The Factor of Safety: What Engineering Taught Me About Burnout (Before I Understood My Own)

Every structure an engineer designs has something called a factor of safety built into it. A bridge rated to hold 100,000 pounds isn’t actually built to carry exactly 100,000 pounds — it’s built to carry several times that, because engineers know real-world conditions are unpredictable. Materials fatigue. Loads shift. Things run hotter and harder than the spec sheet ever accounted for. You always build in margin, because a system running at its exact limit, day after day, is a system waiting to fail.

I spent years designing with that principle before I ever thought to apply it to myself.

Redlining, Day After Day

If you’ve ever driven a car with a tachometer, you know the red zone.  The RPM range where you’re pushing the engine past what it’s built to sustain. You can redline an engine for a few seconds, climbing a hill or passing on the highway, and it’s fine. The system recovers. But hold an engine in the red zone for miles, and something starts to give. Not dramatically, at first. Just… wear. Heat. A part working harder than it’s designed to, for longer than it’s designed to.

That was me, for years, as an engineer. Deadlines, back-to-back meetings, the quiet expectation that being “in the red” was just what ambitious people did. I ate “clean.” I tracked my macros. I exercised on schedule, like a maintenance plan for a machine I assumed was still running fine.

But I wasn’t a machine with a maintenance plan. I was a body with a nervous system, and it had been redlining for so long it forgot what idle even felt like.

The System Doesn’t Know the Difference

Here’s what I didn’t understand back then, and what I now spend most of my time helping clients understand: your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between “urgent deadline” and “actual danger.” Both register as threats. Both trigger the same response; cortisol floods your system, digestion slows, sleep gets shallow, and your body shifts into a very specific mode: hold on to what you have, because we might need it to survive.

That includes fat storage. When your body believes it’s under sustained threat, releasing weight isn’t a priority — protecting reserves is. This is why so many high achievers do everything “right” on paper; clean eating, consistent workouts, discipline in spades But still feel stuck. The plan isn’t the problem. The system running underneath the plan is operating in survival mode, and no amount of willpower can override physiology.

I know, because I tried. For a long time, I treated my own burnout like an engineering problem I could out-optimize. It doesn’t work that way. You can’t debug a nervous system with a better spreadsheet.

Building in Margin, On Purpose

What actually changed things for me wasn’t a stricter plan, it was learning to build margin back into my system, the same way I would have built margin into any structure I designed. 

That meant:

• Regulating my nervous system directly. Not waiting for a vacation to “reset,” but using small, real tools throughout the day that signal safety to my body in the moment.
• Practicing mindfulness that fit my actual life. Not 20 minutes of stillness I didn’t have time for, but practices that worked inside a full calendar.
• Using intermittent fasting with my body’s state, not against it. Because fasting done in a body that’s already in survival mode just adds another stressor, not a solution.

That combination of nervous system regulation, mindfulness, and properly timed fasting is now the core of how I coach my clients. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s what actually worked for me when nothing else did.

Where Are You Redlining Right Now?

If any of this sounds familiar, the exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix, the plateau despite doing everything “right,” the sense that you’re always a little bit in the red.  It might be worth finding out exactly where your nervous system stands before changing anything else.

I built a free 2-minute self-assessment to help with exactly that. It walks through the real signs of fight-or-flight and gives you a personalized result, whether you’re running with healthy margin or deep in the red zone.

Take the free quiz:

Are You Stuck in Fight-or-Flight?

And if you’re ready to talk through what building real margin back into your life could look like, I’d love to hear your story.

Schedule a Free Discovery Call

Text: 831-316-3095

Book directly on my calendar:

Learn more about me:

About Jenn Greer, Health & Mindset Coaching

Your guide to transformation,

Jenn Greer 

Certified Integrative Health, Mindset, & Fasting Coach

Your Wellness Journey isn’t a Day Hike – It’s more like a Pacific Crest Trail thru hike.

Every so often, someone asks me why they can white-knuckle their way through a diet or a fitness push for a few weeks, feel amazing… and then completely fall apart. If that sounds familiar, I want to tell you about two very different hikes and what they taught me about sustainable wellness.

