The 5-Step Solution That Finally Puts Out the Fire

Let's do it, ladies! Put your takeaways. Oh yes, Shelley, become a new wineskin. I love it. Shelley was the only one with the takeaway yesterday. Ladies, come on, where's your takeaway? Does anyone want to share their takeaway? Unmute and share. Okay, Marilyn, I like it. Cortisol increases leaky gut. Gotta keep working on getting the mind, body, and spirit aligned. Yes, cortisol wreaks havoc on us. God wants me well and I deserve it. I love that. That is good. Changing my mind. Oh yes, Lita, God's working on you. New wineskin and accountability. Yes, accountability is huge. Having a sisterhood, knowing you can reach out. We actually— I'm going to give a real life example right now. We have one of our coaches, her daughter, she's getting ready to have her first granddaughter. Her daughter is in labor. Her water just broke. And she reached out this morning, and we've been praying. Actually, she reached out yesterday, and so we've been praying for her for 2 days. And so there's just— there's power in prayer, and especially in a group. And having those women in your corner is huge.

Let's see.

That the gut could be causing a lot of my depression that keeps coming back. It was causing mine, Paula, I'm telling you. I'm sure there's a lot of other women in this group that can tell you. It was causing my anxiety, my depression, so many things. Oh, that's totally fine, Ginger. Absolutely go back and watch yesterday's, but you're not— you can participate today and you won't feel left out. Perfect, perfect.

Hello, hello, hello! Oh my goodness, I'm excited here in this chat that's going. It's gonna be a really good day. And no, you don't need to have seen yesterday. These all stand alone, but we are building on yesterday because yes, we started to learn a few things, and today we're gonna dive deeper. I'm super excited. Oh my gosh, um, I made the coolest slide for this presentation today. I'm just excited to share it with you guys, and I just keep getting affirmations that God is bringing the right women into the room that need to be here, that they are just fed up and over it. So let me We are recording for those lovelies who can't make it, right?

Yes, we are.

Yay!

Okay, so good. You guys are figuring out that you need to work on some mindset stuff, that things are connected, that your depression might be coming from your gut. Absolutely. That's been my lifelong issue. Um, if you have been following me for a while, you have probably heard me talk about the fact that I have been on 5 different antidepressants throughout, you know, my course of dealing with it for over 30 years. And as a conventional doctor, I really believed what I was taught. I believed that you treat a symptom with a medication and it should fix it. And when I learned that my depression was stemming from my gut issues, I was angry at first, you guys. I was like not happy whatsoever. Um, but then I felt so much hope and I was excited because that meant I could do something about it and not continue to just mess around trying different antidepressants because sometimes medications are needed, but the truth is that they come with side effects. They affect parts of our body we don't want them to affect. So when I was on antidepressants, I, um, had no libido. I was just not interested in my husband. And mind you, I'm in my 20s and 30s and 40s I should have some kind of desire, but it just wasn't there. And so that made me feel even more depressed and even worse, like something was wrong with me. And I carried around extra weight, and, um, it didn't matter what I did, it didn't matter what medication I switched to. I tried to wean off, and you know, you get this disequilibrium, like you've had a couple cocktails, your brain. You just can't think. Um, it feels terrible. And the worst part is, when I was on Wellbutrin, I had ringing in my ears that I couldn't sleep at night. And like, I was only getting 4 hours of sleep as it was as a resident, and there I'm laying with ringing in my ears. And it was a long, miserable path, and I'm really excited to share the stuff that I've learned today because I wasted decades being miserable. And I suspect some of you have too, and you actually don't need to live like that. That's the coolest part. You do not. And I've been on— I've been off all antidepressants for, gosh, at least 6 years now. I can't even keep track of time. COVID kind of makes everything a blur, um, because I did heal the root cause issues. So I wanna, I wanna see something in the chat, hands raised. I want to see a number of how many things you have tried, the programs, how many doctors have you been to, how many diets have you been on, how many medications, antidepressants, whatever. Just throw me out a number. Like, oh my gosh, some of you are probably like countless.

Hello.

