#283: Your Gut Is Running Your Hormones — And Nobody Told You

If your hormones feel like a mystery and your doctor keeps adjusting your dose without results — this episode changes the way you see your body.

Dr. Tabatha and Ashlee go inside the HealthieHer program and break down why so many women arrive after years of treatment still feeling terrible. The answer? The root cause was never addressed — and the order in which you heal matters more than anything else.

They cover the GI Map, Dutch Plus, zonulin, leaky gut, IgA, food sensitivities, and cortisol — and why none of it works unless you treat the whole woman.

This is root-cause medicine the way God designed it.

In this episode:

• "Cowboy medicine" hormone prescribing — and why it's failing women
• The GI Map: what DNA testing finds that a standard stool test misses
• Leaky gut, zonulin, and the 3 barriers that protect (and break down)
• Why H. pylori breath tests give false negatives
• IgA: the immune layer COVID depleted in millions
• Omega-6s and why your food is warping your hormone receptors
• The Dutch Plus cortisol test and your 24-hour pattern
• Stress, belly fat, blood sugar, and earlier menopause
• Lectio Divina: the best nervous system reset Dr. Tabatha knows

 Resources: 

HealthieHer Program → drtabatha.com/healthieher

 Discovery Call → discovery.drtabatha.com 

 Omega Lift → shop.fasttofaith.com/product/omega-lift/ 

"Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." — Mark 5:34

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — The hormone wild west: why "cowboy medicine" is failing women 02:43 — Postpartum vs. menopause: the case that opened our eyes 04:38 — How Ashlee went from patient to coaching director 05:46 — Why results take 6 months — and what changes everything about HealthieHer 07:00 — The order matters: why root-cause healing only works in sequence 09:33 — The faith piece: why we finally said we're a faith-based practice 11:00 — The GI Map explained: DNA testing vs. smearing a slide 14:11 — Zonulin, leaky gut, and the three gut barriers 16:00 — IgA: the immune layer COVID depleted (and how to rebuild it) 18:15 — Omega-6s vs. omega-3s: why inflammation is warping your hormone receptors 22:52 — Food sensitivities, leaky gut, and why you're reacting to broccoli 25:25 — The 12-week elimination: temporary, worth it, and the scab analogy 27:49 — Cortisol, the Dutch Plus, and what your 24-hour pattern reveals 31:23 — Stage 3 adrenal fatigue: what it is and how long it takes to heal 33:00 — Stress, belly fat, blood sugar, and earlier menopause — all connected 34:01 — How to get started: HealthieHer + the 40 Day Fast to Faith 35:37 — Lectio Divina: the best nervous system reset Dr. Tabatha knows 36:03 — Closing scripture: Mark 5:34

Join Me October 10th is Apex North Carolina: ftf.fasttofaith.com/freedomtofrustration

Ready to go deeper?

Start here: 5-Day Empowered by Faith Challenge ftf.fasttofaith.com/empoweredbyfaithdiy

Shop Dr. Tabatha's supplement line: Use code PODCAST for 20% off your first order: shop.fasttofaith.com

Get the book: Fast to Faith: A 40-Day Awakening: book.fasttofaith.com/bonus?am_id=fasttofaith5413

Fast to Faith is hosted by Dr. Tabatha Barber — OB/GYN, functional medicine physician, and founder of the Fast to Faith Sisterhood and Coaching Academy.

Transcript

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Dr. Tabatha 1:24

Women are desperate. They want to feel better. And there is this viable option. Like hormones do help you feel better. But there are so many prescribers and providers who they don't know what they're doing. If you're tired of doing all the right things and still feeling exhausted, stuck in your body, and disconnected from God, this podcast is for you. I'm Dr. Tabitha, a triple board certified functional medicine physician, and I help women stop fighting their bodies and start healing them God's way. Let's get into it. Welcome back to the Fast of Faith podcast. Hi, Ashley. Hey, how are you today? Oh my gosh, it's Fri. Yes, it is Friday. I say Fri for my children because it's really hard to get them out of bed on the end of the week.

Ashlee 2:26

And I'm like, come on, it's one more day. I know. I feel like Thursday is always the lowest of low for me. And then Friday morning, I'm like ready to go again. Yes. Let's go. Oh my goodness. I want to say this on Friday. So today, already this morning, we met with our medical team for the medical practice. This is something we don't talk a lot about on the on the podcast. People might not even know we have a medical practice.

