What I Learned From My Year of Mini Health Challenges

The writer, Phoebe Lapine. (Photo courtesy of Phoebe Lapine)

For a lot of us, the first indication that our body is not, in fact, invincible happens in our 20s. For me, that realization came when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

For the better part of a decade following my diagnosis, I aimlessly tried to get on board with the health hand I was dealt. I adopted a gluten-free diet, drank green juice, and, in general, tried to abide by the health rules that experts set for me — rules that many of you have probably tried to apply to your life one January or another.

But after many years of unrelenting bodily woes, I couldn’t help feeling like I was failing at actually achieving any of these health goals. So at the beginning of 2015, with a raging case of adult acne that no one could solve, I knew I had to change my approach. Instead of trying to do it all (at all times), I decided to take on a series of short-term challenges to tackle my problem areas, one by one — to do what Gretchen Rubin did for her happiness, but for my overall health. I called it The Wellness Project.

By making one change for a defined period of time, I hoped I wouldn’t face that horrible feeling of failure if I ended up reverting back to my old ways. And by experiencing these changes with awareness, I thought I might just be able find some semblance of balance going forward.

The Wellness Project turned into a yearlong blog series (and upcoming memoir) that chronicled how I attempted to find the sweet spot between health and hedonism in my life. My curriculum forced me to recommit to all the self-care practices that fell by the wayside when I left the corporate world to become a professional chef and food writer. But I also wanted to figure out what wellness products and experiences were actually worth the time, money, and energy we spend on them. And I wanted to do all these things while still having fun.

In the 12 months that followed, I found myself diving head first down the rabbit hole of healthy living. I formed a battle plan that would help me become a champion of my own mind, body, and spirit — with everything from cleaning up my makeup, to forming better hydration habits, to figuring out how to not have a panic attack every time the subway inexplicably skipped my stop. And for every challenge, whether it involved tackling my back pain, building better cooking habits, or fitting fitness into everyday life, I wanted to weigh what practices improved my life and which, despite the best scientific and spiritual intentions, just didn’t.

Now that I’m on the other side, I can definitely say that there were some high highs, low lows, and many lessons I’ll take with me into 2016 as a result of both. Here are just a few of the things l learned during my year pursuing that elusive “balance.”

1. Giving up sugar isn’t just a dietary challenge — it can be an emotional one, too.

When I was designing my year of wellness challenges, I made an effort to avoid fad diets. I didn’t want to take on anything that wasn’t sustainable. My eating philosophy has always been an omission-free one (with the exception of gluten), and I knew that “healthy hedonism” couldn’t involve depriving myself of all the foods I love.

But one thing I tried to go cold turkey on for a month was sugar. I gave it up in tandem with caffeine and alcohol for 30 days last January, and more so than those other substances, my withdrawal period felt like I had given up a much harder drug. In addition to the physical symptoms, which were much more intense than what I’d previously experienced by giving up coffee alone, the emotional cravings were even harder to kick. I realized that I used sweets as a reward for either good behavior (excellent freelance articles, going to the gym) or unfair misery (rejection letters, tummy troubles). Now when I want a cookie, I try to spend my French macaron money on other rewards (like a 10-minute chair massage at the local salon) that won’t send my blood sugar into a tizzy.

Related: What It’s Like To Go A Month Without Alcohol, Sugar, And Caffeine

2. You get what you pay for.

On the financial front, one of my overarching goals was to weigh upfront investment versus long-term gain. Many health doodads are useless. But for the more functional items, sometimes you get what you pay for. And I learned this the hard way through a cheap standing desk.

For one of my challenges to fight back pain, I tried not to sit for more than 45 minutes at a time, which led me to seek out a standing desk. Unfortunately, most standing desks are expensive. So, I went with one of the cheaper options for making my office space more ergonomic: a manually adjustable podium to sit on the top of my desk.

When I finally got around to unwrapping it, true to the price, it was a total drag to set up and an even bigger burden to move up and down. I let it sit on my floor for the rest of the year and then finally sold it on Craigslist. The more expensive version would have set me back a lot more money, but it probably would have been cheaper than the previous year’s chiropractor appointments, and saved my back a lot of misery had I actually been using it.

Related: How This 20-Something Writer Beat Her Back Pain

3. It helps to have a health buddy.

During my month of movement, when I challenged myself to be physical for 30 minutes every day, I discovered firsthand how helpful it was to have a workout buddy. Part of this was accountability. Research shows that even simply receiving a check-in call asking about your exercise progress every two weeks is enough to boost workout performance.

But I also learned that your lifestyle can be very hard to change if those around you aren’t on board. Couples influence each other’s behavior a great deal, and just as healthy habits can have a positive impact, bad ones can have effects in the opposite direction. It’s arduous work being the one constantly role-modeling better food choices while your other (more fun?) half orders a bacon cheeseburger and an Old Fashioned at dinner!

