ROAR: How to Match Your Food and Fitness to Your Unique Female Physiology for Optimum Performance, Great Health, and a Strong, Lean Body for Life

Great read for every female athlete. I do not compete in triathlons, or any long distance races of any kind. I do consider myself an athlete though, as I always played sports growing up and still at 33 I enjoy lifting weights, hike, backpack, and do Backcountry hunting, which is an extreme endurance sport in it's own right. I think every woman will take away at least one thing they can apply to their life and training. I personally found several as I have always gone by what the fitness industry recommends. After reading this I now why working out in heat or the week leading up to my cycle sucks and feels so hard, I know why I actually gained fat while intermittent fasting and doing fasted morning cardio, I know why I out hike my husband at high altitude, and why the Paleo diet felt great for a few months, then felt like crap (I knew I needed more carbs), plus much more. Those who gave a poor rating for the book not being great for people over 50 or experiencing menopause are silly. The book doesn't claim to be written for that audience only, plus the book covers some information on menopause. And the negative reviews about the birth control are inaccurate as well. The author recommended speaking to your doctor before making any changes and she does acknowledge some women need birth control for various health problems. I thought it was well written, everything is well explained, and it's very eye opening. I'm now no longer skipping breakfast and eat within 30 minutes of waking up, I've added more protein to my diet, I now do heavy lifting during my low hormone phase, and lighter weight, high rep functional training during my high phase and I'm seeing and feeling results. I think all women concerned about their health and anyone who even regularly exercise should read this. Even men who train women should read it.

This is the best book I have ever read about female physiology and how it couples with being an athlete. As soon as it arrived, I dug in and didn't stop. I feel like for the fist time I actually understand what is happening with my body during training, rest and the always fun, monthly cycle. It's easy to read, simple and not overdone with scientific jargon. It carefully and clearly takes apart allot of training and diet myths. My favorite parts were reading the stories of some top female competitors and how even just small tweaks can make a big difference. And not just with stories, but with scientific evidence and real life female athletes using that information for their own success. No two women are the same and what works best for each of us can be unique but this book captures all of that and then some. No matter where you are in your athletic pursuits, this is a killer book to have in your arsenal. Especially younger female athletes. Get the right information and establish good, health habits young. I am 38 so I am having to unlearn allot of bad habits, poor information and basically training like a small man. Worth every penny!

I know that Stacy Sims did not promise to coach non-athletes, but I wish I could pry some extra knowledge out of her. I'm about to be 65, and I'm a Type 1 Diabetic... AND I started rock climbing 2 years ago. I need help as much as any athlete to get and stay in physical shape. What I WISH I had was specific info on how my 64 year old body is different from a woman half my age... what I need to do to avoid injury but still go for it on the rocks... how bio-identical hormone treatment makes me more or less similar to a woman who still has regular periods, and then how a sport like rock climbing with its very different stressors are different from the Crossfit and track women she mostly writes about. Having said that--I loved the specific ideas on hydration, on electrolytes, on junking paleo and other extreme diets. I loved the info on diet and hydration before,during and after an event (I'll call an 'event' any day when I'm out doing serious climbing). I've wondered why I don't recover after climbing, or what I can do to make it to the very top of a challenge, and not wear out just shy of a goal. I can patch together her suggestions to work for me. Hey Stacy, how about another book!

I'll be eternally grateful to Dr. Sims for giving me hope. Ever since I turned 40 my body has been reminding me I'm not in my 20s. Over the last two years I've noticed a decrease in strength, stamina, and endurance. My muscle mass considerably decreased and I've put on about 15 pounds. Every article I read kept telling me to accept this decline as a part of life and to decrease the amount of workouts per week to 3. I'm not a competitive athlete. I only workout 5 days. Working out is my therapy for the crazies, so reducing the workouts to 3 per week was the last thing I wanted to do. I started reading the book last week and applied some of its recommendations. Wow! The last couple of days I've felt great during my workouts. Even my mood has improved. It has helped me understand what's going on with my body and has allowed me to better prepare for those hormonal changes my body is experiencing. The book is easy to read and understand. It does not contain any fillers so I can honestly say it is jam packed with useful and insightful information from page one. This book is a must read for every woman and for every fitness trainer, male or female.

