How To Make A Comeback After A Major Health Setback

Do you feel like you have to start your health journey from scratch every time you experience a setback? 

What if you could stop second-guessing every health decision and start trusting your body’s ability to be well? In a world full of conflicting advice, it’s easy to feel like you have to choose between intuition and science, but the truth is, they work best together. Your body is designed to heal, adapt, and thrive with the right support. In this post, we’ll explore how to overcome setbacks in your wellness journey through that lens, so you can take practical steps that feel both empowering and sustainable.

Introduction

Starting a wellness journey is easy; I’ve done it a hundred times. 

A year ago, when I drastically changed my diet and lifestyle to address some health concerns, I thought I had arrived. I had finally found the diet that gave me perfect blood test results, helped me achieve my dream body, and was easy to maintain and implement. Needless to say, I was on cloud nine. 

I was so sure that I had found the answers that I got certified in Holistic Nutrition and decided to start this blog. Fueled by a mix of passion and pride, I prepared to evangelize to everyone and shout from the rooftops that I had all the answers.

Until…I fell into a crushing health setback that left me feeling like a complete fraud and searching for answers all over again. I felt like I was starting over from square one. From the outside, I was lean, strong, and energetic. Underneath the surface, my body was under immense stress, and it started quickly shutting down.

From rock bottom, I have grown in knowledge, compassion, and nuanced wisdom. I changed what I wanted to write about. Instead of telling you what to do, I just want to offer insights and empathy from someone walking through it alongside you. Here are some things I have learned from turning my health setbacks into greater strength and resilience.

Redefining Health Setbacks

There are many ways we experience health setbacks on our wellness journeys. We can experience any of the following setbacks:

• Injury and illness
• Autoimmune flares 
• Chronic pain attacks 
• New diagnoses 
• Concerning lab results and diagnoses
• Falling out of routines or changes in environments
• Mental health and emotional struggles

If you are going through a major health setback, you are probably struggling with the emotional and practical realities of dealing with it. These realities aren’t fully addressed in mainstream wellness conversations. Many discussions focus on either rigid discipline (“just get back on track”) or toxic positivity (“everything happens for a reason”), but they don’t provide compassionate, realistic guidance that honors both your struggles and your ability to move forward. That’s what I hope to offer you today.

The Myth of Progress: Stop Feeling Like You Failed

In the health and wellness space, we face constant internal and external pressure to always be moving forward. We expect to always be progressing and doing things “perfectly.” 

We imagine being on a direct path in one direction, and that every step is a step forward. But really, our experience is more like swimming in a vast ocean of waves and riptides and, every so often, still waters. There is no perfect way forward; there are just different ways to respond to the waves that crash around us. Sometimes we surf the wave and make huge progress. Sometimes we lie on our backs and float through. And sometimes the wave violently throws us deep underwater, and all we can do is try not to drown. 

If this sounds like you, I want to acknowledge how deeply personal and discouraging setbacks feel. Setbacks don’t erase progress, and self-compassion is a necessary skill, not an excuse. When I faced my big setback, I thought that I was starting over at square one, and that I would lose all my progress, and that all the work I had put into my health was wasted. 

Overcoming that thinking required redefining progress beyond just visible results. I had to give myself grace to let my outward appearance of fitness and health not be my focus as I addressed the underlying health complications that had been lurking under the surface. I had to face everything I was doing wrong to get stronger, but it felt like I was going backwards.

Reframing Your Health Setback

When we feel like we are drowning in a setback, we have two choices. We can view it as a roadblock or obstacle, keeping us from achieving what we want. Or, we can see it as a way to level up and come out so much stronger than before. I decided to see my health setback as an opportunity to take my health to the next level by getting better at sleep, stress management, light exposure, breath, mindset work, nutrition, and movement. Through these habits, I leveled up in each of these areas. I am truly healthier now than when I thought I was doing everything right. I took stock of all the things that contributed to my setback, and I actually got better because of it. 

This is how people end up being so grateful for the things that go wrong in their lives; they learn how to turn the things that hurt them into the things that make them stronger. 

Valuing Vulnerability

Health setbacks hold valuable lessons. They teach us humility by challenging our limited understanding of a situation. They give us the opportunity to be vulnerable and help us connect with others through shared struggles. We approach others with compassion instead of condescension. We lead with empathy instead of superiority.

When I thought that I ‘had it all figured out’, I could have started a blog to tell you all how to eat and exercise “perfectly”, just like I was. Those blogs exist, and they don’t help that many people, at least not permanently. You don’t need another person telling you how to be just like them. You need help working to best take care of yourself. Because I was brutally humbled by my major health setback, I can now offer you empathy, compassion, and a nuanced discussion of what it is like to be imperfectly but vibrantly healthy. 

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

Letting go of perfectionism in health and wellness requires cultivating a growth mindset. Dealing with imperfection pushes us to learn, adapt, and grow. We grow to new levels of knowledge, strength, and resilience. If everything is going well, when the waters are still, we get complacent, self-reliant, and grow stagnant. Setbacks shake us up, challenge our assumptions, and force us to adapt.

Embracing Your Health Setback

You may be wondering how to stay motivated when progress isn’t perfect. The motivation has to come from a deep sense of understanding that you are Intended For Wellness. You learn that your body has an innate drive to heal and will do everything it can to restore balance when given the right resources in the right environment. 

