Ulisses Abbud spent 13 years competing as a professional cyclist. Today he is a high-performance coach, researcher, endurance athlete, and physiology thinker working with athletes, executives, and people trying to understand how performance and longevity actually work. In Episode 002 of Augmented Wellness, we go deep on recovery: why it is not a luxury, why it is not the reward, and why it may be the missing operating system for founders, executives, and anyone whose mind never really shuts down. We talk about HRV, cortisol, resting heart rate, overtraining, metabolism, nutrition, gravel cycling, Girona training camps, community, and the difference between training from fear and training from love. We also bring Bett-i into the conversation. Demian shows his daily Focus plan and calls a breathwork agent live to read his HRV and suggest a nervous-system reset. The agent gets one thing right and one thing imperfectly — and that honesty is part of the point. Full episode page: betterness.ai/augmentedwellness/002-ulisses-abbud Chapters (00:00) Cold open: recovery, longevity, HRV, and the agent (01:01) Brand reveal: Augmented Wellness (01:20) Meet Ulisses Abbud (02:45) From professional cycling to riding for love (04:13) Thirteen years as a pro cyclist (05:24) Road, gravel, speed, risk, and why gravel feels different (10:22) The diet trap: why eating less can make the body hold on (12:12) From engineering to physiology (14:21) Breathing, HRV, and simple nervous-system tools (15:53) Why executives think like athletes but skip recovery (18:54) Chronic sympathetic mode: the founder and vibe-coding problem (21:09) Recovery is not the reward — it is an adaptation mechanism (24:13) Cortisol, HRV, resting heart rate, and overtraining signals (26:13) Longevity: dying young as late as possible (28:38) Bett-i turns known basics into daily action (33:56) Girona training camp, stress with intention, and community (38:22) Recovery routines: cold plunge, sauna, yoga, reading, and mental shutdown (40:40) Live demo: a breathwork agent reads Demian's HRV (45:19) Final advice: routine, nutrition, breathing, and sleep Where to find Betterness Web: betterness.ai Instagram: @betterness.ai X: @betterness_ai Credits. Produced by Demian Bellumio with the support of agents from Betterness One — the agentic studio inside Betterness. Recorded at The LAB Miami; on-site production by Podcast Studio Miami. Disclaimer: nothing in this episode is medical advice. This is educational conversation about training, recovery, HRV, breathwork, nutrition, and longevity. Work with qualified professionals for personal health decisions.