Dr. Tabatha 2:49

Yeah, I think that is worth talking about today because women are constantly looking for answers. They're coming to us to help lose weight and feel better. But there's that whore, there's that whole hormone piece. That's really hard to say. Um yeah, I think this is a really important topic. And what we were talking

Why Hormone Care Goes Wrong

Dr. Tabatha 3:13

about at the meeting this morning was it's a wild, wild west out there, y'all. Like you got it.

Ashlee 3:19

You said cowboy medicine.

Dr. Tabatha 3:21

Cowboy medicine, like quote unquote hormone experts, hormone prescribers doing all kinds of crazy stuff to people. It is very sad, very frustrating. They're again treating women like guinea pigs, you know, like the OBGYans did back in the day. And I get it because women are desperate. They want to feel better. And there is this viable option. Like hormones do help you feel better, but there are so many prescribers and providers who they don't know what they're doing, they don't understand the impact that giving hormones to a body has like throughout their body. It's not just replacing some hormones.

Ashlee 4:07

No, it and once they do that, they're often just chasing their tail. So we see that so much at the practice when they come to us. Yeah, isn't it frustrating? Yeah. Well, it's it's frustrating. I'm frustrated for them because I feel sad that they've wasted so much time and only felt better for like one week.

Dr. Tabatha 4:25

Yes, exactly. Or they come to us like our provider this morning was talking about how this woman had a baby in her 30s and immediately got put on pellets and then creams and then pills, and she's now like early 40s, and she just has never felt well since the delivery. I'm like, that poor woman was in a postpartum state. So your hormones are low. It can mimic and look like menopause. That doesn't mean you're going into menopause. That means you are postpartum. And if you don't have a provider who understands that space, that season, you're going to get all this unnecessary treatment. And then she comes to us, she's like, okay, you have to help me. And it's such a mess because she's been getting all of this intervention for two or three years now, and you don't even know what her ovarian status is. Like, do your ovaries work? Can they work? We haven't even given them the opportunity to work because when you take hormones, you shut down your own hormone production.

Ashlee 5:41

Well, I think that's what we see too is like they put them on something and then they just expect them to never change. And so it's like been two years and you're still on the same prescription. It's wild to me. Yeah. So it is sad. And I'm super glad that we're talking about our medical practice today. I'm excited to have this conversation. So this is how I got here.

Dr. Tabatha 6:01

Will you share that really quickly? Because, you know, you're the academy director, and you know, you help train our coaches and help them be amazing coaches.

Ashlee 6:12

But yeah, in short, I sat across from you as a patient in 2019 and Morgan as well, because Morgan and you were working together. And this program that we're gonna kind of share with you guys at the end is called Healthy Her. It is the program that changed my life. And so that was 2019. And then 2021 is when you reached out to me and was like, hey, I want you to coach women through this. So Healthy Her has changed. It has changed quite a bit. So if you're someone that did Healthy Hair with us four or five years ago, you're like, wait, that's not what it was. We've changed it. It's now a year-long program. Um, and we just consistently take feedback from um the our patients that are in it. And so I have been coaching women through that since 2021, and it is probably one of my favorite things to do. So I love being the coaching director, but I also have a passion for coaching and helping other women. So I do really enjoy coaching for the Healthy Heart Program.

Dr. Tabatha 7:04

Yeah, because we see such incredible transformations in such a short time.

Postpartum Mistaken For Menopause

Ashlee 7:10

Yes, that's what's incredible. And so that I would say give yourself a good six months. You use most women see results. I mean, we have someone right now who saw results in three days. So just changing up their diet. So usually give yourself a good, the solid six months, everything will be where you need it to be. And then we spend the next six months really optimizing those results with you. And that's what's cool to see.

Dr. Tabatha 7:32

Yeah. I have had a lot of colleagues and fellow, you know, providers in the functional medicine space or even OBGYNs say, like, why does healthy her work so well? Why are you getting consistent results where what I'm doing is kind of hit or miss? And the truth of it is that it matters the order in which you take care of the root cause problems and in um what combination. So you know this. We get so many women who've done food sensitivities and they've eliminated food for like 12 months, and then they come to us, I don't feel better. Yeah, girl, because there's a huge missing component. Yes. You need to actively heal your gut. And then in order to heal your gut, you need to reset your nervous system and uh change your adrenal function and get out of that stress, you know, sympathetic overdrive. So the way that we have curated healthy her is uh the reason that it works. So we do it the same way every time, even though it's individualized because we do testing, like the protocol and the way that we do it has to be in a certain order. And that is what I learned, you know, at the Cleveland Clinic Institute of Functional Medicine through some amazing providers back in the day. And what unfortunately we see is people just pick and choose. Well, let me just heal their gut, and if they don't get improvement, let me add in the soap, the fun, the food sensitivities. Let me, oh, we better check a Dutch because you're not making any improvement.