This book is excellent, I had been doing fasting and KETO and while I was losing weight I was not feeling well. I was struggling during my workout and feeling exhausted during recovery. I also started missing my period which I thought was because I was premenopausal. I had full bloodwork done and all came back normal, I am not premenopausal yet. I couldn't understand why I was missing my period and always feeling so tired. After listening to this in audiobook format I stopped fasting and started eating clean. What a difference! I also started using the OSMO products. The pre-workout hydration tastes NASTY but it works. The during and post aren't delicious but I've noticed A HUGE difference in my strength and endurance during heavy workouts. After seeing such positive results I bought the paperback to figure out my diet. I'm now trying to adjust the way I eat. I'm not good at figuring out grams so I wish that advise was a bit more user friendly, like just tell me what to eat each day, lol. I know I'll figure it out it's just more time consuming but I appreciate how much better I understand my body. I had always wondered why popular hydration drinks made my stomach feel so strange. The chapter about the gut bacteria makes total sense and I’m no longer using artificial sweeteners which makes me feel so much better. It has been so eye opening for me to understand that we are not men. Our bodies are different and require different nutrition. We don't have to just settle, we can work at our full potential if we fuel our body properly. Lastly, I was also amazed at how brave she was to talk openly about the negative side effects of birth control. I know she is most likely to receive criticism for that but I'm glad she is willing to speak the truth to help women. I wish more doctors and healthcare professionals were willing to speak up, anyone can see the harmful effects but it gets so political people hardly want to mess with that. All in all this is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to stay fit and nurture their body. I highly recommend it and I will continue to use it to maximize my fitness potential.

Women of Fitness! You must buy this book. It is highly beneficial no matter where you are in your fitness journey. The comprehensive data, exercises, nutrition information and female specific health and wellness data is not only powerful but also relevant and easy to follow. The book is designed clearly and motivationally for anyone looking to learn, grow and improve their physical and mental knowledge of female fitness.

I may not have the self-discipline to follow every recommendation in this author’s book, but by incorporating her suggested diet and exercise routines, I’ve seen a significant improvement in my life. I feel healthier and see myself in a new light. There’s something truly valuable about reading a book by a woman who not only understands the subject but also lives it herself. The book addresses various stages of life, including younger women, middle-aged women, and those approaching or going through menopause. I highly recommend purchasing it—it’s worth every penny.

This book has a lot of great advice and good points for women like me. That is, after menopause: • we don't deal with heat as well • we need less carbohydrates because we're more sensitive to blood sugar swings • we use protein less efficiently so need to eat more than when we were younger • we need better quality protein (more bioavailable) also because we're less efficient • we need high-intensity power exercise, not aerobics and endurance, because it is what maintains lean body mass against the loss as our hormones dwindle Sims talks about a vegan triathlete client getting too much fructose and the steps she took to move her to higher protein and lower carbs. The interesting thing in this part of the book is that she gets her client off fructose and keeps her consuming vegan protein -- BCAAs or "whole protein". Does she mean soy? Because that's not recommended even by her for its low leucine content. Plant-based protein doesn't jibe with recommending better quality and more protein as we age. But then, I ran across more oddness as I read. Sims seems to be recommending a diet based on the results of the standard diet. That is, she starts with what we're all used to and pares away what she feels is harmful. This is the usual way people approach diet. But it's not the best way. Approaching diet this way means in essence you agree with the status quo until proven otherwise. Instead, let's start at nothing and add on what we know is necessary. Exogenous amino acids and fatty acids are necessary for life. Exogenous carbohydrates are explicitly NOT necessary. There may be certain benefits to adding in carbohydrates that are worth the bad effects, but that's not her argument. Sims isn't willing to go that extra step with her recommendation to reduce carbs. That is, she details why carbohydrates are bad news, but then claims carbohydrates are still necessary. She argues they are because our brains require carbohydrates to function (our liver makes all required, which Sims even mentions), that "fat burns in a carb flame" (this is a slogan not evidence), and that the Karen Hardy paper from 2015 tells us our big brains evolved to need them (this paper has some critical problems). Sims seems to have unquestioningly embraced the research by Karen Hardy "The Importance of Dietary Carbohydrate in Human Evolution" published in the Quarterly Review of Biology in 2015. Hardy's thesis has been shown lacking by critics: • The evidence for humans cooking food goes back only about 100,000 years, whereas our brains began to enlarge, needing more fuel (fat) two million years ago (many plant foods need to be cooked for us to use them safely and gain enough nutrition) • Brain and placental tissue can get all the glucose they need from the liver (even Hardy's previous research showed this) • Amylase developed later in human evolution than the period when our brains grew (amylase starts to digest starchy foods before it reaches our stomachs) • Endurance runners today have proven that persistence hunters (the theory that humans hunted successfully because we could outlast a faster animal) can function very well on fat as fuel rather than glucose.