The CEO of Midi Health Walks All Day and Eats Ice Cream Every Night

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Joanna Strober, the 58-year-old cofounder and CEO of Midi Health, a virtual care platform dedicated to modernizing women’s healthcare. She is based in Los Altos Hills, California. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m the founder and CEO of Midi Health. We started the company to bridge the gap in healthcare by providing specialized, insurance-covered care for women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.

For many years, I didn’t have time to take care of myself. Taking care of three kids and working was not easy. It was all-encompassing.

I had a big wake-up call when I was 44 years old and had a small fall and fractured my shoulder. I discovered that I had osteopenia, or low bone density, at a very young age. That was a good indicator that I needed to focus more on prevention and taking care of myself. Now I’m making up for the lost time.

I wake up at 6:30 a.m., and I walk

I wake up and have two Nespresso pods and two pieces of Levain bread from a bakery called Manresa Bread. It’s a very dense multigrain loaf that fills you up. For the past 10 years, I’ve had this bread every single morning for breakfast, or as soon as the bakery opens.

Then I walk for about an hour. That is the most important part of my routine. I listen to podcasts about politics or AI. I like “Hard Fork,” “The Daily,” “The Ezra Klein Show,” and “Call Me Back.”

I’m in the office by 8:15 a.m.

The goal is to lift weights after my walk, but it doesn’t always happen. I go to the office after, and then I have lots of Zoom calls and product meetings.

I try to schedule another 45-minute walk around lunchtime. I take a lot of phone calls and have been told I talk loudly when I walk. It’s actually a joke in my neighborhood.

I allow myself one Diet Coke a day

I mostly drink chamomile tea in the afternoon, but I also let myself have one Diet Coke per day.

Keeping my bones strong is a big focus

I take Midi’s Omega-3+, which also has vitamin D and K in it, and that’s for my bones because I have osteopenia. I also take creatine and fiber. I either take the Midi fiber gummies or I just make sure I get enough fiber.

I also use hormone replacement therapy to help prevent bone deterioration.

I’m not neurotic about my meals

I have a salad or a sandwich for lunch, or sometimes I walk somewhere to get lunch.

For many years, my life was structured around getting my kids breakfast or dinner. Now they’re no longer home, and it’s actually very liberating. It means I can work much later and have fewer guardrails.

I usually get dinner between 6:30 and 7 p.m. Sometimes I’ll pick up a random dinner on the way home or make pasta. Or, I’ll eat ice cream for dinner.

I watch TV every evening and eat ice cream

I don’t drink or do drugs. I love British detective TV shows. I find it very relaxing to watch TV and eat ice cream. I buy low-sugar blackberry jam from the farmers market and eat it with chocolate ice cream every night.

I’m asleep by 9:30 p.m.

Walking keeps me sane

In general, I’ve been trying different meditation apps. I can’t say it’s working, but I am trying.

Walking is my best route to sanity. I walk over 10,000 steps every day, but it’s less about step count and more about making sure my body moves for multiple hours. My morning walk is in the hills, but when I walk flat, I try to wear a weighted vest.

Every weekend, I walk The Dish at least twice, and sometimes three or four times. It’s our local hike in Palo Alto. It’s about three-and-a-half miles, and it’s uphill. I also schedule at least one or two walks a day with different friends for social activity.

On weekends, I also go to the farmers market and cook.

My 81-year-old mom makes me dinner every Friday

When I was younger and had children, my mom and I made a deal that she would cook dinner for my family every Friday night. Now the kids are gone, and she still cooks dinner for my husband and me every Friday.

It’s the one night a week I know I’m going to get good food, and someone is going to take care of me. I feel really lucky.

I think a lot about prevention

I don’t want to be crippled as an older lady. I’ve also watched what it’s like to have someone with Alzheimer’s in my family, and I’m scared of that. I think a lot about what I can do to stay healthy and prevent heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and bone disease.

I don’t track macros or anything like that, but I am very neurotic about my cancer screenings and the behaviors that are easy to do to make sure that I stay healthy as long as I can — like sleeping enough, eating the right foods, and getting the right exercise.

I think about what I can do to make sure I can eventually run after my grandkids.