Ashlee 9:23

And it's like, no, the order matters, it does matter, and I think sometimes that can be a little overwhelming for someone coming in and they're like, wait, you're doing food sensitivities, Dutch, GI Map all together. And I'm like, yes, but it works because we find the root cause. And then it's a very slow rollout of your plan. We're not fixing everything all in one week. We're just slowly rolling out your plan, but it does work and it does make a difference. But I want to touch really what you said about the parasympathetic and the faith piece. We bring that into this program, and we kept faith out of this program for a while. So I think that is something we can talk about too, was because really until Fast the Faith was launched, and then it probably took what, like 18 months before we said to our practice, like we are faith-based practice, and that scared women away. But we are now seeing women heal from the faith piece of what we do in Healthy Her. And so it was a really cool, it was a hard change. Um, so and that's probably a podcast for a whole other day, but that is that that's a game changer, is adding that faith piece because women in the Healthy Her program become part of our sisterhood. They get the Monday calls with us, and so they are able to come and ask you questions and then also be there for the Lectio Divina live. So I always say that Healthy Her is like fast of faith on steroids. Like you get everything that we offer in fast of faith in our sisterhood, plus individual one-on-one care and hormones if you need them.

Dr. Tabatha 10:56

Yeah, that faith piece is a huge component because I promise you that the desires of your heart, what your spirit wants to do in this world, and everything that your soul has been through, your mind, will, and emotions, the person that you have developed into is also manifesting physically and a lot of times as symptoms. So your fatigue might be because you're not living into your purpose and your soul is depressed, you know, like it might be that deeper connection. So it's really important to address all aspects of yourself, not just your gut health or not just your hormone replacement. Like that will always leave you end up chasing your tail like a dog. It really, really will. So I would love to get into our testing a little bit because people are so interested and scared at the same time. Like, what? You want me to collect my stool? It is a humbling experience, but it's so unnecessary, it's so important. So it really is simple. It's a kit that gets sent to your house discreetly. Yeah, you know, you collect one sample, you send it in, FedEx comes to your house and picks it up. They don't know what's in it, it doesn't matter. Oh my goodness. So get over that, but it's so powerful. We love GI Map. And this test by Diagnostic Solutions looks at the DNA from the bacteria, the yeast, the parasites. So it is highly sensitive and specific. You know, back in the olden days, and this is still happening in the hospitals

Why Healthy Her Works

Dr. Tabatha 12:48

in conventional medicine, we take that poop sample, smear a little bit on a slide, put it under the microscope, and look at that specimen. And if you don't see any ova, which are the eggs from parasites or parasites, then you say, Oh, you don't have anything. And that is so outdated. Imagine a stool sample, you're getting the tiniest little fragment and looking at that. You can't see bacteria, they're microscopic and yeast. So sometimes you can see the buds of yeast when there's a lot of it there, but it is so uh inaccurate. So there's all these false negatives, and people are told, like, oh, you're fine, you know, when really they're not fine. So that's why I love the way this test is actually done because if the bacteria is in there, the DNA is always being shed and broken down, just like our skin is always shedding. You know, if you wear black clothes, you will see some skin cells on those black clothes because we're always shedding and our DNA is in there. And so it's a highly accurate test, and we can see exactly what's living in you and running the show. What does your ecosystem look like? Do you have enough good bacteria? Do you have bad bacteria? Do you have certain infections like H. pylori, which is the number one cause of ulcers and gastric cancer and reflux disease?

Ashlee 14:26

And um what I'm gonna kind of say something about this too. So my husband uh had H. pliori. We did a GI map with him last summer, but six months prior to that, I told him, I'm like, you have H. pliori. And he was, even though he's been watching me do this for however long, he was skeptic, went to his doctor, and they did the breath H. pliori test and it was negative. But then here we are six months later, and it's positive. So it just kind of goes back to what you're saying. Like, it is important to have the right test. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you brought that up because the breath test for H.

