Born to Heal: Holistic Healing for Optimal Health

What happens when the person who teaches authenticity loses her own voice? And what did her body do that finally made her stop and listen?

In this return episode, she opens up about what that break was really about and the lesson she didn't expect to learn.

After more than 20 years as a radiation oncologist, Dr. Katie Deming walked away from Western medicine to find what truly helps people heal. So it caught her off guard when a marketing strategy slowly pulled her off course. At first she felt a little stuck. Then she couldn't pick up the microphone at all.

Dr. Katie has now guided more than 150 people through water fasts, many with cancer and many without. That experience has changed how she sees fasting. You'll hear why she's rethinking the way it's used, the four things she sees in people who heal naturally, and why her practice is taking another turn.

If you've ever felt pushed into a box, this episode is for you. Maybe a treatment plan put you in a category that doesn't feel like you. Maybe you're a physician who feels boxed in by protocols. Or maybe you're just tired of other people's opinions drowning out your own.

Dr. Katie's story gives you permission to pause, listen to yourself, and choose the path that fits.

Stay until the end because Dr. Katie names what she now believes is the linchpin of all healing, the piece she couldn't see when she first left conventional medicine, and shares where the podcast is headed next.

Press play and learn why trusting yourself might be the first step toward healing.
Work with Dr. Katie One-on-One — a Fasting Consult to build your personalized fasting plan: https://l.bttr.to/L05ab

Or a Health & Healing Consult for a deeper conversation about your diagnosis, your options, and what’s worth exploring next: https://l.bttr.to/Abcf1
Join Dr. Katie for a three-day guided reset to slow down, listen to your body, and practice a more loving relationship with yourself—with daily live calls, expert support, and community alongside you: https://tinyurl.com/ye22r9km
Follow Dr. Katie Deming on Instagram
Watch on Youtube
DISCLAIMER: The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.
A thought-provoking podcast explores cancer through the lens of holistic medicine and functional medicine, discussing causes of cancer, metabolic health, and unconventional approaches like water fasting, fasting and autophagy, and...

What if the signs nudging you to slow down aren't setbacks, but directions worth following?
Dr. Katie Deming shares an announcement she says goes against nearly every piece of advice she's been given. For months, she's felt pulled toward a decision most experts told her to avoid. She's finally saying yes to it, and the reason why might shift how you think about rest, content, and the quiet messages your own body keeps sending.
Dr. Katie has spent her career watching what happens when people live out of step with who they really are. As a former radiation oncologist turned integrative oncologist, she's seen how staying out of alignment can affect your health in ways you might not expect. Here, she opens up about her own signs, why she won't wait for the louder wake-up call, and what she believes real healing actually starts with.
If you've been running on empty, buried in information, or brushing off that small voice telling you something needs to change, this one speaks straight to you. Dr. Katie offers a gentle invitation to step back, reset, and reconnect with yourself before life makes the choice for you.
Press play and learn why listening to yourself might be the most healing thing you do.
Work with Dr. Katie One-on-One — a Fasting Consult to build your personalized fasting plan: https://l.bttr.to/L05ab

Or a Health & Healing Consult for a deeper conversation about your diagnosis, your options, and what’s worth exploring next: https://l.bttr.to/Abcf1
Join Dr. Katie for a three-day guided reset to slow down, listen to your body, and practice a more loving relationship with yourself—with daily live calls, expert support, and community alongside you: https://tinyurl.com/ye22r9km
Follow Dr. Katie Deming on Instagram
Watch on Youtube
DISCLAIMER: The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.
A thought-provoking podcast explores cancer through the lens of holistic medicine and functional medicine, discussing causes of cancer, metabolic health, and unconventional approaches like water fasting, fasting and autophagy, and...