Hiking Half Dome in a Day

Back in 2018, I hiked to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park with my husband Chris and a group of friends in a day. If you’ve never been, Yosemite is one of the most breathtaking places in California, and Half Dome is not a casual walk. You need a permit just to summit, and the round trip covers roughly 18 miles with about 4,800 feet of elevation gain.

We started at nearly 1:00 a.m., hiking up under a full moon, genuinely magical. We reached the summit just after sunrise, about six hours in, and the feeling of standing up there was exhilarating. We’d trained, we’d pushed, and we’d made it.

Then came the way down.

The descent took another six to seven hours, and it hit me harder than the climb up ever did. By the time we got back to camp, I was completely wiped — barely able to keep my eyes open. Twelve to thirteen hours of all-out effort, and I paid for every bit of it on the back half.

What Half Dome Has in Common With Crash Diets

That day sticks with me because it mirrors something I see all the time in wellness: the all-or-nothing approach. Think about a strict ketogenic diet — cut out all sugar, focus almost entirely on protein and fat, and your body shifts into ketosis fast. You get quick results. It feels exhilarating, just like reaching that summit.

But it’s brutally hard to sustain. Eventually you crash — physically, mentally, or both — and tell yourself I can’t do this anymore. Next thing you know, you’re back to eating all the carbs, right back where you started, maybe further.

That’s a day hike. All the effort goes into one big push, and then you’re depleted.

The Alternative: Think Like a PCT Thru-Hiker

Instead, I want you to think about your wellness journey the way someone approaches the Pacific Crest Trail — the trail that runs the length of California, up through Oregon, and into Washington to the Canadian border. If you’ve seen Wild, the film based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, you know it’s not something you rush.

Thru-hiking the PCT takes real planning:

• Knowing your checkpoints — where you’ll resupply gear, refuel, and rest
• Checking conditions ahead of time — like weather through the highest points in the Sierras, so you can move through safely
• Constant check-ins — reassessing and adjusting your plan as you go
• Taking it step by step — not sprinting, pacing yourself for the long haul

That’s what a sustainable wellness journey actually looks like. Some days you plan to cover 12 miles and only manage six — and that’s not failure, that’s data. The question becomes: how do we adjust? How do we still get to the next checkpoint, even if the pace changes?

Plan With Intention, Not Intensity

We have to start asking ourselves better questions each day: What are we prioritizing? How are we showing up for ourselves? Are we pouring all our energy into other people and never bringing any back to ourselves?

Those are the questions worth sitting with — because they get to the root of what’s actually sustainable.

This is exactly where coaching comes in. My job isn’t to hand you a plan for a single, intense summit push. It’s to help you stay on the trail — checking in along the way, adjusting when the terrain changes, and keeping you energized for the whole journey, not just the first six hours of it.

Ready to trade the day-hike burnout cycle for a plan built to last? Let’s map out your trail.

Schedule a Free Discovery Call, Text 831-316-3095 OR book directly on my calendar: Schedule Today

Learn more about me: About Jenn Greer, Health & Mindset Coaching

Thrive through Perimenopause

A 21-Day Intermittent Fasting Challenge

Learn how to confidently and safely begin intermittent fasting during perimenopause so you can feel more in control of your body, reduce bloating, support your metabolism, and regain hope that you can feel like yourself again.

By the end of 21 days participants will:

• Understand why intermittent fasting can be a valuable tool during perimenopause.
• Learn how to begin fasting safely and confidently.
• Discover how to fuel their body with whole foods that support hormones and metabolism.
• Reduce overwhelm by following a simple daily plan.
• Feel more empowered and hopeful about their health journey.

Fasting Myths that Don’t Apply Over 40

We start Monday August 10th, 2026

ONLY $20 to join.

Go at your own pace, but it’ll be more fun with a supportive group!

Learn how to fast safely and with confidence.

This challenge is for you if you

• tried fasting before and it didn’t work.
• want to try intermittent fasting for the first time.
• have been fasting for years and want to extend your fasts to burn belly fat and boost your immune system.

Hosted by Jenn Greer, Certified Integrative Health & FLAG (Fast Like a Girl) Coach

Registration LINK: https://linktr.ee/GCIntegratedWellness