of OBGYNs.
Tabatha Barber: And so they're very conventional and they are very, I won't say antiquated. They, they were, they're catching, finally changing and updating their recommendations and their standard. care, but [00:40:00] that is where the discrepancy and the confusion comes in because you have this whole camp of health and wellness providers in the functional, integrative, holistic space, anti aging space, who really understand what hormones are doing.
Tabatha Barber: And they're not saying the same things. So conventional doctors are telling you, you know, Progesterone is only for your uterus. Estrogen is only for vasomotor symptoms, hot flashes and night sweats. There's dangers with estrogen. You should only take it shortest, you know, time for lowest dose. And none of that is true.
Tabatha Barber: That is based on very old dated evidence that has been debunked, but those committees are very slow to change what they recommend and So, that is why you have so much confusion going on and I feel very blessed that I get to understand both sides because I've, I'm part [00:41:00] of both camps. So I understand where conventional doctors are coming from and what they were trained.
Tabatha Barber: I understand where integrative medicine, anti aging medicine is coming from and there's a place to meet in the middle. But like you said, if your provider doesn't want to have a conversation. doesn't know how to test hormones, just tells you, Oh, you don't need them that you should look for another provider.
Tabatha Barber: You know, I did a whole podcast episode on like five reasons. Find a new doctor because in this day and age, doctors are not paternalistic. They don't just walk in the room and tell you what to do. You should be part of that decision making process. Not all doctors are created equally and you pay their salaries and it's okay for you to say no thank you.
Tabatha Barber: And find someone else. And unfortunately you might have to go outside of your insurance and pay out of pocket and [00:42:00] invest in your health. We need to change the way we think about our health. You know, we pay more to take care of our car and keep our car in good condition. We do the oil changes and the car washes and all the things, but we don't do that for our body.
Tabatha Barber: It's like, what you were just. So we have to like undo a lot of bad thought, honestly. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Well, which is what you're helping us do. So I love that. And, and it is, I say it all the time. I, my qualifier, you know, I, I share my life with, with a physician, right. And there's no bashing. And if I need surgery, I'm going, you know, give me Western.
Julie Michelson: I'm not going for acupuncture. If I need surgery,
Tabatha Barber: Yeah,
Julie Michelson: so, and I do look forward to, I love that you did, you know, you brought up the, there is change in the works. It's just a really slow process and I, and I look forward to hopefully, I'm still, still around when, you know, [00:43:00] that is just standard of care that, that there is this.
Julie Michelson: A deeper understanding of nutrition and lifestyle and hormones and all the things that we think of as functional integrative anti aging, which are just. wellness, um, creeping its way into medical school, you know, for more than like a three hour lecture or something. So we're, we're getting there. It's just a slow process, but I truly believe that that's the direction we're moving and it's, it's doctors like you helping us get there.
Julie Michelson: So thank you.
Tabatha Barber: Yeah. My pleasure.
Julie Michelson: So we're at the point of the podcast where I get to ask you for one step listeners can take starting today to improve their health and you can pick from anything you want.
Tabatha Barber: Oh my goodness. I know it's tough. Well, yeah, I'm trying, I'm thinking about your listeners, you know, they're most likely autoimmune like I am.[00:44:00]
Tabatha Barber: Um, giving up gluten was the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. I will just say that. But, um, I have a method called faith it that I love to teach women because it's really powerful and it kind of incorporates the fasting and the faith and If you use the faith that method you are really getting into a space because when you fast you get mental clarity and things start to open up and you can start to have a conversation with your creator and you want to start journaling and writing down and get clarity on what what it is you want in your life and what you don't want in your life.
Tabatha Barber: And when you hear. When you see that you hear from God and you start to initiate action, so many things can shift. So I love this little hack. It's called faith that you can just, you know, look it up on my website, but when you start doing that process once [00:45:00] a day, Those tiny little changes they add to big things, you know?
Tabatha Barber: So I would say get into this attitude of gratitude. Start thinking about how can I get in tune with my body? How can I listen to my body? How can I hear what God's trying to say for me? And take this time to actually listen and love your body because you can't heal a body you hate. I've tried. I've been there.
Tabatha Barber: I've done that. Um, but you just can't. So try, just love your body and, and then see, it might actually change. You know, women are like, what do you mean? You want me to love the body that I hate? Yeah, that is literally the only way to change. You have to treat your body, you would your child or your, your best friend or your partner, like you just never would talk to it the way you talk to your body or treat it the way you would, you know, and so start taking it from that perspective.
Tabatha Barber:[00:46:00] And if you start getting into this fasting mode, Asking God for clarity, writing it down, getting into action, trusting his timing, like the whole faith process can really be a game changer for women. So, um, we can definitely give you a free download on like how to incorporate fasting. They'll be super helpful.
Tabatha Barber: We have a free app that you can go in, we have recipes, we have a community, like we have so much support because If you feel like you've tried it before and you failed or you didn't feel good on it, I just invite you to try again and maybe just make some tweaks because I think you might just be missing a couple pieces.
Julie Michelson: I love that. And for people that are listening on the go and aren't going to check out the show notes, where is the best place to find you? Just
Tabatha Barber: fast to faith. com. Yep.
Julie Michelson: So easy. I love it. And all those resources are there really cannot encourage you enough to check it out. Um, Dr. Tabitha, I so [00:47:00] appreciate not only your time, but just all of the gold you've given us today.
Julie Michelson: Oh, my pleasure for everyone listening. Remember you can get those show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living. show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
​[00:48:00]
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My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Tabatha Barber
Tabatha Barber
OB/GYN
Dr. Tabatha Barber has dedicated her life to giving women a voice and a choice when it comes to their health and well-being. Overcoming struggles as a young girl, including self-esteem challenges and the hurdles of being a high school dropout and teenage mother, she emerged as a successful physician through faith and perseverance.
Her unwavering commitment to women's health is evident through her triple board certifications in obstetrics and gynecology, menopause, and functional medicine.
As the driving force behind her thriving medical practice, Dr. Tabatha and her team provide compassionate support and care to women nationwide. Through The Gutsy GynecologistTM Show, her Gutsy Gyn supplement line, and her best-selling book Fast to Faith, she shares insights into the importance of gut health, hormone balance, mindset, and most importantly, nourishing the soul to truly heal and become whole. She is a beacon of light in a sea of medical darkness.
Her unwavering commitment to women's health is evident through her triple board certifications in obstetrics and gynecology, menopause, and functional medicine.
As the driving force behind her thriving medical practice, Dr. Tabatha and her team provide compassionate support and care to women nationwide. Through The Gutsy GynecologistTM Show, her Gutsy Gyn supplement line, and her best-selling book Fast to Faith, she shares insights into the importance of gut health, hormone balance, mindset, and most importantly, nourishing the soul to truly heal and become whole. She is a beacon of light in a sea of medical darkness.
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