Dr. Tabatha 15:01

pylori is checking for the gas that is secreted from those bacteria. And if they're not actually producing that gas, the moment you have the taste, you get a false negative.

Ashlee 15:16

Yeah. And we have a we have another patient right now, same thing. Um, he said the same thing. He was like, I had this test at the doctor and it was negative. I'm like, Yeah, I know. I had my husband had the same experience. But uh something else I want you to mention with the GI Map is we do the GI Map with zonulin. So can you talk about the difference with that?

Dr. Tabatha 15:34

So zonulin is the protein that gets elevated when you have quote unquote leaky gut. That's what we call it in the general population. The medical term is called increased intestinal permeability. So we actually have gates or active transport mechanisms that are supposed to be the gateway of what's allowed to come through the intestinal cells into your body and what has to stay out and go into your poop. And unfortunately, a lot of things in our society nowadays break those doors, those gap junctions. And so it's kind of like a free-for-all. You you make your way through, it's like a stampede at a concert. Nobody's, you know, listening. And so they just rush in and take whatever seat they want. And that is what happens. So pesticides in our food, I know it seems bougie and expensive to eat organic, but I promise you, the pesticides on all of our crops, all of our produce, the stuff that we're feeding the cows, the pesticide laden cornmeal, it is destroying our gut. It is killing all those gap junctions. And so we see a lot of patients with elevated zonulin levels. And I like to see that level, so I know how aggressive to be with treatment. Like, do we actively have to heal those doors? Um and speaking of that, there's three barriers that are protecting us from the outside world, and those doors are just one of them. So we we act like leaky gut is the end-all be-all, but there's actually two other barriers that can get compromised that people aren't addressing or realizing, especially conventional doctors. Um, one we've seen a ton of issues with since COVID is our IgA levels. Oh my goodness. So IgA is the part of the immune system responsible for protecting you from the outside world. It covers your skin, it covers your respiratory tract, your sinuses, um, and it goes from mouth to anus all the way through because technically anything inside your mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, colon, it's not in your body yet until it goes through that cell and gets absorbed into the body. And so that tube is covered in IgA. And IgAs are part of the immune system that is trying to protect us from foreign invaders. And unfortunately, major stress can decrease your IgA production, or if you're constantly being bombarded with things coming into your system, you can deplete your IGA because you're in fight mode all of the time. And if you're sequestered and never exposed to anything, then you deplete your IGA production that way. So we saw it both ways during COVID: people sitting on the couch and not having any interaction with other people, and so they didn't make enough, or they were sick in the hospital, almost dying, and they were, you know, burning through all their IGA. Okay. Yeah. So you when you did soul testing recently, you had low IgA, I had low IgA, and a big part of it is the constant inundation of the toxins in our system, the crappy food, even though we try and eat clean, it's just really well, our environment, travel, all the things.

Ashlee 19:22

You and I both are the same. Like the moment we travel, we know things are going downhill, no matter how clean we eat.

Dr. Tabatha 19:28

Yeah. All the toxins from

Faith And Nervous System Healing

Dr. Tabatha 19:30

the airplane. Yeah. Oh my goodness.

Ashlee 19:33

Our bodies just like to be at home. But we don't like to be at home. So it's like, come on, yeah, together.

Dr. Tabatha 19:39

So the cool thing is you can take immunoglobulins and build back up your IgA barrier so that you have that second layer of protection. And then the third layer is our actual microbiome. It is the bacteria that live in our gut. We need certain bacteria called acromantia and fecali bacterium that make a mucus barrier. It's a wall, it's another barrier, so things can't get through into our body. And we're seeing more and more people, they don't have these mucus-producing bacteria because they got the wrong stuff living in there. And then speaking of you and your husband, H. pylori actually eats that mucus layer, it will chomp on it and destroy it. So you could have the right good guys, but if you have the wrong bad guys, you don't have that defense. It's breaking it down. And so there's so much going on in our ecosystem. And we're going to be able to do that.

Ashlee 20:40

I know. I wish we could just like open it up every day and be like, what's going on down there? It's like magic school bus. I know it really is. Yeah. Well, I think we should talk a little bit about um, and we've had a couple other podcasts go back and find them about our supplements, but we IgA Lift is a supplement that you can take. And then we also have gut lift protein powder, and then just our regular gut lift, which I want to tell you that when we recorded that episode about gut lift protein powder, you talked about putting it in your coffee and making a chai latte. Not sure why I've never done that. It's amazing. I know, right? Oh my goodness. Like literally mind-blowing, amazing. So um, yeah, I think this would be a great time to hear a little bit about one of our supplements.

