I am Corinne Baptiste, and this site is an argument I keep having with myself about whether the wellness I have been sold is worth what it costs me.
It started with a question I could not answer. Someone asked me why I went to a particular class every week, and I opened my mouth and found nothing in it. Two years of Tuesday evenings and no reason I could say out loud. That gap turned out to be more interesting than any routine I could have described, so I began writing down the reasons behind the things I do, and then doing the honest accounting of what each reason had cost.
Why the reason comes before the routine
Most wellness writing hands you a protocol and lets you supply your own motive afterwards. That is backwards, and it is how people end up two years deep in something they cannot explain. A habit you cannot justify is not a discipline, it is momentum. So the pieces here start with why, sit in the discomfort of that for a while, and only then look at what the thing actually takes.
The eight running arguments
Why I Do This, for the motives themselves. What Is Worth It, for the arithmetic. Wellness I Quit, which is the section I am least comfortable with and most sure about. Rest as a Choice. The Cost of Optimizing. Doing Less Better. Other People’s Goals, for the ones that arrived from outside and got mistaken for mine. Checking In With Myself, for the questions that survived.
What this is not
It is not health advice. I am not a doctor, a dietitian, a therapist or a trainer, and nothing here is a plan for your body. You will find no dosages, no calorie numbers, no protocols, no invented studies and no promises about what anything will do to you. If you are dealing with a symptom that persists, or with something that frightens you, the honest answer is a clinician and not a blog.
Why I publish the weeks I was wrong
Because the accounting is only worth anything if I publish it when it comes out against me. I have quit things I had defended in public. I have kept a streak going long after the habit under it had died. Those pieces are here with their dates on them, which is the only version of this site I can defend.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell me. The page gets fixed with a note saying what changed rather than being quietly rewritten. Write to hello@wellnesswithpurpose.org.