Oh, that, that would be my number. It's just like, I don't even know anymore. So we're gonna talk today about when the programs don't work, like the group programs, the conventional doctors don't work, you've tried fasting or even hormone replacement therapy, why that hasn't worked, antidepressants. Um, some of you have been consuming all the information. I talked about this yesterday, the infobesity, like, I just need to know more, um, and that will fix me. And there is something that you do need to learn today that you might not have, um, been taught. We're going to connect some dots, but that information doesn't equal transformation. So Today I am speaking to this woman, the woman who is still not well, or it's like two steps forward, one step back. You just cannot keep that momentum going. So if that's you, you're right where you're supposed to be. And I'm going to tell you, the reason you're not well is not because you haven't tried hard enough. I mean, oh my goodness, we have all tried hard enough. And it's not because your body is broken beyond repair. It's because no one has found your fire. Your fire alarm is sounding nonstop. It's loud, it's piercing. Oh my gosh, those fire alarms are terrible. But you can't turn it off because no one has searched for your fire with correct testing. No one has built the protocol around to put out the fire. Everyone just keeps mopping the floor from the sprinklers going off while the fire is still burning in the walls. So we're gonna fix this today. Yesterday I talked about the cascade, that gut inflammation driving hormone disruption, the belief system that has to change before any program can hold. We called it the new wine skin. If you haven't watched that recording from yesterday, it's really good. I think it'll give you some ahas. Do go back and watch it, but The bottom line is you can't pour new wine into old wineskins because they will burst. New wine is active, it is doing things, it is fermenting and making gas, and an old wineskin is stretched as far as it will go, and so it will burst from that, that growth of that new wine. And so you need a new wineskin, you need a new belief system, because you are growing, you are evolving. Dissolving and you are gonna rupture that old belief system. So if you joined the 40-day program yesterday, I'm super pumped. Oh my gosh, we're gonna pour into you. It heals that cascade that we talked about. But today is for the woman who has deeper layers. It's deeper than a, you know, a group program. Maybe your gut has been irritated and inflamed for years. Maybe you've been on antidepressants for decades. And, and your hormones are just fluctuating. Maybe you've been good and like this perimenopause is just throwing you for a loop and you're like, who am I? I don't even know anymore. So your hormones often get dysregulated to the point where the damage goes deeper than any kind of like diet or nutrition changes can heal. So that's what we're gonna explain. So you might not just need a program, you might need an actual functional medicine provider looking at you. So I wanna give you a picture of what's going on in your body. Because when you finally understand this, something will shift, not just intellectually, but something will release because for the first time, your suffering will make sense. And when suffering makes sense, it stops feeling like a personal failure, like, why can't I figure this out? Why can't I make myself better? So imagine your body as a house. I like this analogy. The electrical wires running through the walls of the house, of your house, are your nervous system. They actually look just like them. They are designed just like them. They have coatings over them to keep the signals going, and they're connecting to every room, every organ, every system in your body. Under normal conditions, they hum quietly and everything keeps running— the refrigerator, the dishwasher, the lights. Your body just keeps running. But when stress becomes chronic, the wires get overloaded. Year after year, trauma, toxins, processed food, infections, emotional pain, simply never being allowed to rest. They overheat, the insulation burns, and the fire starts inside the walls. At first you don't see the flames. The house looks fine from the outside, but your body knows. You feel it as this vague wrongness that you can't explain to any doctor. I don't I don't feel like myself. I'm just— something's wrong. The fatigue, uh, you just— the sleep doesn't fix it. The weight doesn't budge. It's like something deeper that you're sensing. And then the alarms go off. This is cortisol, your body's emergency signal. It is flooding your system around the clock, telling every cell there is a threat. That fire alarm is going off. It causes heart racing, heart palpitations. It causes crazy monkey mind that you can't calm down. You feel exhausted, but you're like wired internally. You're anxious for no reason. You're unable to rest even if you go on vacation. The alarm is doing what it's designed to do, but it was never designed to run continuously for years. And what happens when the fire alarm goes off? The sprinklers turn on. So that is your immune system. Your immune system responding to the alarm from the fire, trying to protect you, trying to douse the fire, sends inflammatory cytokines flooding throughout your body like water from the ceiling. But here's the problem. The sprinklers can't aim. They can't like find the fire specifically. So water soaks everything. Your couch is ruined, your bed. The chronic cortisol has burned holes in your gut lining, leaky gut, and your immune system responses is spraying through these holes, flooding your bloodstream with particles that should never have been there. So your immune system, it's confused, it's overwhelmed, is trying to do its job and it starts attacking things that it never should. So I'm going to share this picture. Well, let's see, so that you can understand this. Okay, number 1, the wiring. Your nervous system becomes overheated to the point where it starts a fire, chronic inflammation in the walls. The fire alarm signals, that is cortisol going, going, going. Your immune system responds, that is the sprinkler system. What most women do, we start mopping the floor. We take supplements, we change our diet, but the fire keeps burning. So that water everywhere, it's hormone imbalances, brain fog, bloating, weight gain, food sensitivities, sleep disruption, mood swings, inflammation spreading throughout the body. Okay, so the reason conventional medical system doesn't work is they're not looking inside the walls. They hand you a mop, they document the water damage, and then they send you home. So I have a virtual medical practice called Her Higher Health, and we look inside the walls. We find the fire, we address it in the right order, because you cannot repair the floors while the sprinkler's still running. You can't turn off the sprinklers while the fire is still burning, and the fire doesn't go out until the wires get to rest. Okay, so it's really important that you do it in a certain order. And I truly believe this. This is my— like, some people say, what would you die on a hill for? I would die on a hill for this truth that God designed our body to heal. But healing happens in peace, not panic, okay? And I talked about this yesterday. God knew this. He designed it this way on purpose. Genesis 2:7: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground. So that's a whole nother thing I talk about. I do a presentation about how we are just like the dust. We have the same bacteria, the same minerals, the same compounds as the earth, but we have the breath breathed into our nostrils, the breath of life, and man became a living being. So that breath, that peace, is not just spiritual, it's a physiological state. When your nervous system is at rest, your wiring in your walls, it's rest and digest instead of fight or flight, hot burning, overloading. Then it travels down your vagus nerve and your gut begins to repair. When your gut repairs, your hormones can rebalance. When your hormones rebalance, your brain can clear up. When your brain clears, then your spirit can finally be heard again. So this happens in peace, not panic, like I mentioned. So the house doesn't heal while the alarms are still going off. It heals when somebody walks the house, finds out where the fires actually are, and puts the fire out. So you have to find the fire. I hope that makes so much sense to everybody, because when I was able to like put a picture to this analogy, it just all clicked for me. So I'm hoping that it clicked for you. And I want to hear from a couple women that they actually went through this of finding the fires in their walls, and it's changed their lives.

My name is Lori Saber.

I actually— let me make sure that my sound is on because yesterday we had issues because I didn't click the share sound button. Hopefully this is better.