Having a boyfriend who was a first-class hedonist definitely made my own healthy choices during some of the eating experiments (like giving up alcohol and going vegan vefore 6 p.m.) a lot less joyous. But there’s a second lesson here: you can’t change people unless they want to change. (See No. 8.)

(Photo courtesy of Phoebe Lapine)

4. There’s no such thing as clean.

One of the experiments I did to heal my gut was to live dirtier, for the sake of my microbiome. This meant ditching antibacterial wipes, soaps, and hand sanitizers that kill all the good bacteria on your skin along with the bad. It also involved loosening my grip on the idea of “clean.”

I had the hardest time “living dirtier” in the context of my home, where shoes come off right inside the door. And if those shoes are flip-flops, I take my blackened toes straight to the bathroom for a sponge bath. But through my research, I realized that my concept of purity was also an impossible dream.

The trillions of bacteria already inhabiting our bodies out-number our own cells three-to-one. Our DNA is made up of the ghosts of viruses past. The toxins we so fear are present in our mother’s womb, and in the most “natural” product on earth, her breast milk. At the end of the day, it’s probably a good idea to ingest a little microbial dirt, for the sake of your immune system.

5. The key to good skin is giving your face a break.

The challenges to tackle my bad skin were twofold: 1) switching all my beauty products to natural ones, and 2) going makeup-free on Mondays. In order to be financially feasible, I executed the first part in stages, starting with the products that stayed on my skin the longest (like moisturizer and foundation). Now that I’ve fully replaced all my everyday items, I love opening my bathroom cabinet knowing that the things I use are clean and safe.

But the biggest lesson from switching my products was realizing how unnecessary so many of them are to begin with. When my skin used to flare up, I would grab every bottle in my arsenal to zap those zits. But that aggressive facial warfare only irritated my face further. Today, my M.O. is to try to just leave my skin alone — and it usually calms down on its own without the help of a Clean and Clear cleansing cloth, or the natural equivalent.

6. The world’s cheapest, most effective health drink is plain old H2O.

For my hydration challenges, I committed to not only drinking half my body weight in water daily, but I tried to drink better water.

Sadly, the regulations on our tap water are incredibly outdated. The list of chemicals that are banned in drinking water has not been majorly updated since the 1980s, which means rocket fuel additives and dry cleaning solvent can still legally flow from our tap under The Clean Water Act. In 2008, the Associated Press launched its own investigation and found prescription drugs in the water of 24 major metropolitan areas — with each having its own special mix of sex hormones, antibiotics, and other medicines. Even though concentrations may be low, it’s still unknown what long-term effects regularly consuming these compounds via tap water has on health.

Bottled water is even less regulated, and despite marketing claims, is just as likely to be sourced from a municipal well in Queens than a glacier in Alaska. Luckily, filtering my tap was one of the easiest ways to get rid of everyday unwanted toxins (particularly chlorine, for those of us with autoimmune issues) and make room for more “toxins” of my choosing, like wine.

Once I had my new $100 filter (one for my sink and one for the shower), I felt pretty silly for waiting so long. The change was a one-time, hands-off expense, unlike avoiding pesticides in produce and hormones in factory-farmed meat—two things I still have to think about everyday.

Still, drinking non-filtered water is better than drinking no water, so I try not to stress about it out while I’m out and about!

7. Sometimes you have to embrace selfishness.

Many aspects of my project made me feel more selfish. Not only did I have to lay down the law in certain areas with my significant other (ahem, sleep). But honoring my energies also meant saying no to a lot of other people in my life who I love dearly.

I realized though that when I’m feeling my best, everything else falls into place. The people around me become more alive; the positive glow is contagious. And allowing yourself to get to that place often takes many selfish steps in between.

Related: What I Learned From Challenging Myself to Move 30 Minutes a Day

8. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

As I made my way through the year, I discovered one overarching threat to all my wellness challenges: being judge-y toward others. More so than any changes to my drinking or sleeping schedule, this was a big unanticipated consequence for my social life. I started noticing my friend’s eyes glaze over at dinner as I launched into fun facts about tap water and red meat.

It was so hard to have all this newfound knowledge of the world and not share it — especially when I saw the people I loved harming themselves. I had to constantly remind myself that everyone is on their own journey. And no one wants an unsolicited health marm at the dinner table.

The whole point of my project was to find a life that balanced health and hedonism, not to become a slave to my body — and certainly not to live in fear. While I wanted to teach people everything I’d learned, I had to try to do so in a way that didn’t impose my sense of right and wrong on them.

9. Try to forgive, but don’t forget.

Even though most of my experiments were short-term sprints instead of long-term resolutions, I still fell down on many occasions. To keep my judgment in line — toward myself and others — I tried to remember that awareness is the first and, perhaps, most important step towards healthy hedonism. And forgiveness is the second. We’re all just doing the best we can.

To find out more about the inspiration behind The Wellness Project, and read recaps of the monthly challenges, click here. To follow along with future experiments, subscribe here.

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