Katrina Ubell: You Are Listening to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians Podcast with Katrina Ubell, MD, Episode Number 206
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Katrina Ubell: You are listening to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast with Katrina Ubell, MD, episode number 206. Welcome to Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, the podcast where busy doctors like you get the practical solutions and support you need to permanently lose the weight so you can feel better and have the life you want. If you're looking to overcome your stress eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you're in the right place. Well, hey, there, my friend. Welcome back to the podcast. Do I ever have a treat for you? This is literally a dream come true. If you are young, you probably haven't heard of Christiane Northrup. But if you are like me in your mid 40s and older, you probably remember Christiane Northrup. She was on Oprah several times. She's Oprah famous, people. She's the real deal. I remember watching her on Oprah. She was telling that the first time she went on she said was in 1998 which was my first year in medical school. I remember her coming on and talking about women's health issues and especially talking about menopause and a new way of thinking about menopause. I remember thinking to myself, "Oh, someday when my body reaches that point, I should look up the stuff that she's teaching." Of course, it didn't feel relevant to me in my close to mid 20s at the time, but I have always kept tabs on... Yeah, she's one of those resources. She's one of those people who is leading us as women. I've said this many, many times. We get so much education on going through puberty and then who's teaching us about menopause? There really aren't a lot of people. Well, Christiane Northrup is one of those people. Literally, on a whim, I thought, "I wonder if I could get her to come on the podcast." It turns out, you can create a lot of things when you just ask. She came on. We had the most delightful conversation. We had so much fun, she really is just a really fun, fun person. She is an OB-GYN by trade. But as you'll hear in her whole story, she really has had an unusual background even leading her into her medical training. She really was a pioneer for all of us as women physicians in terms of getting really curious about her patients, asking her patients, these women, what was really going on not just taking their stories for face value, and being able to start making connections between the mind and the spirit and then the body not having this big disconnect which is how traditional medicine teaches it. I am super, super excited to bring you our conversation. Before we do that, really quickly, I want to let you know that the January weight loss for doctors only program was a huge success. We closed that down last week. I do want to let you know that if you are thinking, "Shoot, I missed it" or "I would love to get in on that January group," we do have a waitlist that's going on right now. Things happen sometimes where people have to change their mind or say, "Hey, I need to take a break actually. I need to start later," or something like that. I wanted to let you know that if you would like to join the waitlist we take $1,000 deposit to hold your spot and you just go to katrinaubellmd.com/enroll, E-N-R-O-L-L. Be sure to check that out. If you're like, "Oh my gosh, I have definitely missed the boat here and I really, really, really want to hit 2021 just hit the ground running, be on the right foot, and not struggle with my weight anymore," then you're going to want to join us. It's for MD or DO or international equivalent, women identifying physicians who are in clinical practice want to lose weight forever. If that's you, come and join us. Get on that waitlist. Go to katrinaubellmd.com/enroll. Before we get started with Christiane Northrup, I just want to tell you, there's a couple of things in her book that we're going to be talking about. This is literally the revised and updated fifth edition of this book. It's called Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing. She is amazing. It's a New York Times bestseller. I just wanted to read to you the dedication and just set the tone for you. Dedication reads, "This book is for all who believe that it is possible to flourish regardless of our present or past circumstances. It is for all who acknowledge the daily presence in our lives of mystery, uncertainty, and hope. It is for those who yearn to be well and know that there is something more to healing than simply external substances or techniques. This book is for every physician, nurse, healthcare practitioner, healer, or patient who keeps an open heart and an open mind and acknowledges the fact that scientific truth is constantly changing. It is for those who know that we heal and flourish to the degree that we consciously invite the sacred into our lives. This book is dedicated with appreciation to the scientists and healers of the past, present, and future who have had and will have the courage to speak their truth and go forward in faith, hope, and joy despite the deadening effects of conventional thinking." So powerful. So powerful. There're actually two paragraphs that I wanted to read you. I actually thought we might talk about them during our conversation and then we just talked about some of the other great things. We didn't do it and I want to make sure that you hear these. On page 12, she writes, "Our culture considers the body to be inferior to the mind and its dictates of reason. It often teaches us to ignore fatigue, hunger, discomfort, and our need for caring and nurturing. Hello? Does that sound familiar? That's called the medical profession. It conditions us to see the body as an adversary particularly when the body is giving us messages we don't want to hear. We're encouraged to try to kill the body as messenger along with a message. Though, it's important to stretch and challenge the body to keep fit and healthy, it's also important to know the difference between stretching yourself and overextending. A dead giveaway that you are overextending, rather than stretching yourself, is the inability to nurture yourself or rest without a drink, a smoke or overeating." I'm speechless. It's so good, right? What we're talking about is growing. That's stretching yourself not overextending yourself. So, so good. Oh, my gosh. Okay. And then the second part that I wanted to read to you, mid paragraph, it says, "Every overweight woman I know is clear about what she should eat. She doesn't need more nutrition information. She needs first to feel the pain of her unmet needs for intimacy, rest, recognition, grieving, and acceptance which the excess food is a substitute for. This can happen only when she is encouraged to name those needs and learn how to meet them skillfully and compassionately. Her body and its state of health will always be a reliable barometer, letting her know how she's doing in this regard." Yes. I'm like, "Yes, this is everything." This is what I always tell you guys. This is so good. So, so good. This book is filled with pearls. It's absolutely amazing. It is quite the tome. It's over 1000 pages. This is not something that you just settle in. It's not a beach read. But there're some really good stuff in here, great stories, and so much information that you can use as a reference for sure. I just want to really encourage you to get this book, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, and use it. Use it for all the ways. Even when you feel like this is a little out there, you don't really know or this isn't scientific enough, just know that that is just part of the patriarchal society telling you that others know better than you do about your body. So good. And what you need. I do want to mention one more thing. At one point, she said, "We don't need psychiatrists. We need coaching." I just want to mention for all my psychiatrists, she doesn't mean that your services aren't needed, what she means is for people who are functioning well, coaching can be really, really useful rather than needing medication. Of course, there are people who are having immense difficulty with functioning normally and of course, psychiatry can be super powerful for those people. Just wanted to be clear about that because I was like, "You know what? I have a feeling. There're going to be a couple people who'll take this the wrong way and get mad." Just letting you know about that. I cannot wait to share this conversation. Christiane, she's just a treasure. She's a riot. She's so fun. Literally at the end, I was like, "Will you be my friend?" which I kept to myself, but now I guess I'm putting it on podcast.