My name is Lori Sieber. I am from Indianapolis, Indiana, and for the last 2 to 3 years I've experienced all kinds of illnesses, starting with hyperparathyroidism, which totally knocked my body for a loop. Once I had that fatigue, depression, Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, lost 20 pounds. I had just a slew of things as the months went on. I had had to have a couple kidney stones removed, kidney stones from the hyperparathyroidism, had COVID twice, just terrible. And then last year was— and the depression kept getting worse as well. Everything kept getting worse. I was diagnosed last summer with endometrial cancer, and then after I had a total hysterectomy, I plummeted even more and I really did not know what I was going to do with myself. I was so down. I wasn't depressed because I had cancer. I just kept telling everybody my body was depleted of something. Something was wrong. Well, during this time, after I had my surgery, I had a sorority sister of mine reach out and tell me about Dr. Tabatha Barber, that she had been following her podcast for a long time. She personally was not seeing Dr. Tabatha Barber and her team, but really recommended me to talk to Dr. T and her team. And so I took the plunge and I am so— well, I can almost cry about it right now. I'm so glad I did. Literally turned my life around. I ended up having tests done from a lot of different doctors, but Dr. Tabatha Barber brought them all in together, ran a bunch of tests on me as well, and she has changed my life. I have been religious about taking my supplements and anything that she has prescribed for me for about 3 and a half months now. And you can ask my husband, the difference is amazing. I am getting my life back. I'm still a work in progress because when you've gone through something for 2 to 3 years, you don't just jump back within a few months. Takes a while to get your body back to where it should be. You know, I just got tired of people telling me that I was depressed and that I was old. I, I was 66 and that's never stopped me. I've been a very active person my whole life. I'm very involved in animal rescue and transport and drive and this and that. Couldn't do anything for 2 years, but she is literally hands down changed my life. And I am so thankful for all of that. Uh, I wouldn't be here, really would not be here without her. And I'm just really, really thankful. And I have been spreading the word to everyone I know. Don't stop with your regular doctor. Advocate for your health. And that's exactly what she does and her team. And now I'm, like I said, I'm just an advocate for that. And I prayed that, Lord, if you get me through this, let me help others. And actually doing that now. And I'm just so thankful. And I'm so thankful for her team. So go Dr. Tabatha Barber.

Thank you.

Thank you for everything.

Oh my goodness.

I don't even know where to start. I am just blown away. I've worked with Lisa Smith. I don't know. She's phenomenal. I just started. I think I had my plan put in place with Shannon in July. I ended up losing 30 pounds pretty much in a short amount of, a short amount of time to me in my mind. And it was all inflammation. Just absolutely amazing. My time with God listening is— it's just amazing getting back to where I should be. And just your guidance on that has been a godsend, a saving grace. So I, of course, I got sidetracked a little bit along the way with vacations and other things. And then I got all my Phase 2 supplements and I'm— I couldn't be happier. I feel so free and I think so many women would. I just want to shout from the rooftops for not only my friends and family, but I feel for my daughter and sharing all this with her so that she can educate herself. What you've done is more than we could ever ask for.

