ROAR

“Dr. Sims realizes that female athletes are different than male athletes and you can’t set your race schedule around your monthly cycle. ROAR will help every athlete understand what is happening to her body and what the best nutritional strategy is to perform at her very best.”--Evie Stevens, Olympian, professional road cyclist, and current women’s UCI Hour record holder Women are not small men. Stop eating and training like one. Because most nutrition products and training plans are designed for men, it’s no wonder that so many female athletes struggle to reach their full potential. ROAR is a comprehensive, physiology-based nutrition and training guide specifically designed for active women. This book teaches you everything you need to know to adapt your nutrition, hydration, and training to your unique physiology so you can work with, rather than against, your female physiology. Exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist Stacy T. Sims, PhD, shows you how to be your own biohacker to achieve optimum athletic performance. Complete with goal-specific meal plans and nutrient-packed recipes to optimize body composition, ROAR contains personalized nutrition advice for all stages of training and recovery. Customizable meal plans and strengthening exercises come together in a comprehensive plan to build a rock-solid fitness foundation as you build lean muscle where you need it most, strengthen bone, and boost power and endurance. Because women’s physiology changes over time, entire chapters are devoted to staying strong and active through pregnancy and menopause. No matter what your sport is--running, cycling, field sports, triathlons--this book will empower you with the nutrition and fitness knowledge you need to be in the healthiest, fittest, strongest shape of your life.

“Dr. Stacy Sims is a singular voice and an epic intellectual talent in the health and fitness world. As former professional athletes turned fitness entrepreneurs, we have found that her insights into the unique interworkings of the female athletic body were a total game changer. ROAR will help athletes everywhere become faster, stronger, and healthier.”—Juliet and Kelly Starrett, New York Times bestselling author, and cofounders of San Francisco CrossFit and MobilityWOD

“Dr. Sims has taken her years of experience as an endurance athlete and scientist to create the ultimate guide to nutrition and performance for female athletes. No matter what your sport of choice is, ROAR is a book that no athlete should be without.”—Shaluinn Fullove, two-time U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier

"Having completed over 56 Ironmans, I can say with certainty learning how your body reacts to high endurance training and racing never stops. It’s discouraging to prepare for a race and have it derailed, not because you didn't do the work, but because your body didn't respond on that particular day. Dr. Sims will show you how you can take the steps to toe the start line with the best chance of delivering your maximum potential!”—Meredith B. Kessler, professional triathlete

"Dr. Sims helped me recover from hip surgery to win a World Championship bronze medal. Her personalized approach to training, recovery and nutrition can unlock an athlete's potential to achieve next level goals. Now all active women have access to the same groundbreaking information that made a significant impact on my career."—Lea Davison, Professional mountain bike racer and Olympian

"An enlightening guide [for women] to fueling and strengthening themselves for peak fitness. . . . This book is a must for female athletes."—Publishers Weekly 

“Dr. Sims has helped me manage the physical and mental stress that comes with my intense level of cycling. ROAR will help every athlete understand what is happening to her body and what the best nutritional strategy is to perform at her very best.”—Evie Stevens, Olympian, professional road cyclist, and current women’s UCI Hour record holder

Auteur
Stacy Sims, MSC, PhD, is a Stanford-based exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist and the cofounder and chief research officer of OSMO Nutrition, a sports nutrition company. A regular featured speaker at professional and academic conferences, including those hosted by USOC and USA cycling, she resides in Palo Alto, CA.

Selene Yeager is a professional health and fitness writer, certified personal trainer, USA cycling certified coach, professional mountain bike racer, and all-American Ironman triathlete. She has authored, coauthored, or contributed to dozens of books and national publications. A 2007 national magazine award nominee for excellence in service journalism, she lives in Emmaus, PA.

Résumé
ROAR provides Women with all the training and nutrition advice they need to build a rock-solid fitness foundation. Using what she calls "getting fit to get fit," Dr. Stacy Sims presents a comprehensive plan for training the body to optimally adapt to exercise.

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BATTLE OF THE SEXES

ALL THE PHYSIOLOGICAL STUFF THAT MAKES YOU "LIKE A GIRL"

You "throw like a girl." The "like a girl" insult is so ubiquitous, such a strong underlying current in our culture, that a maker of feminine hygiene products took it head-on with the #LikeAGirl campaign, which turns the insult into an inspirational compliment.

Look, I'm not one to sugarcoat anything, so I'll give it to you straight. Yes, in head-to-head objective physical performance comparisons, women have some disadvantages. We also have some distinct advantages, but you never hear about those. So let's set the stage here with a complete look at your female physiology in action.

SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE: WHAT WE'RE REALLY MADE OF

No surprise: Women tend to be smaller and lighter and have a higher portion of body fat (hello breasts, hips, and all things childbearing!) than men. But dig a little deeper and the comparisons become more interesting and revealing.

First, let's talk about body mass and how it's distributed. Our mass is the stuff we're made of, which everyone commonly refers to as weight--the number you see on the scale. That's not exactly accurate. For one, technically weight is determined by gravitational pull, so you'd weigh less on the moon and far more on Jupiter, but that's being picky. The more important factor is that the number you see on the scale--your weight-- fluctuates widely depending on fluid intake, what you've eaten during the day, salt intake, and how much glycogen you're storing in your muscles (for every 1 gram of glycogen, you store 3 grams of water; as you get fitter, you become better at glycogen storage, so before a big event, you can gain 5 or more £ds that you will blow through during your event, but you haven't gained or lost any fat). Body mass, by contrast, is the actual stuff you're made of--bone, muscle, fat, and organs--which requires tissue loss or gain and is harder to change.

We'll cover bones in Chapter 9, because a strong skeleton is essential for vibrant living, and women's bones are vulnerable to getting brittle. For now, however, let's focus on muscle and fat.

When researchers take core needles and pull out a column of muscle tissue from the designated muscle of interest (usually the shoulder, biceps, or quadriceps) of men and women, what they find might surprise you. There's not much difference. Men and women generally have the same muscle composition as far as the percentage of type I endurance (aerobic) fibers and type II power (anaerobic) fibers. What is different is that the largest fibers in women's bodies tend to be type I endurance fibers, while in men the type II power fibers take up the lion's share of real estate.

Since…