Dr. Tabatha 21:22

Real quick, I just want to interrupt this conversation for something super important. Even though we need to take care of ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically, we do have to take care of ourselves at a cellular level. And that is why I have my Fast to Face supplement line. So let's just take a minute to hear about something that might be the game changer that you need in this season. We didn't talk in detail about the difference in omega-3s versus omega 6s when we talked about omega lift, and it's so important because the standard American diet, one of the worst aspects of it is the high levels of omega-6s.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Like that's what's destroying ourselves, right? 100%. You know, oftentimes we don't really have a choice. I mean, if you look at your labels, if you if you go out to eat like the average human being, you are going to have omega-6s. Omega-6s and omega-3s are called essential fatty acids. What the name implies, they're essential for the functioning of your body, mostly stored on your fat, um, but they're very essential for the functioning of your body. Both of them are, but however, in a one-to-one ratio, meaning you don't need a whole lot of omega-6s. Now, omega-3s are phenomenal. Omega-6s, though, in too much, like you could have a ton of omega-3s, and you're it's it's omega-6s though, if you have too much of that particular omega, it turns into inflammation. So you do not want to have too much omega-6s.

Dr. Tabatha 22:59

Before the food industry really existed, you could get away with eating salmon once or twice a week because you were not getting omega 6s in your diet. But now we we're getting them everywhere we turn. We're getting them in their coffee drinks in the morning. We're getting them in our, you know, everything. That's why potato chips are bad for you. Because of the potatoes or the salt, because they're soaked in omega-6 seed oils, and so we're just combating this, and that is why we need omega-3s in such high levels. I can't even tell you how different I feel when I add in omega lift because I do tend to consume a lot of omega-6s, um, just with traveling and having two teenage kids, so we're never eating dinner at the same time, or we're always grabbing and on the go. And so I have to combat that. I have to counteract it.

Ashlee 24:03

So, something else that we see a lot inside of our sisterhood is women eating foods that are triggering triggering inflammation and they don't even realize it. How does that impact hormones?

Dr. Tabatha 24:15

Yeah, that's a huge deal. And as we were talking about leaky gut and those barriers

GI Map Testing Demystified

Dr. Tabatha 24:22

being compromised, what that means is that food you're digesting and breaking down into their tiniest components, a lot of times they're not getting broken down all the way because we're eating too quickly. We're not making enough digestive enzymes and stomach acid. And so you're seeing bigger proteins, bigger molecules, and they're getting through those barriers into the bloodstream before they should, or sometimes they shouldn't be in there at all. And so we're seeing undigested broccoli and chicken and almonds in a way that we shouldn't. And our immune system is trying to protect us, and so it goes on the attack. And this is a different part of our immune system. This is our IgG branch. And unfortunately, IgG, they're a little slow. IgE is like if you're allergic to peanut butter and you know, you blow up and you need to be in the ER getting your epipetin. Yeah. Whereas an IgG reaction, we call it more of a sensitivity than an allergy because it develops from that leaky gut and barrier compromise. It's not permanent lifelong. You can overcome it, but your immune system is confused, it's overreacting because it's seeing something in a way it's not used to. And so it's really important when you're gonna heal your gut that you figure out what's angering your immune system. And that is why we do food sensitivity testing with the stool testing. And here's the important part: you know this, coaching our patients. You have to completely avoid those IgG foods while you're healing those barriers and building those barriers back up. And that gives the IgG system time to calm down, stop making all these antibodies against broccoli and chicken and chickpeas and whatever else is on your list. That's the cool thing. It doesn't have great memory. Those antibodies will go away, they'll stop being produced, and you'll stop having that response if you give it enough time for your immune system to kind of reset and forget, and for those barriers to come back and protect you. And then we we work with the nutritionist on our team to reintroduce those foods.

Ashlee 26:48

And the goal is to bring them back. Yes. Like people get so stuck on you're making me cut these out. I'm like, it's 12 weeks. Like, you can do this. Sometimes it's six. And so they they can't perseverate on the fact that they have to cut them out forever.