Oh my gosh, that just— whoo, that fills my heart. And I just want to say, like, my ego wants to take credit for that and be like, yeah, I'm so amazing. But I am telling you, God is so good. I went through 30 years of misery and struggle for him to turn it around to help other women. And I just— I'm actually grateful for all the stuff that I went through because I get to share it with you guys and I get to show you that there is a way out of this tunnel. Out of this miserable cave that you're stuck in, this pit, whatever you're envisioning it as. And I just choose to believe that I live a Romans 8:28 life. Everything is happening for my good and God's glory. And so I'm excited to see what God has done with everything that I have been through. Like, heck yes! Like when I watch these, I want to see your testimony. I want to see your test become your testimony, because pain without purpose, it makes us bitter. It, it doesn't make life worth living. But when you can turn your pain into your purpose of like, yes, there is a reason I just went through that, it's amazing. So I want to talk about the 6 mistakes conventional medicine keeps making, because that's where I come from. I know it intimately, and it's not because doctors are bad people. I loved my patients, I cared about them, but the system that we were trained in was never designed to find that fire in the walls. It's designed to silence the alarm, or not even that, just to mop up the floor. Okay, so number one, they don't test hormones properly. I was a women's health expert, quote unquote, and I didn't learn how to test for hormones besides fertility. I didn't understand what any levels meant at any time, and neither does any OB-GYN. They have to go outside of their traditional OB-GYN training to understand hormones. OB-GYNs are surgeons. We spend 4 years in the operating room, in the delivery room, doing procedures in the office. We're not trained in hormones. We're definitely not trained in health and wellness. That's a whole nother topic. But most doctors will run a TSH and say they checked your thyroid, or they'll you know, do a basic FSH level or estrogen and call it a hormone panel. And it's like, um, looking at the chimney to see if there's smoke coming out and deciding if your house is on fire. It's just, it's not helpful. And I know this firsthand. So a few years ago, I found myself just sitting on the couch so depressed that I didn't want to see my patients. I didn't want to run my business. I didn't want to talk to my loved ones. I was like, nope, I'm just not interested in life anymore. And it took me a couple days to realize, I think my estrogen has tanked. It's just like gone. Um, it was gone. I put on a bioidentical estrogen patch, and within like less than 24 hours, I felt like myself again. My depression lifted. I loved my people again. I loved my patients. I was like, oh my gosh, I was just gonna let my whole business fall apart. That was a really eye-opening moment for me because previously the depression had been from gluten. Every time I would eat a bowl of cereal, I would be depressed for the next 3 hours. For my chronic gut issues, but this time it was for my estrogen going bye-bye. And, um, the deeper root of that is I was under some major stress at that time. So if I had seen a conventional doctor, I would have been given another antidepressant and it would not have fixed my problem. So You need a Dutch test. A Dutch test stands for dried urine test of comprehensive hormones, and it shows you not just the hormone levels floating around in your bloodstream going into your tissues, but it tells you how you're metabolizing them. And those are two different questions that we're asking. So it's the second part that matters. It is the metabolism piece in a huge, huge way. So let me show this picture. This is one of the many pages from a Dutch report, and you don't need to really understand except that these wheels represent high and low numbers. Left is low, right is high. Way down here, purple is like menopausal levels. So this gal, her progesterones are all menopausal, her estrogens are all menopausal. Her testosterone is barely hanging on by a thread, her DHEA. But down here we get to see what her body does with her estrogens. Do they get sent to the liver to be methylated? Do you have an MTHFR or a COMT mutation that is causing you to not methylate properly, or do you just need, um, certain B vitamins, things like that. Are you making too much of this 4-hydroxyestrone, which we know damages DNA and increases your risk of breast and uterine cancer? So it's this defunct, improper metabolism of estrogen that can drive some cell dysfunction. Or are you making 16-hydroxyestrone, What are the ratios of that? So this is just one of many pages of a Dutch test that we do, and it can be really helpful to, um, show us how your body's using estrogen, especially if you're taking it as estrogen replacement. So you just taking it and, and hoping for the best, honestly. Number 2, the second mistake is that, like we mentioned, you're prescribed an antidepressant for hormone problems. So it is now the first-line treatment according to the American College of OB-GYNs and the Menopause Society that doctors start with antidepressants. Crazy, I know. They're afraid of hormones. They have not looked at the studies properly. I am excited to see that we're finally realizing hormones don't have to be scary. Our body makes them. It is— they're not scary. Um, but that we— the, the guidelines that doctors follow, they do not shift quickly. So it's going to be probably a good 5 to 10 years before the majority of the OB-GYNs GYNs and primary care physicians in the country catch up on this, the realization that these studies were done improperly and they were incorrect. And so they're going to continue to follow the guidelines until the guidelines get changed. And there's so much red tape around creating guidelines, so things do not change quickly, unfortunately. And antidepressants like SSRIs do not balance hormones. They work inside your brain where your thermostat is that is telling your body to have a hot flash and a night sweat, and it's like trying to silence that alarm but not fixing the fire again. So the only thing that balances hormones is hormones. Um, and SSRIs, the number one side effect is weight gain. So I get a lot of women coming to me, they're like, my OB put me on Paxil or Zoloft or Wellbutrin, Lexapro, um, and I can't lose any weight. Yeah, unfortunately, because it's affecting your brain, your brain is slow talking to your thyroid, slowing your metabolism. It's talking to your gut about your leptin and ghrelin production. It's doing all kinds of things, and you're not going to lose the weight, unfortunately, very easily. Um, but the second most common side effect is loss of libido. So you already weren't interested anymore in your husband because your hormones are gone, and now we give you a medication to really make you not interested in your husband, and you've gained weight, so you're ashamed of your body. And we're like, what's wrong? And so we start to internalize that, man, there must be really something wrong with me. But the truth is you're not depressed. Your hormones are out of balance. This is a clinical distinction with completely different solutions. And what we are now seeing is 7 out of 10 perimenopausal women who divorce during this transition are blaming their divorce on their symptoms and thought it might be their treatment. That's, that's crazy. This is what I explained to women. Hormones give you your personality. I would love to see in the chat, have y'all had an older woman in your life? Maybe it was your grandma or your aunt, or maybe even your mom who she just changed. She became snippy, she would scream, she would cry, she became just cold, no longer loving. That was her losing her hormones. I remember when my mom went through this, I was a teenager and I was scared of her. I was like, who are you? What's going on? Um, it changes you. Uh, the mood changes are real and the relationship damage is real. This could be prevented with the right test investing in the right hormones, unfortunately. So, um, I want to share my screen again. We are going to jump to the nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is the part that gets triggered when you breathe through your nostrils and activate that vagus nerve. You can also activate it by humming and singing. Um, and doing different massage therapies, activating your diaphragm. Uh, the— we ignore the nervous system, and that's— that alarm keeps going off because the wires are on fire. So most doctors look at anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, weight gain, and they treat these all separately. Or constipation, you're getting sent to the gastroenterologist for all kinds of scopes and procedures. And it's because you're stuck in sympathetic dominance, this fight or flight miserable stress mode that slows your bowels, it slows digestion, it causes bloating, it causes weight gain and constipation and, and anxiety and heart palpitations, and it wakes you up in the middle of the night. And unfortunately, instead of helping you activate the parasympathetic nerves and turn off the sympathetic. Instead, you get a sleeping medication or an anti-anxiety medication or thyroid medication, and we're, we're not shifting the nervous system. It's stuck in fight or flight. And for a lot of us, it's been years and even decades. And because you've lived like that for so long, you think it's normal. You, you're like, no, I don't have a stress problem. And we're going to talk about what the heck stress is in a minute. Um, but I would argue that you can't see the picture when you're in the frame. You don't know it's happening because it's been such a slow burn. That you keep adjusting to the increase in temperature. It's just like, oh, it's like a warm bath. That's how we kill lobsters. We cook them up slowly and they love the warm water. They don't climb out because it feels good and then they die. So when your nervous system is in this chronic fight or flight, it tells your adrenal glands to pump out cortisol around the clock. That cortisol directly increases your gut permeability. You get leaky gut, and then the immune system floods the house. The sprinklers are going off everywhere. So I like this part of the Dutch test. If you do a Dutch Plus, you get to see your 24-hour cortisol production pattern. So these two black lines are a normal healthy pattern. Your cortisol should be low when you wake up. It should have a natural rise within the 30— first 30 minutes. That's your body's natural cup of coffee. It gets you going, it gets you out of bed, gets you to the gym. Then it comes down during the day and it goes back down at bedtime so you can go to sleep. This person's value is shown in red, and you can see her 24-hour cortisol is through the roof and her metabolized cortisol is very low. So she's not breaking it down, it's hanging around forever. It's like she took a shot of caffeine and it never got metabolized. So her level is way, way high. And this doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good. It keeps you from thinking in your, um, prefrontal cortex, the, the part of the brain that can make clear decisions without feeling frustrated. You get stuck in your amygdala, in your feelings, in your overwhelm, and it's absolutely miserable. But here's the, the worst part: this chronic elevated cortisol raises your blood sugar. So you don't even have to eat breakfast and you can have high blood sugar in the morning time. And blood sugar raises insulin, and insulin is a fat-storing hormone, and especially belly fat. And then