Learn about the Healing Power of Prolonged Fasting: HERE
What if the thing you assumed was deprivation is actually one of the oldest healing practices in medicine?
Someone you love is exploring a prolonged water fast, and you want to understand what that really means. Host Dr. Katie Deming  walks you through what a supported fast actually is, the way she would explain it to her own family. She describes what happens inside the body when someone stops eating, and why it looks nothing like what most of us learned in school.
You'll hear why she compares a supported fast to a retreat rather than a period of going without, and what the structure looks like day to day. She also explains the part of the process almost nobody talks about, the piece she takes more seriously than the fast itself. 
If you've been worried, confused, or unsure how to bring this up with the person you love, this conversation gives you language and a clearer picture.
Dr. Katie also traces fasting back through Hippocrates, Galen, and the physicians who shaped Western medicine, then explains what changed and why we set it aside. And she names what people are truly reaching for when they choose this path, which is rarely what you'd expect.
Stay through the end for the most important thing she has learned in two decades of caring for people with cancer, including a deeply personal story about her own mother.
Press play and learn how to walk alongside someone you love as they heal.
Work with Dr. Katie One-on-One — a Fasting Consult to build your personalized fasting plan: https://l.bttr.to/L05ab

Or a Health & Healing Consult for a deeper conversation about your diagnosis, your options, and what’s worth exploring next: https://l.bttr.to/Abcf1
Join Dr. Katie for a three-day guided reset to slow down, listen to your body, and practice a more loving relationship with yourself—with daily live calls, expert support, and community alongside you: https://tinyurl.com/ye22r9km
Follow Dr. Katie Deming on Instagram
Watch on Youtube
DISCLAIMER: The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.
A thought-provoking podcast explores cancer through the lens of holistic medicine and functional medicine, discussing causes of cancer, metabolic health, and unconventional approaches like water fasting, fasting and autophagy, and...

Learn about the Healing Power of Prolonged Fasting: HERE
What if everything you’ve been told about muscle loss and prolonged water fasting isn’t the full story?
Dr. Katie Deming welcomes back Dr. Christy Kesslering, a fellow radiation oncologist who left conventional medicine to focus on metabolic health. Christy didn’t just complete a supervised 14-day water fast. She tracked what happened before, during, and after it.
She collected DEXA scans, body-composition measurements, toxin testing, insulin levels, cholesterol markers, and inflammation data. She wanted to understand what her own clients experience during an extended fast and see what the numbers could reveal about what was happening beneath the surface.
The results challenged one of the biggest fears surrounding prolonged fasting.
As a 58-year-old postmenopausal woman, Christy lost body fat while her follow-up DEXA scan showed an increase in lean mass. But the numbers are only part of the story. She also walks you through the difficult middle of the fast, including back pain, aching tissue, skin changes, shifting inflammation markers, and the gradual return to normal during refeeding.
Dr. Katie and Christy also explore why rest is an essential part of a supervised fast, what happened to Christy’s triglycerides and cholesterol-related markers, and why changes during fasting need to be interpreted differently from routine lab results.
Chapters:
00:05:00 - Escaping the Workaholic Hamster Wheel
00:05:42 - The Health Data She Tracked
00:09:21 - What Happened to Her Muscle Mass
00:11:07 - Losing Fat While Gaining Lean Mass
00:16:11 - Why Fasting Differs From Calorie Restriction
00:23:53 - Disconnecting From Fight or Flight
00:28:13 - What Hunger Felt Like After 14 Days
00:28:56 - The Detox Symptoms Began
00:30:25 - Her Inflammation Markers Rose
00:31:24 - Why Triglycerides Changed
00:33:30 - What Fasting Can Do to Cholesterol
00:36:54 - Temporary Inflammation During Healing
00:39:11 - Healing Can Look Messy First
00:41:14 - What Her Toxin Testing Revealed
00:45:01 - How Insulin Shifted During the Fast
00:46:36 - The Possible Autophagy Turning Point
00:48:59 - What Happened to Her Liver Markers
This conversation offers a rare look at prolonged fasting through the experience of two physicians examining both the physical process and the laboratory data.
You’ll learn why rest may matter as much as not eating, why temporary lab changes can be misleading without context, and what Christy’s results suggest about the fear of losing muscle during a properly supervised fast.
Press play to hear the data that challenged the muscle-loss narrative.
Connect with Dr. Christy Kesslering: https://www.kessrx.com/
Work with Dr. Katie One-on-One — a Fasting Consult to build your personalized fasting plan: https://l.bttr.to/L05ab