The Foolproof Process For Your Health Setback Comeback

1. Acknowledge Your Fears and Feelings:

As soft as it sounds, it is important to honor your emotions without judgment.

If your health setback came from intentional action on your part, you may feel like you can no longer trust yourself because you keep “messing up.” You might struggle with believing you can follow through on your goals.

If your health setback requires you to overhaul your routines or lifestyle, you may feel like you’re “starting over.” You might believe that if what you were doing wasn’t working, you now have to completely start over from scratch.

Whatever feelings you are experiencing with your setback, tune in. It is likely that the deepest fear will point you to your solution.

2. Reflect and Learn With both Accountability and Compassion:.

The typical advice is either to “push harder” or “just be kind to yourself,” but neither helps you find the middle ground between accountability and grace. The truth comes out when you deeply reflect on what happened and how you can move forward. Here are the three most powerful questions to ask yourself:

What is this setback teaching me about my body, my needs, or my approach to wellness?

Instead of viewing the setback as a failure, this question helps you gather valuable information. Maybe you need more rest than you realized. Maybe stress is impacting your health more than you thought. Or, perhaps your approach was too rigid and unsustainable. Every setback carries insights…if you look for them.

What would moving forward with self-respect look like right now?

When health setbacks happen, it’s easy to react in extremes, either pushing too hard to “make up” for lost time or giving up entirely out of frustration. This question helps you take a balanced, self-honoring approach rather than falling into all-or-nothing thinking. Moving forward with self-respect might mean adjusting expectations, allowing yourself to heal, or focusing on what you can do instead of what you can’t.

How can I rebuild trust with myself in a way that feels sustainable?

Health setbacks often leave people feeling like they can’t rely on their bodies or their ability to follow through on goals. Instead of jumping into drastic changes, this question guides you toward small, confidence-building actions. Maybe it’s as simple as re-establishing one nourishing habit (like eating enough protein, walking daily, or prioritizing sleep) to rebuild momentum without overwhelm.

3. Adjust Your Approach with Process-Oriented Goals:

Setbacks often bring up deep fears of never achieving health goals. When you shift focus from outcome-based goals (a certain weight, fitness level, or perfect routine) to process-based goals, you can get clear on the things that will help you stay engaged even when progress is slow.

1. Ask yourself: What is one area of my health I can focus on that would make everything else easier right now? Sleep? Nourishment? Movement? Stress relief? Nervous system regulation?
2. Create one simple habit around your core focus that feels so small it’s almost effortless.
3. Create a backup plan for when obstacles arise. Give yourself a fallback plan so that you can still have a “win” for yourself, even when the unexpected comes up.
4. Track Progress with Self-Compassion: Keep a journal, use a habit tracker, keep a food log, or track biofeedback if and only if they help you record and adjust your process goals.
5. Layer in More When Ready: When your new goal is on autopilot and you are ready to make more progress, layer in additional tiny habits.

Practical Tips for Moving Forward

Taking practical action is critical to fostering autonomy and resilience on your wellness journey. Taking action will allow you to feel in control of your situation and motivated to continue to make changes that will support your long-term well-being. Here are the cornerstones of positive action when embracing imperfection for long-term wellness success and digging yourself out of a bad place after a major health setback.

• Lean on Your Support System: reach out for love, practical support, and encouragement from your loved ones.
• Prioritize Rest First: Allow yourself to sleep more, reduce stress, and avoid overloading your schedule.
• Nourish Without Overcomplicating: Focus on one simple upgrade to your meals that will support your comeback journey.
• Move in a Way That Feels Supportive: Instead of rigid exercise goals, listen to your body and choose movement that feels good.
• Anchor to a Mini Routine: When everything feels overwhelming, start small: a morning stretch, a hydration habit, or a 5-minute breathing break.
• Reduce the Decision Load: Make healthy choices easier by keeping nutritious foods visible, setting out workout clothes, or prepping meals in advance.
• Avoid the All-or-Nothing Trap: Perfection isn’t necessary, or even helpful. Every small action counts. If you miss a habit one day, just get back to it without guilt.
• Use Gentle Tracking for Awareness: Instead of rigid rules, track simple things like energy levels, mood, or sleep to notice patterns and adjust with ease.
• Celebrate the Small Wins: Healing takes time. Acknowledge every step forward, even if it feels tiny. Progress is built in the small, consistent choices.

Conclusion

It’s hard to find guidance on how to come back from a major health setback. Hyper-strategic, perfectionistic approaches that focus on rigid structure, tracking, and performance leave no room for working through the all-or-nothing mentality that may have contributed to the problem. However, overly vague, feel-good approaches that say “just listen to your body” offer compassion without giving any practical direction to help you make real change.

As with most things, the answer lies in the middle ground. Give yourself space to breathe and find peace in knowing that this setback is temporary and is not a reflection of you. And at the same time, create a plan to build momentum, trust your body with small changes, and rebuild vibrant health.

Setbacks are a normal and meaningful part of any wellness journey. The imperfect journey is where true transformation happens. Overcoming a health setback is not about getting back to where you were before your setback; it’s about using the setback to make a comeback that makes you better than you ever could have been before.

Now, I’d love to hear from you: I invite you to reflect on a recent setback. Can you identify one positive lesson or takeaway that you learned from it?

Wishing you well,

Meghan