Dr. Tabatha 27:01

No, it is so temporary and so worth it because when you bring them back, you're no longer driving eczema and migraines and joint pain and acne and all the stuff that it was causing. Like food sensitivities with gut issues, they cause all kinds of systemic issues. Pretty much everything you're struggling with is stemming from that.

Ashlee 27:25

It is, yeah. I always like to describe it when women really struggle like a discrainer, and your body is creating like a scab over all those holes in the discrainer. And every single time that you give it one of those foods that are triggering it, it's like scraping at that scab. And so that's why it's so important to let that heal for 12 weeks, and then we can start adding those foods back in. Because some women can't really figure out like what it doesn't make me feel bad. And I'm like, I get that, but it's internal and it's constantly scraping at that scab. And you don't want to scar, right?

Dr. Tabatha 28:00

Exactly. No, I used to like ride my bike like a mad woman and do all kinds of stuff when I was a kid. I always had scabs, and I'd sit in the tub and they'd get all gooey.

Ashlee 28:09

And that's why my legs look so good.

Dr. Tabatha 28:12

Yes, and it was kind of fun. Right, but that's literally what's happening. Every time it's like adding lighter fluid to a fire that's almost out. You gotta get the fire all the way out to get to get rid of that inflammation. And speaking of inflammation, that is why your hormones don't make you feel good because the cells are so inflamed that the hormone receptor is warped. It cannot, the hormone cannot fit into the hormone receptor and send its signal. So it's not always that you need your dose adjusted or that you need more hormones or less or or whatever. It's that you need your inflammation at the cellular level to stop. Yeah.

Ashlee 28:58

Okay, so the next thing that we see a lot is stress. And um, because I think sometimes women just underestimate how much their stress is impacting their hormones. So let's talk about the tests that we do for stress and what we look at.

Dr. Tabatha 29:12

Oh my goodness. And our hormones. Ladies, this is so important. I know we're all stressed, and so it just seems like a normal part of life. And even if you can handle it mentally and emotionally, your physiology is being affected. Your physiology is changing. So one of the things that happens is cortisol is made from cholesterol. All steroid hormones, progesterone, cortisol, DHEA, testosterone, estrogen, aldosterone, these steroid hormones are made from cholesterol. If you are making cortisol all day, you cannot have enough progesterone because you're robbing Peter to Pay Paul. So you're it's called progesterone steel. We don't know if that's literally what happens, but we know that you have limited resources. And if you are constantly making cortisol, you cannot have enough progesterone. So what we see is high executive functioning women, women, you know, in the workplace 10, 15 hours a day, they tend to go into earlier menopause because they cannot sustain that progesterone production, as opposed to a woman who is at home and has time for rest and prayer and meditation and that type of thing. They just their progesterone declines so much quicker. Um, so that's one of the biggest things with cortisol. Another thing is it disrupts that gut barrier we talked about. It destroys those gap junctions, it leads to leaky gut, which leads to food sensitivities, which leads to inflammation, which leads to hormone receptors being distorted and not being able to hear the hormones. So it's impacting it that way. Like it is doing so many things. It's also interrupting your sleep and your ability to make melatonin, which is your reparative, restorative time for healing. And if you don't do that, your ovaries won't feel safe and they won't want to procreate and release an egg. They won't make their hormones. Like it's literally just this domino effect that's going in all different directions. So I cannot emphasize enough. You need to know what your 24-hour cortisol pattern looks like. I love the Dutch test for this. It's actually the Dutch plus. We collect your saliva morning, half hour later, hour later, afternoon in bedtime.

Leaky Gut And Immune Barriers

Dr. Tabatha 31:50

And I'm using my hand, if you're watching on YouTube, to show a healthy cortisol pattern. It should rise within the 30 minutes of waking up. It's like your body's natural cup of coffee, right? And what does it feel like when you don't make that? Yeah, you can't get out of bed. You're tired. Flat. You're flat.

Ashlee 32:09

No motivation.

Dr. Tabatha 32:10

And it goes up to get you going for the day, and then it gently calms down until evening and bedtime. But what we see is a lot of women have flipped patterns. They're like flat in the morning and then up at night. Well, hired but tired. I'm wired and tired, or they're just nonstop high, like constant cortisol production, which eventually leads to stage three where you're just flat line. You're just not even making it anymore. You don't have a cortisol awakening response, you're just flat. And that takes longer to come back from.

Ashlee 32:45

Yeah, a long time.

