Next Level – by Dr. Stacy Sims

First of all: if you are a man, you will probably get little to nothing out of this book on a personal level (you may, however, find it of interest anyway if you have women in your life), as it is heavily tailored towards women.

We previously reviewed this author’s “ROAR”, which is about boosting athletic performance with female hormones in mind. This time, the focus is on thriving through menopause (including: postmenopause) and going from strength to strength.

Dr. Sims uses the first few chapters to explain the menopause in more detail than most people know it, before launching into the main part of the book, which is the “what to do” section.

Here, we learn about HRT, adaptogens, and other interventions, the respective roles of cardio and resistance training, the undervalued yet critical importance of gut health, how to make sure your body gets all of what it needs in terms of nutrition when what it needs is changing, the dos and don’t of bone health when it comes to later-life athleticism, and a lot of mythbusting with regard to supplements (for some and against others), and plenty more besides.

The style is accessible pop-science, with various facts, statistics, charts, and the like peppered throughout. On which note, there are no citations while reading, but there is a bibliography at the back, arranged on a chapter-by-chapter basis.

Bottom line: if you find even just 10% of this book’s advices new and useful, then buying and reading this book will have been worthwhile and will have made a substantive difference (specifically: improvements) to your life.

Click here to check out Next Level, and take your health to the next level!