#253. Cholesterol Isn’t Causing Heart Disease, THIS Is

Hey beautiful, it's Dr. Tabatha. I want to share something with you that I believe God is doing right now in women's health. We're in the middle of a massive movement and most people don't even know it. Every single day, 6,000 women in the U.S. enter menopause. That's over 2 million women a year, and by 2030, that's more than 1.2 billion women worldwide. So here's the thing, most of these women feel exhausted, bloated, anxious, disconnected from themselves, and the medical system is Doctors are handing out prescriptions and quick fixes, and no one is helping women heal from the root cause of their issues. That's where Fast to Faith coaches come in. As a certified coach, you'll be equipped to help midlife women balance their hormones, heal their gut, regain their energy, and reconnect their faith, the foundation that so many of us have been missing. And from a business standpoint, woo, this is one of the most lucrative untapped opportunities in the entire health coaching world. The global health coaching industry is expected to reach over $33 billion by 2023, and midlife women are the fastest-growing, highest-spending demographic in that space. Most importantly, these women stay with their coaches. They invest deeply because they are desperate for lasting transformation— body, mind, and spirit. So if you've been feeling that pull and that whisper that you're meant to do more, This is it. Now is the time to rise, to serve, and build a purpose-driven business that not only changes other women's lives but transforms your own in the process. Because when you help one woman heal, you help her family, her marriage, her faith, and her future. That's the ripple effect that we're creating with Fast to Faith. So join me, click the link to come watch this webinar. It might be the one thing that really moves the needle for you in this next— Season. I can't wait to see you in there. Welcome back to the Fast to Faith podcast. If you're here, you're probably ready to shift your health, your mindset, your entire life, and it all starts with tuning into what your body really needs right now. As women over 40, we start to worry about things that were not a concern in the past. One thing that becomes a topic for discussion is heart health, and it's because the reality is Heart disease is the number one killer of women, but we can combat that. Today we're diving into how to take control of your cardiovascular health, feel more energized, and live vibrantly in your 40s and beyond. From understanding the unique changes that happen to women's heart as we age to exploring nutrition, fitness, and stress management strategies that actually work, this podcast is your go-to guide for building a stronger, healthier heart. Whether you're navigating perimenopause, juggling a busy life, or simply ready to prioritize yourself again, this space is for you. Let's celebrate this new chapter together with knowledge, confidence, and heart. So grab your favorite tea, lace up your walking shoes, or just take a deep breath because it's time to strengthen your heart and power your message. Let's get into it. Cardiovascular risk starts to increase In your late 30s and early 40s. Heart attacks don't happen overnight, so that heart attack that a woman has at 56 actually probably started at 40. There's a few different things happening. First off, our hormones actually tell our cardiovascular system how to function. We have estrogen and progesterone and testosterone receptors in our cardiovascular system, and estrogen is essential for good cardiovascular health. Our cardiovascular system is referring to our heart, which is a big muscle that contracts all the time. That's the heartbeat that you feel, and it pumps blood out to the ends of our body, all the way to our fingertips, our nose, our toes, everything. And then the blood has to come back. And when it's pumping out, those arteries are very active and they have little vessels inside them and pumps to make them go. The arteries are little smooth muscles and they squeeze and they pump that blood. But when the blood is coming back, they're coming back through veins, and veins are a more passive system than the active artery system. Veins don't squeeze and pump blood back. The blood comes back through the momentum of the heartbeat from the arteries. And so there's valves in your veins to keep the blood moving forward and not fall backward, but sometimes those valves start to And that's why you get varicose veins. Blood starts to pool in those veins and it doesn't go back up to the heart as effectively as it should. But how are those arteries squeezing and contracting so nicely and strongly to get that blood pumping? Well, it's estrogen. There are estrogen receptors that keep those arteries and your heart muscle more elastic and pliable so that it can squeeze, it can stretch, it can constrict and do its job. When estrogen goes away, your arteries turn into pipes. They're rigid and strict and they don't have that elasticity and that pliability to squeeze and release in the same way. So what happens at that point? Your blood pressure increases because your heart has to pump harder to get the blood through those arteries and back