you get insulin resistance. Or the reverse can also be true. You can get insulin resistance because inflammation from your cells and the receptors aren't hearing the hormones. I'm going to show you that in a minute. And so the cells stop responding to the insulin signals. The doors to the cells are broken. I say it's like a mom who screams at her kids. They just tune her out and the mom keeps screaming louder and the kids ignore her. The insulin is knocking on the door, take this blood sugar, take this sugar out of the bloodstream, store it in the cell. And the cell's like, la la la, I don't hear you. And so it makes more insulin to keep knocking, and nobody's answering the door. So unfortunately, this cortisol also creates more leaky gut, and again, your immune system goes cuckoo bananas. So when your cells get inflamed, because this inflammation is going everywhere, then the fire that's been burning long enough creates this inflammation. The receptors get damaged. So here on the left, this is a healthy receptor in your cell. We have trillions of cells, trillions of receptors. The hormone floats along in the bloodstream, and says, hey, I want to send a signal, I want to tell this cell to do something, and it tries to fit like a lock and a key. But if the cell is inflamed, the receptor is damaged and the hormone cannot fit in there. So if your cells are healthy, you will hear your hormone signals. But if it's chronically inflamed, you're not going to hear it. The signal is not going to get through. So if a doctor looks just at your hormone levels, they're going to tell you you're fine, but you're like, but I don't feel fine. I don't feel like these hormones are working. We see this all the time with thyroid hormone. So this is not always a dosing issue, okay? This This is an inflammation issue by and large. I hope this is making sense for people. So a dysregulated nervous system also suppresses the thyroid. So cortisol inhibits T4 to T3, the active form of thyroid hormone for your cells to actually use. And then your TSH might look normal because your levels are normal. But your cells are not hearing the signal. So you feel cold all the time, or you have hair loss, or you have constipation. You're not pooping easily every day. You're straining. You're feeling bloated. Your weight is stuck. You have brain fog. You, you're like ready for a nap by 2 o'clock. And then cortisol does this thing called cortisol steal or progesterone steal, because when your adrenals are pumping out all this cortisol, they actually use the ingredients for progesterone to make cortisol. And so your progesterone gets lower, you're on some kind of estrogen roller coaster— it's high, it's low, it's all over the place— your thyroid's being suppressed, you're now driving insulin resistance, you have damaged receptors, damaged cells, and a gut that gets leakier and leakier. And you create autoimmune disease, you create food, food sensitivities, you create all of these immune responses. These are not separate problems. This is one alarm that has been going off for years. It is a fire that has been brewing. So we gotta stop with the pills for anxiety, the pills for sleep, all, all the pills, okay? We're gonna talk about how this requires peace and safety, and it requires the body to believe the threat is over. And this isn't just a spiritual concept, okay? You can't heal a nervous system that's still at war Like it's a back and forth thing. So number 4 mistake, we gotta talk about the gut. People ignore the gut and focus only on the hormones. So one course of antibiotics when you were 22 or when you were 6 for an ear infection or strep throat, years of being on hormonal birth control, like birth control pills. The standard— eating the standard American diet, taking ibuprofen, consuming gluten. I know nobody wants to hear this, it broke my heart as well, but gluten has been so overly processed in this country that our body doesn't even recognize it as wheat anymore. It thinks it's a foreign particle. It's like, what the heck is this thing? And it— your immune system attacks it every time you eat gluten. So this is one of my favorite slides. This is a normal, normal, healthy cross-section of what our intestines look like. We have one layer of cells between the food that we're digesting right up here and our bloodstream. These cells have such an important job. They are the ones who are pulling in the vitamins, the minerals, the amino acids from your proteins, the fatty acids from your fat, all the good things, but they're supposed to keep out bad stuff like toxins and bad bacteria and viruses. Gluten breaks these doorways so that things get right through into your bloodstream. All kinds of stuff break these— the antibiotics, the birth control pills, the processed foods, ibuprofen, acetaminophen. Advil, Motrin causes temporary leaky gut. When stuff gets into your bloodstream, your immune system responds in an effort to protect you. So the sprinklers are turned on. And the crazy thing is, like I mentioned yesterday, there is specific bacteria that live in our gut called the estrobolome, and their entire job is to clear estrogen. So when this dysbiosis develops, an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase starts to get produced and gets elevated, and that causes our body to reabsorb estrogen inappropriately. It sends it back into the bloodstream instead of continuing down the chute to poop it out. So you can drive this estrogen dominance without realizing it, and that looks like weight gain, mood swings, brain fog, heavy periods, fibroids, endometriosis, all this stuff. Um, most women with thyroid issues have Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune condition triggered by leaky gut, and the majority of women aren't even tested for it. So that's the crazier part. And what the American College of General Practitioners and primary care doctors, their guidelines state there is no need to test for Hashimoto's thyroid disease because we don't currently have a treatment for it. So that is bonkers because we actually do have treatment for it. That is one of the foundational things functional medicine helps with. But conventional medicine has admitted they don't know what to do with autoimmune disease, so they don't test for it. That breaks my heart. So you have to figure out what is triggering that autoimmune condition, and it's coming from leaky gut. It's coming from food sensitivities that are being created from that, and your immune system is so confused that it attacks your own thyroid. Our, our immune system should not attack our own tissue, but there's something called molecular mimicry that starts happening. So treating the thyroid without healing the gut, it's like mopping the floor with the sprinklers still running. It's just, it's a waste of time. It's silly. We would never do that, right? Okay, number 5 mistake: they ignored food sensitivities. So we see so many women come to us, I did a food sensitivity test, I removed these foods, I felt okay for a minute, But now I'm no better, or I redid the test, I have more sensitivities, or they come— this is the saddest one— I've been avoiding these foods for 3 years and I'm still struggling. Oh my goodness, because that's not what the test is for. Food sensitivities are an inappropriate response to leaky gut. Your immune system is trying desperately to protect you, and so it's attacking everything it sees. So whatever you're eating, it's gonna attack and create an antibody against it. I used to test positive for chicken and black pepper and broccoli and all these foods that are normal and healthy, but it was because I had leaky gut. And so the answer is not to avoid the foods the rest of your life. The answer is to stop the sprinklers. We have to stop the immune response by healing the gut, by fixing the wires, the nervous system. That sensitivity is not permanent. It is a response. It's not a life sentence. Okay, so we really do have to stop eating the reactive foods, but you have to heal the gut simultaneously. And then you allow the immune system time to calm down, stop reacting inappropriately so the antibody production can stop, and you can almost always reintroduce those foods. Gluten is different, and some women are able to bring that back in smaller amounts, but it's a different reaction. It's not that it's an inappropriate reaction because of leaky gut. It is driving the leaky gut in the first place. So that's a whole nother issue. Um, number 6, being prescribed hormones without addressing blood sugar and insulin. Okay, so this is the one that explains why your hormone therapy doesn't work, why it stopped working, or you just never felt quite better. Um, we see this a lot. Women go get on whatever pill, patch, cream, but they still feel off. So when hormones are prescribed without addressing insulin resistance or blood sugar dysregulation, that it can wreak havoc. You feel better, like I said, but then you start to feel off, so you keep adjusting the dose. You feel better, then you're off again, then you adjust again. And it's like this back and forth. Well, hormones must not be for me, and they think that's the problem. It's like a dog chasing his tail. But when insulin is chronically elevated, this, which happens when blood sugar is dysregulated, it suppresses sex hormone binding globulin. So what the heck is that? That is a protein that transports your hormones throughout your bloodstream to get them where they need to go. It's like a bus. So when sex hormone binding globulin is suppressed, like all the buses go into the garage and nobody's driving around, your hormones can't be delivered properly. So it doesn't matter how much hormone your doctor prescribes or how much is in the bloodstream. If it's not on the bus to get to where it needs to go, it's like a hitchhiker. It's not getting picked up. So if insulin is high, sex hormone binding globulin is low, the delivery system is broken. And elevated insulin also stimulates the ovaries and adrenal glands to produce more androgens— testosterone and DHEA. And this worsens estrogen dominance and drives the weight so that you can't lose it no matter what. And here's another thing: adipose tissue, body fat, especially belly fat, contains an enzyme cause called aromatase. Aromatase, and that converts androgens like testosterone into estrogen. So more belly fat, more aromatase activity, more estrogen outside of its normal hormonal pathway. Now you have estrogen coming from an uncontrolled source that you can't dose adjust for. And so a lot of women on hormone therapy, they just don't lose the weight, they don't sleep better because the sugar issue is not resolved. So addressing this without taking care of the sugar and insulin is trying— it's like trying to balance leaky gut, um, without removing the triggers. Like, it's so connected. I hope you all will see that. So we always test the fasting insulin. You want to get that not just a blood sugar because insulin resistance usually shows up years before the blood sugar stays elevated because of that cellular inflammation. So we also test the hemoglobin A1C. It has a big fancy name because we are looking at hemoglobin, red blood cells. We're looking at how sticky they are, how much sugar is stuck to them. That's what an A1C level is. It's a 3-month average of how much sugar has been sticking to your red blood cells. And so we like to get this full metabolic picture along with your hormone metabolism and your gut and your thyroid, because these systems are not separate. There's one fire, many alarm bells. I hope that's really starting to sink in and make some sense for you guys. So let me turn my slides back on and we can finish this out.

