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 Kindle Edition

I’ve been a pharmacy educator for 18 years, and I’ve taught sex hormone physiology and contraception for many of those years. The authors of this book have no business giving advice about birth control products. First, the hormone-containing vaginal ring contains systemically absorbed hormones, and do not have local effects only as suggested in this book. Also, birth control pills do not produce superphysiologic estrogen or progesterone concentrations. All systemic hormonal contraceptives come with risk of blood clots but high-level endurance athletes also carry this risk due to lower baseline heart rate and a few other factors. There’s no research proving an additive risk and case reports don’t count. There are many health benefits of hormone contraceptives including lower rates of some forms of cancer, not to mention quality of life benefits like lighter more predictable periods. Some women risk anemia without lighter periods, and anemia is a well-established athletic performance inhibitor. Progestin-only pills are difficult to use if they are to prevent pregnancy and do not have any of the health benefits or period predictability of combination hormonal contraceptives. What about long-term adverse effects of progestin-based contraceptives (not IUD) on bone density? I really hope you read this Dr. Sims. As an endurance athlete myself, I love the work you are doing to raise awareness, but please get an advanced practice pharmacist to peer review your chapters dealing with prescription drugs. - a pharmacotherapy board-certified pharmacist

The whole book felt like it was geared largely for women still with their cycles. Those of us who do not know our hormonal cylcles due to hysterectomy or going through menopause have much less to benefit from in the book.

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!

Grabbed the book after listening to a podcast where Stacy's comments on exercise and diet around menstruation really resonated. If you are a competitive female athlete, this book is a must read. For those of us who exercise daily and struggle with why some days it feels great and others are strenuous it offers some good insight and helpful tips. Would like more information about how post menopausal women can maintain their optimum health as our bodies age and change. Perhaps her next book?

Ladies, you owe it to yourself to check out this book! I'm a crossfitter who got off track due to injury, and I've been struggling for months trying to get my strength back and lose 20lbs on a low-carb paleo program and getting nowhere, despite having had success with it in the past. I got Dr. Sims' book a few days ago, started adjusting my macros on her recommendations, and I'm already seeing a significant drop in inflammation, and...the most remarkable thing for me...a huge jump in energy! I usually set three alarms and drag myself out of bed every morning, then drink coffee throughout the day just to keep going, but after the first day eating like this, I woke up the next morning before my alarm and was wide awake and ready to get going. I don't ever remember feeling that good first thing in the morning! And I sustained that energy level throughout a busy day.After reading her book, I understand how my past choices have actually been derailing my efforts, why I feel great some days and crappy other days, despite fueling and exercising the same way, and why my system isn't responding the same way it used to. Awesome information! A must-read for any female athlete, whether you're competitive or just doing it to get/stay in shape and have fun working out!Update: I had a skin-fold test done when I got the book, and again after 6 weeks, and I've lost 4.5 pounds of body fat and an inch and a half in my waist, while increasing my strength and stamina. I'm starting to see more muscle definition in my arms, legs, and abs; I've increased weight on most of my lifts, anywhere from 5-20 pounds; and I get through my workouts easier and with more energy. Still loving this!

Very informative for women’s health and fitness. Provides a few recipes, very little photos, and no workout charts, but loaded with important information that a lot of other books miss! For instance, recovery, fueling foods, eating for your body type and fitness health myths. One topic I haven't ever seen discussed (other than by my therapist) is the Q-angle. She also hits on bone health and menopause. Very informative read, very important read dont miss adding this one to your arsenal.

I want to like and trust this book because Stacy seems to know what she’s talking about; I am a newbie when it comes to this sort of info so was ready to absorb it all like a sponge! However, when it comes to page 32 of 292 and she states that 2.2kg = 1lb I find it hard to put my faith in the rest of the book. It’s the second typo I’ve seen so far but honestly there could be more because I’m having to take the rest of the stats at face value due to my lack of knowledge of the subject. I know 1lb isn’t 2.2kg (it’s 0.45kg to illustrate how vast this error is). There are 2.2lbs in 1kg so I can see where the typo has come from but there are hundreds of stats in this book that I wouldn’t know if they were correct or not. I can’t trust the info based on the lack of care taken to write/ fact-check/ proof-read the finished product so not sure how useful this book can be.

I found a lot of the advice contained within the book and Dr Sims’ social media pages contradictory. In one of the chapters, she advises to go low carb for my particular body type, yet she advises on social media that low carb doesn’t work for women and that we require a high carb diet.I’ve questioned her on this and I’ve noticed others asking similar questions about different claims, but she ignores these questions and only responds to complimentary comments.She has more recently started responding to these comments by saying the book is a few years old and that we should pay for her course instead. If the book is out of date, then surely she needs to stop promoting and selling it since the out of date advice could impact our health?Secondly, unless you’re an athlete, you won’t find this book very useful as the advice tends to be very specific to high endurance athletes who require a lot of energy. I especially wouldn’t recommend this if you’re looking to lose weight.There is some good and interesting advice in there and it’s useful for any woman looking to understand her own body, which I wish was common knowledge. I very much appreciate her experience and I admire the fact that she has chosen to focus on women’s research when it has been neglected due to women being considered an ‘anomaly’.Overall, I find it difficult to recommend the book as I feel that the author isn’t confident in some of the claims, however it is an interesting read if you’re looking for some basic information. If you do buy the book, take everything with a pinch of salt, do some extra research, and do consider whether the advice is right for your goals and lifestyle.

Eye opening and life changing for me as a woman who has exercised all her life and now, in my 40s, find that I am putting on weight regardless of how much training I do. I made a few changes instantly and have lost a couple of pounds in the first week! It will take several rereads to garner every bit of useful information from the book, especially with regards to how to limit PMS!

Absolutely fantastic book. I am no way an athlete but try to lead an active life to enhance fitness and combat age related issues. This advice far out ways any advice I have ever read! Why? It’s tailored to me an active female. Wish I had found this sooner.

Loving this book - reassuring, empowering and very educational. There's a great balance of diligently-referenced theory with easy-to-implement practical advice and examples. The way it's written is friendly and informal but without any dumbing-down. You'll learn why apparently proven training or nutritional methods don't work for everyone and how to adapt how you exercise and eat week to week but also at different points in your life. Periodisation of training has led to great improvements in what people can get from their sport, but periodised training is normally arranged in sometimes arbitrary blocks of time. I suppose this book is about periodising your periodisation - getting body and training cycles to peak and trough together - excited to properly put it into practise!