through those veins. So that is probably the first change that we see with a drop in estrogen is an increase in blood pressure. That is a normal physiological response for a woman going into menopause. Unfortunately, conventional medicine— a lot of doctors don't understand this correlation and this physiology. So don't panic if your blood pressure increases. Get your estrogen level checked. It probably decreased. But when this happens, It does increase your risk of cardiovascular disease because now your heart muscle has to squeeze and pump harder. Elevated blood pressure is a risk for developing disease. So there are 2 things going on to go along with this change in hormone status. Inflammation is also driving tears in your arteries. If you've ever heard of leaky gut, We actually can get leaky arteries. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. When we have inflammation in our gut, it sends chemical reactions out through our body, and the first place it goes is our bloodstream. And so those inflammatory molecules, they start to damage the cells inside the arteries and cause leaky arteries. So what happens next? Well, our body has amazing innate intelligence that God gave us, and so our body tries to repair those tears or those leaky arteries, and it will send cholesterol into our arteries to repair that tear. So when you have an actual hole in the wall, you have to use plaster to fill that hole, and then you want it to be flush with the wall so you can paint it and it looks nice and looks like the rest of the wall. But if you don't take the time to file that plaster down and do everything to finish that repair, if someone keeps coming in and punching the hole and you keep putting more plaster on and you never get that job repaired, it's going to look like a hot mess. It's going to be a big lump on the wall, and that's literally what's happening inside your arteries. They continue to get torn, you continue to send cholesterol to patch up that tear, and the tear never gets completely healed because the inflammation is ongoing, the insult is ongoing. And so the patch builds up and builds up and builds up, and that is a plaque in your artery, and it's not the cholesterol's fault. We villainize cholesterol and act like that's the reason that we get cardiovascular disease and have heart attacks, and it's not. It's the initial tear that is the root cause issue from inflammation and lack of estrogen to help keep that artery mobile and healing and healthy. So that is why cardiovascular risk is such a big deal after menopause. You have an increased risk of chronic gut issues and inflammation along with A decrease in protective estrogen that helps your cells repair. So stop villainizing cholesterol. Stop worrying about estrogen causing cancer. Hormones don't cause cancer. Hormones actually keep you healthy and vibrant and prevent disease. So I hope this helps you understand the real risk behind cardiovascular disease. One of the best things you can do for your heart is to heal your gut. You really want to focus on your gut in the pair. Perimenopause and menopause transition because it is the root of all disease. We've known this since Hippocrates, that the inflammation and the disease that is happening in your gut is being translated throughout your body. So if you want a healthy heart, you must have a healthy gut. And that looks like cleaning up your diet and getting really honest with yourself about what you are putting in your body. A lot of us, we are so busy that we don't really have time to think I know for myself, I just grabbed whatever I could on the go to get me through the next few hours. I didn't care the quality of the food, if it was actually nourishing me. I just wanted the hunger pains to go away or the stress feelings to go away or the empty feelings to go away. So I would just stuff in whatever. So what I recommend is just keep a food diary for a week. Log everything that goes in your mouth. I'm talking down to the hard pieces of candy. Of candy that you sucked on, or the pop that you sip on all afternoon to get you through your day. Get real with yourself about what you're putting into your body. That is really going to be a game changer for you. I know it was for me. I realized that I was eating a few Hershey Kisses over here and a string cheese over here and a half a donut and a half a sandwich and another pop and Just things that I wasn't considering food because it wasn't my meal. It was between my meals. It was on the go. And once I really got clarity around what I was putting into my body, I realized so much of it was pretty darn toxic. So much of it was driving inflammation and creating issues all throughout my body. And here's something you need to know. You don't have to have outright gut symptoms. You don't have to have diarrhea, constipation, or bloating to have gut issues. They may manifest only in the rest of your body. They may manifest as heart disease. They may manifest as diabetes, as eczema, as chronic migraines, as overall just fatigue. There are other ways for your gut issues to show up. So please start evaluating what you're putting in your body. Get real with yourself. Figure it out. That is step 1. Step 2 is then really start to nourish your body