Episode #4: Phoebe Lapine
Phoebe Lapine is a food and health writer, gluten-free chef, wellness expert, culinary instructor, Hashimoto’s advocate and speaker, born and raised in New York City, where she continues to live and eat. On her award-winning blog, Feed Me Phoebe, she shares recipes for healthy comfort food and insights about balanced lifestyle choices beyond what’s on your plate. Named by Women’s Health Magazine as the top nutrition read of 2017, Phoebe’s best-selling debut memoir, The Wellness Project, chronicles her journey with Hashimotos Thyroiditis and how she finally found the middle ground between health and hedonism by making one lifestyle change, one month at a time.
Phoebe is a frequent contributor to Food and Wine, The Huffington Post, Yahoo Health, and Mind Body Green, who named her one of 100 Women to Watch in Wellness. Her recipes and writing have also appeared in Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, SELF, Shape, Glamour, and O! Magazine, among others. She is a regular host of cooking shows and wellness programming for Healthination and AOL.
When Phoebe Lapine was first diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, she didn’t want to hear it. She thought her symptoms could have been a byproduct of her stressful life, not of a chronic illness. As time went by, she eventually came to terms with her diagnosis and discovered she could use her skills as a chef and recipe developer to heal her body. On this episode, Phoebe and I talk about her journey to “healthy hedonism,” the challenge of moderating the extremism of some holistic health solutions, and why just being herself (one of the things I love about Phoebe) is at the core of her choices about food, her book, and her business.
“I love food. I don’t want to be afraid of food. I don’t want to be afraid of anything because I know that stress is more harmful than probably any one pesticide.”
Here are some of the things that Phoebe and I chatted about:
Why, at age 22, she went through a period of denial about her diagnosis
What it was like to hear that she would have to be on medicine for the rest of her life
The mysterious symptoms that finally convinced her to see another doctor
Why holistic health solutions felt completely overwhelming and undoable at first
The reality of getting a diagnosis--you learn what is wrong, but not usually how to fix it
Her year-long experiment dedicated to her health, which ultimately became her book
What healthy hedonism means for Phoebe (and her approach to times of celebration)
Why prescriptive health books don’t often resonate--and why a story is more compelling
Why vulnerability and honesty will always be at the core of the stories she shares
Her advice for receiving a chronic illness diagnosis--and how you can take it one day at a time
Resources on Feed Me Phoebe, including her directory of holistic practitioners in NYC and her upcoming e-course launching on September 17 (with registration starting August 26).
Some of her favorite wellness Instagrammers: Dana James (@danajames), Lily Diamond (@lilydiamond), Liz Moody (@lizmoody), and Serena Wolf (@serenagwolf)
“It’s a lot easier to be an extremist, in some ways—to go cold turkey, to create stringent rules. Finding balance and moderation and creating your own rules on the fly is a lot harder. That’s forever the struggle.”
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Phoebe’s blog: feedmephoebe.com | Website: phoebelapine.com | Book: thewellnessproject.com