Episode 10, Wendy Taquino - Intermittent Fasting, Emotional Healing, and a Life-Changing Diagnosis

💚 February is Cholangiocarcinoma Awareness Month 💚In this episode, Erika Barnhart sits down with Wendy Taquino, a professional singer, to explore her powerful health journey with intermittent fasting and emotional healing. Wendy shares how fasting became a freeing, sustainable tool — not just for weight loss, but for improving metabolic health, balancing hunger hormones, and supporting emotional well-being.The conversation also thoughtfully touches on Wendy’s experience navigating a cancer diagnosis, and how self-care, informed nutrition choices, and community support have played a vital role in her resilience. This episode is an honest, hopeful discussion about listening to your body, letting go of outcomes, and choosing wellness from a place of compassion rather than control.🎙️ About WendyWendy is a recovering recovering life-long emotional eater, food addict, and yo-yo dieter. IF was themissing tool she needed to gain control of her cravings, to help her dig in and deal with the rootissues of her bingeing — both biologically and emotionally.She was put on her first diet at 11. But what nobody knew at the time was that she had sometrauma that she was trying to bury with food. And that was going to be her coping mechanismfor the next 25 years. But she did every diet out there to try and manage it. Jenny Craig, WeightWatchers, Nutrisystem, and every other fad. She’s lost and gained thousands of pounds overher lifetime.In 2006, all the pain that she’d been trying to keep at bay came bubbling up, and she had anervous breakdown and struggled with major depression for 2 solid years. In a short amount oftime, she had binged her way up to 285 pounds.After years of therapy and emotional healing, she was finally ready to tackle the weight gain andbecome a whole, integrated, and healthy person — ready to heal her body after working to healher mind. Even though she doesn’t recommend it to anyone now, she had Weight Loss Surgeryin 2017 and lost 80 pounds in the first year. But then struggled to lose 20 more the next until shefound that doing a Keto diet worked for her. In 2019, she met and married her amazinghusband, who brought carbs back into her life and house — and regained 20 pounds.In 2020, she found IF and was determined not to put all the weight she’d worked hard to loseback on. What she didn’t know then was that it was also going to help her heal her metabolism.She went on to lose an additional 40 pounds and has been maintaining a 140-pound weightloss with IF for nearly four years.📺 Watch on YouTubeFull podcast episodes, clips, and additional conversations are available on the Pause and Fast YouTube channel.https://youtu.be/5pWfbNrmshE👉 Subscribe on YouTube to watch full episodes and supporting content.