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Episode Summary
What if you’re not burned out?
You’re still working. Still exercising. Still taking care of your family. Still getting everything done.
From the outside, you look like you’re handling it all.
But underneath that competence, your body may be keeping a very different score through your sleep, recovery, energy, mood, stress tolerance, and heart rate variability.
In this episode, Dr. Mariza sits down with nutritionist, health and performance coach, and High Performance Health podcast host Angela Foster to unpack the difference between true resilience and simply becoming incredibly good at pushing through.
Angela explains why changing hormones in midlife can expose the cost of years of chronic under-recovery, how HRV can offer clues about whether your training and lifestyle actually match your capacity, and why the workout that once energized you may now leave you depleted for days.
They also share practical ways to build more recovery into a full life without abandoning your ambition, including walking, strength training, strategic HIIT, box breathing, the physiological sigh, morning light, intentional pauses, boundaries, and what Dr. Mariza calls “mindfulness snacks.”
Because the goal isn’t to build a smaller life.
It’s to build the energy, resilience, and capacity to keep living the big life you’ve worked so hard to create.
ANGELA FOSTER
Angela Foster is a nutritionist, health and performance coach, and host of the High Performance Health podcast. Her work focuses on helping ambitious women optimize their energy, hormones, resilience, and longevity without sacrificing the full lives they love.
Drawing from her own journey through major depressive disorder and perimenopause, Angela combines lifestyle medicine, exercise, recovery, nervous system regulation, and performance data such as HRV to help women understand their individual capacity and build greater resilience.
IN THIS EPISODE
- How to distinguish true resilience from simply getting really good at pushing through
- Why hormonal changes in midlife can expose years of chronic under-recovery
- How HRV can reveal whether your training load actually matches your recovery capacity
- Why HIIT may energize some women while leaving others depleted for days
- How walking, strength training, box breathing, and intentional recovery can support resilience
- Why small “mindfulness snacks” throughout the day can help regulate your nervous system
- What to investigate when you’re doing everything right but your HRV still isn’t improving
- How boundaries, asking for help, and taking things off your plate can actually expand your future capacity
- Why sustainable ambition doesn’t require giving up the career or life you’ve worked hard to build
QUOTES
“The biggest stress for us is when we don’t feel that sense of self-agency.”
“When you put intentional pauses into your day, you can slow that down and be present.”
“Where in your life can you put an anchor in your day that just grounds you back to what’s important?”
RESOURCES MENTIONED
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