Or a Health & Healing Consult for a deeper conversation about your diagnosis, your options, and what’s worth exploring next: https://l.bttr.to/Abcf1
Join Dr. Katie for a three-day guided reset to slow down, listen to your body, and practice a more loving relationship with yourself—with daily live calls, expert support, and community alongside you: https://tinyurl.com/ye22r9km
Follow Dr. Katie Deming on Instagram
Watch on Youtube
DISCLAIMER: The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.
A thought-provoking podcast explores cancer through the lens of holistic medicine and functional medicine, discussing causes of cancer, metabolic health, and unconventional approaches like water fasting, fasting and autophagy, and...

Learn about the Healing Power of Prolonged Fasting: HERE
What happens on the day your cancer treatment ends and instead of feeling free, you feel like you're standing at the edge of a cliff instead?
Host Dr. Katie Deming sits down with Tara Elmore, the founder of Complex Creatures, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 37.
Tara understands the strange silence that follows the very last treatment, because she lived it. The roadmap disappears, the check-ins slow down, and people see your hair growing back and assume that you're fine. 
But inside, you're left wondering what you're supposed to do with the 364 days that stretch between one screening and the next.
Dr. Katie brings her own perspective as a former radiation oncologist who used to prepare her patients for this exact moment. She saw the anxiety, the loneliness, and the fear that tend to show up right when the world expects you to celebrate. 
They explore what it means to reclaim your agency, how to gently detox your body after treatment, and why the intuitive knowing inside you is far more powerful than you've been led to believe.
Chapters:
00:05:42 - The Emotional Cliff After Treatment
00:08:49 - Why Ringing the Bell Feels Complicated
00:09:52 - Reclaiming Your Role in Healing
00:11:13 - Building a Post-Treatment Care Team
00:12:31 - Taking the First Step Toward Recovery
00:15:09 - The Fast That Changed Her Body
00:18:22 - Finding Safer Ways to Fast Postpartum
00:20:16 - Turning a Healing Gap Into a Mission
00:22:34 - Supporting Skin Through Radiation
00:26:20 - Why Breast Care Matters Between Screenings
00:30:46 - Reconnecting With Your Body
00:32:46 - Reclaiming the 364 Days Between Screenings
00:33:14 - Choosing Your Health Non-Negotiables
00:34:58 - Understanding the Body’s Terrain
00:39:14 - Making Health a Lifelong Practice
You'll hear how Tara rebuilt her health one small step at a time, why fasting became a surprising turning point in her story, and what breast care has to do with reconnecting to your own body. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by protocols or afraid to stop doing all the things, this episode was made for you.
Press play and to learn the simple starting place from Tara that changes everything, and it's easier than you might think. 
Work with Dr. Katie One-on-One — a Fasting Consult to build your personalized fasting plan: https://l.bttr.to/L05ab

Or a Health & Healing Consult for a deeper conversation about your diagnosis, your options, and what’s worth exploring next: https://l.bttr.to/Abcf1
Join Dr. Katie for a three-day guided reset to slow down, listen to your body, and practice a more loving relationship with yourself—with daily live calls, expert support, and community alongside you: https://tinyurl.com/ye22r9km
Follow Dr. Katie Deming on Instagram
Watch on Youtube
DISCLAIMER: The Born to Heal Podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual medical histories are unique; therefore, this episode should not be used to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease without consulting your healthcare provider.
A thought-provoking podcast explores cancer through the lens of holistic medicine and functional medicine, discussing causes of cancer, metabolic health, and unconventional approaches like water fasting, fasting and autophagy, and...