I reached out to Dr. Tabatha Barber about a year ago because I was going through perimenopause and I wasn't sleeping very well. I didn't have any energy and I was like 60 pounds overweight. So I was kind of stuck and I knew that I had to change something, but I wanted to know exactly what it was that I had to change. I did the Healthier Her program. During that first 3 months, I think I was getting the energy back. I lost— I think at that point I had lost like over 30 pounds, and I was sleeping better, and things were starting to click. I've lost about 55 pounds at this point. So I am within 10 to 15 pounds of my goal weight. My energy is through the roof. My sleep is so much better. I get that quality sleep from like 8 to 3 or whatever, which is still my 7 to 8 hours of sleep. I'm waking up and I'm refreshed and I'm doing my strength training. I have so much energy.

I've lost—

I started doing DEXA scans. I was like at a 33% body fat at that point. I went back and I've lost 2.5 pounds of body fat, so I'm down to 31%. And then, um, my biological age is like going down. I went from like 49 years to 47, and I'll be 51 in October. So I'm really happy about that.

It was the best investment I have ever made. For myself. I found foods that I was sensitive to that I didn't even realize it, and so that allowed me to change my diet, which is no longer a diet, it's a healthy eating living style right now. I lost over 23 pounds, all my inflammation went away, my joints don't hurt anymore, and I just feel amazing and I tell everybody about the program and I would highly recommend everybody look into the Healthy Hair Program. For me, the difference maker of the Healthy Hair Program was all of the testing that was involved so I knew that I was getting the results and also the health coach, having that health coach for for 12 weeks was so critical to me because I'm the type of person that if I don't have accountability, it's hard for me to stick with something. So having a health coach check in with me once a week really made the difference, as well as the nutritionist and the nurse. I mean, the whole program was very supportive, very encouraging, and even though it got difficult at times, it— they they, they really helped me through.