Dr. Tabatha 32:47

So I love that data so that you know where you're at in that adrenal function process because if you are way out in stage three, you know it's gonna take eight to twelve months. But if you're just a little bit of pattern disrupt, okay, let's work on this for four to six months and we're gonna have a huge turnaround.

Ashlee 33:09

Well, and women don't actually realize how much their stress, how much stress they have. So sometimes they're like, Well, I'm not that stressed. You know, they think it's normal and they just keep up leveling that normal. So I think that's what a lot of times we see is women do the Dutch test and they realize, like, crap, that is stressing me out that I have kids stuff going on in my work and my husband. And so then they realize they've got to make some changes. So my gosh, I think that's a great point. Like, some the data doesn't lie.

Dr. Tabatha 33:39

Yes, right.

Ashlee 33:40

Exactly. Because we uh we can look at her, you know, we can look at you and say you're a stress, and you're like, no, I'm not. But like the data tells you the truth, yeah. And where you are stressed out throughout the day.

Dr. Tabatha 33:51

And if that wasn't enough, here's the worst part cortisol tells your liver that you need more sugar, more blood sugar to do whatever you're about to do. So your body thinks you're fighting or running, and so it's constantly pumping sugar into your bloodstream. And so we can see women go into like pre-diabetes diabetes from their stress. So if you have a blood sugar issue, you have got to get control of your cortisol production, your stress. Like it's it's a game changer and it shows up as belly fat. If you have belly fat, if you have the muffin top, the tire, whatever you want to call it, it's not just about changing your diet. It really is about how can I navigate the stress through my day? Because it's not going to go away magically, right? But there are ways to pull yourself out of the sympathetic nervous system, which drives that cortisol production, into the parasympathetic, which decreases that cortisol production. So that is a huge part of what we teach and focus on in healthy her is nervous system regulation, hormone balance, like systemic healing of and decrease of inflammation. Like we just do not only prescribe hormones or heal one thing. I just God made it clear that we have to take care of the woman as a whole.

Ashlee 35:25

So if you're listening to this right now and you're like, I need this program, there's two very simple ways to get it. One, you can go to drtabitha.com and you can um find the healthy hair program on there and simply sign up. Or you can uh go to discovery.drtabitha.com and you can get a discovery call and you'll do a discovery call with someone and find out if this is the right fit for you. I would encourage you to make that call.

Dr. Tabatha 35:51

Yeah. Because this kind of stuff doesn't just go away. It doesn't magically get better. I hear from a lot of women, I just got to get through this season. Things will be better when. I promise you that you need active intervention and healing for you to get back from everything you've gone through. So I cannot like sing it from the rooftops high enough. It is such a game changer for women. Like, I bring this to you because it works. So I really hope that you will check it out. Okay.

Ashlee 36:27

It is. I want to say one more thing. Yeah. If you also are like, I don't know if I need the full program, starting with Fast of Faith, our 40-day program, is an amazing place to start. We have loved women who do the 40-day program, realize that they need a little bit more, and come on over and do Healthy Her with us because they have started working on their stress and it's a very slow roll. So there is a starting place for you. We have many options. So don't discount, like, don't discount that. I love that.

Dr. Tabatha 37:00

Last thing, okay. This is the best tip to regulate your nervous system and get out of that fight or flight. Do the practice of Lectio Divina. That is the foundation of Fast of Faith. It is where you meditate on one scripture, you read the scripture aloud, you ask God, what are you saying to me through this scripture right now? Please have a conversation with me and guide me

Omega-6 Inflammation And Omega-3 Support

Dr. Tabatha 37:27

and direct me. And then you journal, you write down what's coming to your mind, what God is communicating to you, and you do that three times. There is so much power in the repetition and diving deeper and peeling back the layers or the rose petals. That's much prettier analogy. I love Lectio Divina. So we will leave you with this scripture today from Mark 534. Jesus said to you, said, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace. So even though God gives us all these things to help heal us, He also knows that you need faith to truly heal. So go meditate on that. It'll help your nervous system, it will help your gut, it will help your hormones, all the things. We are here for you. We love you. See you next week. Bye. If you like that episode, I have one favor to ask, maybe two. Can you hit subscribe and give me a heart? I want Apple to know that this is important information to you because when we tell them that, you will get more of it. So use your voice. Hit subscribe, hit the like button, share with a friend. And the other thing, I want you to download the five day challenge and get started on it. Take imperfect action. I will see you in the Fast of Faith Sisterhood. Till next time.