and give it what it needs, because what we got away with in our teens, 20s, and 30s no longer serve us. We have a storage of vitamins and minerals that get us by for a long time, but that gets depleted if we don't keep filling our pantry with good stuff internally. We're going to get to the point where we have a B12 deficiency or a vitamin D deficiency or an iodine deficiency, and that is going to start to show up and manifest as disease. Something as simple as not getting enough iodine in your diet can outright cause hypothyroidism. It's the leading cause of hypothyroidism in this country is iodine deficiency. Cardiovascular disease— part of that picture is vitamin D deficiency. So if your vitamin D is not around at 60, then you are increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease. And part of the reason we are deficient in vitamin D is because it's a fat-soluble vitamin that we get from healthy food, and we don't get enough of it. The other reason is now we're afraid of the sun. We don't go out in the sun, and if we do, we cover up in sunscreen, we put sunglasses on, and so our skin can't even make vitamin D because we have blocked that action from happening. I just want you to start to understand that this is multifactorial, but there are so many things you can do to actually decrease your risk. And one of the bigger risks that we're now realizing is alcohol, especially for women. So our liver needs to be functioning properly for our cardiovascular system to be functioning properly because they're actually connected. Our liver is part of our GI tract, our gastrointestinal system, but it has so much also to do with our cardiovascular system. They are connected because all of the blood that our cardiovascular system filters, our liver also filters. Our liver is a big filter. And here's something you might not realize. When you take something in, in your gut, goes into your stomach and intestines and gets absorbed into your bloodstream, it actually goes to the liver before it goes to the rest of the body because that is God's way of protecting you. It goes through this liver process. It's called the first-pass effect. So the liver clears it and makes sure that everything is okay to go throughout the rest of the body. And so your liver can take up all of those toxins and all of the stuff that's coming into your body and try to protect you, but it can only do it so much, and it reaches its breaking point when it is full of toxins, it's full of alcohol, it's full of pesticides. It's full of microplastics, and it can't get rid of it anymore. So I really want you to start thinking about your liver health as a way to decrease your cardiovascular risk. That is going to be a game changer for you. Loving your liver looks like getting rid of alcohol, getting off medications that you don't need, getting off of simple carbohydrates, breaking up with sugar, getting into a a fasted state of ketosis and start burning your own fat for fuel. That is going to be the key to really improving your cardiovascular health. And then lastly, we already know this— exercise, moving your body. And why is that so important? We think we just need to run on the treadmill and do more cardio so that our heart muscle has more endurance, and that's all fine and well and good, But that's not really why you need to move your body. You need to move your body because I, as I mentioned earlier, your venous system, your veins, they need help pumping that blood back to your heart. And so they don't have active pumps. Your muscles, your movement are the pumps. If you're not having strong, healthy, toned muscles, then you will have venous stasis and your heart will have to work so much harder to pump that blood In and out all day long. So you want to have strong, healthy muscles to decrease that risk of cardiomyopathy and arrhythmias and your heart just working overtime to get that blood pumping. And lastly, you make really amazing chemicals when you exercise. They are healing chemicals. You burn through all your excess cortisol, which is your stress hormone, so that you don't have so much cortisol Hanging around trying to destroy things. And exercise is just overall great for your cardiovascular health, your mental health, and your spiritual health. It's a game changer. So get moving. And if you're not moving, start with walking, but you have to get that body moving. So if you want to decrease your cardiovascular risk and you want to decrease your diabetes risk, your prediabetes risk, you want to lose some weight, you want just feel amazing and start to enjoy life again, please join Fast to Faith. We have an incredible sisterhood of women ready to support you and lift you up. But it is a game-changing program. It's a 40-day program that teaches you how to go from sugar burner to fat burner. It reverses fatty liver disease, prediabetes, all the things. It gets your body functioning well. It heals your gut. All the things. It's so incredible. I want to see you in there. I want that transformation for you. All right, now that you've learned how to get your heart healthy, let's talk about another midlife mystery, low stomach acid, and why it might be behind your bloat, fatigue, and cravings. Click here to watch that next.