Ah, so good. Oh my goodness, I love it. Okay, I could talk about this stuff for hours. There's so much more to teach you, but I just want to come back to the house for a minute. Imagine you've been living in that house with a fire in the walls for years. You bought every mop, every bucket, every supplement, every program. You fixed fixed the water on the floor, you got new couches, whatever. You've chased these hormone doses, these thyroid doses, you've— you keep adjusting, but your house is still on fire. So what would it be worth to have someone walk through the house with the right equipment, find where the fire is, build a plan specifically for your house? That would be incredible, right? So I am excited to offer you what we have in our practice, and we already discount our program because we want to make it accessible, um, and— but we also need to make it comprehensive enough that we are putting out the fires. And so It's really hard to, to have all the tests and all the pieces in the program, um, that you need and make it affordable. So there's this balance that has to happen. But I do want to share because I'm really excited, um, because women just— they have so many transformations. And there's a few women on here I'm looking, and I'm just thinking of all your breakthroughs that you've had. So I'm excited to offer this.

Um, it's gonna make me emotional, but for a year and a half I've been going through the worst perimenopausal symptoms. My coach Andrew has been helping me through, um, a lot of them, especially the heart palpitations and the anxiety. So these last 2 months since I've been on the protocol, I'm on the Healthier Her program, I have not had not one heart palpitation, like at all. They're completely gone. My menstrual cycles are better. I just feel normal. The first I felt in over a year and a half. Like, you do this— there's so many other functional medicine doctors out there, and it's like, you do this with so much your heart and soul. And it's— when I listen to your podcast, I just hear how much you want to help women and do whatever situation we're in or wherever we're at. And it's like, you just meet us where we're at, and I'm just so grateful and thankful.

Um, oh my gosh. I love it so much. Okay, let me share the program. Here is what it is. It is stool testing, it is Dutch hormone and adrenal testing, so you get your 24-hour cortisol pattern, you get food sensitivity testing, 6 appointments with a functional provider. This is a year-long program. Most women have breakthrough in as little as 6 weeks and really feel um, like a new woman, usually within 3 to 4 months, depending on how quickly you jump in. You are working with our functional nutritionist, nutritionist who has a master's degree. You have accountability sessions with a coach because, like I talked about yesterday, we have to renew our mind, create new beliefs about ourself, get that new wineskin for the program to actually work. The 40-Day Fast to Faith program is part of it for after your healing protocol so that you continue to make major strides and improvements. So I'm really excited about this. We, we were talking as a team, and what we've come up with is the fact that we are seeing a ton of mycotoxin, um, poisoning right now, exposure buildup. And most women don't say, yep, I live in a water-damaged home, or I saw mold somewhere. They have no idea, yet they are having elevated mycotoxin testing. And this picture shows you that mycotoxins, they attack every part of your body, your brain, your ability to overcome the rusting and the mitochondrial endothelial issues, your immune system, your liver and gallbladder, your ovaries, your gut, your kidneys. Um, they are cancer-inducing. So this test, like, we want to hopefully in the future just make it part of Healthy Her, but we have decided to just gift this to you today as the bonus because it has been so transformational in women who have done the program. Some women, they're just— they cannot get over the hump and feel well, and we realize it's from mycotoxins. And unfortunately, we've been seeing a lot of this since COVID I don't know why it is so rampant, but this has been the game changer in the past couple years for women in our Healthy Her program. So This bonus is really, really powerful, and I'm really excited that we're offering it to you guys. So we have put that in there with our Healthy Her program. You also, um, do need high-quality supplements often to do some treatment protocols. We have a supplement line. You are more than welcome not to use them, but they have been vetted. They are physician-grade. You can only get them through a provider. You cannot get them um, on the shelf, they're not Costco. These work amazing. And so we give you a huge discount code to help with that. And so, like, I'm really excited to offer it at this price, you know. I'm like, okay, we can still pay the bills, but we have to help some women. So this is amazing. And here's the deal. We can only help a certain number of women at a time because, ladies, we pour into you. We are all in. My eyes are on every case. We are creating real protocols, and so we're answering messages every day. We only take a certain number of patients to do this comprehensive program. We average about about 30 patients, give or take the time of year, the availability of the providers, that type of thing. So once those spots are filled, it's really— um, I hate turning people away. We don't— we try not to do that, but once we're full, we're kind of full. So we do have 16 spots right now. I really want the women who know that they were supposed to be on this call to to hear this opportunity. I want you to take it because once they're full, they're full. Um, if you're sick and tired of being tired, like, you gotta jump in. You got to just sign up. There's payment plans available. Like, we will work this out for you. If you know you need this, then make it happen. So Ashley, put the link in the thing for them, if you will. I just want to share two more ladies because this fills my heart. Like, this is why I get up every morning.

Hi, I joined the Healthier Her program last year because I was dealing with heavy periods, stubborn weight, and a lot of food sensitivities. After completing the program and working with Dr. Tabatha's team, I've seen numerous results that I'm so thankful and so grateful that I made the investment in myself. And did the hard work to get where I am today. Some of the results that I've seen personally in my journey were balanced hormones, so much more manageable periods, less night sweats. I've lost probably 5 to 10 pounds that were stubborn and would not go away. I've healed my gut, which is for me is huge. I've dealt with issues with my gut my entire life, and finally I've feel like I have it under control. I've learned a lot of, uh, tricks and tips to keep on track and maintaining the healthy gut. Um, just overall energy, less anxiety, overall even mood. Um, just wonderful, amazing team that keeps you motivated and keeps you going. And I'm very grateful that I made the investment in myself.

Went to see her in her functional medicine practice after she left the OB-GYN world, after the nudge from Ashley, like, okay, you need to do something, girl. You are not feeling good. This isn't okay. Let's get you better. And I worked with Tabatha Barber and Morgan, and they helped heal my gut. I got on the right supplements. My supplements that I was— I thought were helping were actually— they contained gluten and it was just making things worse. So after I healed my gut, felt better, followed the nutrition plan, took all the supplements, and just felt— I felt alive again. And it was just something that I needed. So yeah, and I just, I love to share this with other women. I have watched my mom now, who is 70 years old, walk through the programs and healing her gut, and she is now gluten-free, and just— she removed her sensitivity. She's lost weight, she's maintained her weight loss, and it has just been something— I just want to share this with everyone.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to share this with you guys. Like, this is an incredible transformational program, and I believe in it just so wholeheartedly. My team Dr. Tabatha Barber pours into our patients. It's absolutely incredible. So I hope that you've made a decision. You've been mopping up long enough. Like, God did not design your body to stay on fire. He designed it to heal. He breathed the healing pathway into us with the very first breath, but we have to figure that out, you know. We have to look at that gut-brain connection. Action and help our body's capacity for restoration. So I would be honored if you would let us find the fires for you, let us put them out with you, let us rebuild the house. Like, it's our greatest pleasure to do this work. We, we enjoy it so much, and we cannot wait to connect with you. Put the link in the chat, Ashley, so they can sign up and put the link for them if they're like, no, I need to ask you some questions. We are more than happy to get on a call with you. And some people want to say like, I have a different scenario. I'm not sure if this is going to work. Almost always it does, because what we're doing is we're digging up the roots, we're fixing the root cause. But we are more than happy to have a conversation with you and see if this is the right fit. Right, Ashley?

Yeah, I will put that link, but I prefer to stay like I did yesterday and just answer some questions right now. I would rather do that if that's okay. And then I would go.

That would be amazing. Yes, I know I have a meeting with Candice Cameron's team, so I don't get to stay on. But I am excited. I hope I hope that you heard something that really connected the dots for you today or just reminded you of something you already knew. Okay. I love you ladies and I'll see you tomorrow. Okay.

So there's a couple questions in the chat. Kirsten, you are 3 months postpartum and breastfeeding. We absolutely can help you. We would modify some stuff to start. Um, one of the things that you cannot do is like the kill-off phase. That's the only thing that you can't do, but there are other things that we can do. And what we'll do is after you're done breastfeeding, we would loop in that kill-off phase. So we are working actually with several new moms right now, um, and so absolutely we can help you. Uh, new moms seem to be the ones who want help. It's been really cool to see that younger women want help now instead of waiting until they're in their 50s. That's my story. I was in my early 30s when I saw Tabatha, and so I feel like it's the perfect time to get healthy. Okay, so, uh, are there 6 visits with a functional provider with Dr. Tabatha Barber? No, those 6 visits with the functional provider are one of Dr. Tabatha Barber's providers that work work under her. We only have 2 that have been trained by her. Dr. Tabatha Barber is not currently taking new patients. Um, she— we meet every week as a team and go over. That is why we keep the number super small. It's really important to us. Um, so that she has her hand in every patient. If you need hormones, she's involved in that.

But we—

she does not currently taking on new patients at this time. Um, I thought hormones were constantly fluctuating, must be very complex to test hormones. Yes, Emily, it is. That's why we do it Dutch, and then we test your hormones every 3 months if we prescribe. That's why this program is a year long. That's why we do not take anyone just for hormones anymore, because we heal you from the inside out, including your soul, and then, um, we work with your hormones. And, uh, Talking about, um, the piece of the hormones that's complex is, um, why we test constantly. So, can I pay for a consultation first to discuss history and all these things before I pay for the full package? We do not have that, Kirsten. I will put my discovery call link in there if you want to get on a call with me. You can. The discovery call is for if you are serious and, and are just have a few questions before you take the next step, but we do not have any one-time appointments anymore. You— I do want to mention that every Monday, Dr. Tabatha Barber runs a call, 30 minutes of Q&A, 30 minutes of Lectio Divina that you're part of. So if you're part of Healthy Her, you can come on Mondays and ask her questions. So that is there. Anyone else? Nobody else has any questions? You can put it in the chat. Thank you so much. You're very welcome, Emily. I do highly recommend if you have questions, get on a discovery call with me, but, um You can— when you go to checkout, there are options with Klarna and Affirm. Affirm actually offers a 6-month 0% financing. I highly recommend this program. I did it myself back in 2019 and it was a complete game changer. I firmly believe I'm where I am today because of it. All right. Anyone else? Can I please have the link from yesterday for the 40-day reset? Yeah, you absolutely can. Give me just a second to get that. And the 40-day program, like we talked about yesterday, is an amazing place to start. So if you're really skeptical and you're just like, I don't even know what this Dr. Tabatha Barber is about, start with the 40-day program, ladies. It's an amazing place to start. You're going to get paired up with a coach. They're going to walk you through it, the accountability piece. Do not be afraid to just start. All right, any last questions? All right, well then I'm going to hang it up Ladies, thank you so much. Honestly overwhelmed. Love to do this. We'll join tomorrow more for more info. Okay, just answered about the 40-day. Oh yeah, Ginger, completely understand that you are, um, overwhelmed. And absolutely come tomorrow, you guys. Tabatha will be sharing more tomorrow. So take a little time. I would honestly pray about this. Ask God for a sign. Figure out what it is that that you really need. Yeah, absolutely, Lisa, happy to explain. And, um, all of you guys probably got a text to join this call. On the other line, on the other side of that, is myself or a few members of our team. We have a very small team. I want— I keep saying that, but I promise you it's very small for Fast of Faith and for, um, Her Higher Health. Please, um, text that line if you have a question. One of us will answer that question for you. Not a problem at all. And I'll stay again tomorrow and answer questions. Okay. All right, ladies, I hope you have a great night and we'll see you tomorrow.