Read on to get my full review:
First off, before reading any further, you should know that this book is an essential addition to your health and fitness library. A definite must have for anyone who's truly serious about understanding how their bodies work and why they do the things they do (get fat, sick, better, faster, stronger, etc).
When I received this book in the mail, I was excited to crack it open and check it out as I was interested in delving deeper into the physiological specifics regarding possible hormonal control so to speak. The book itself is very nondescript - an uninteresting cover, essentially no pictures (beyond small 'stick figure' type drawings) and very small margins which results in pages that are 99% text from top to bottom. It felt like I was about to embark on reading a small scale college text book from cover to cover. Upon fanning through I saw that each chapter ended with at least a couple of pages of references ranging anywhere from a couple dozen to well over three hundred. This was encouraging because I began to get the sense that Mr. Faigin had (quite literally) done his research. Boy did he ever!
The sheer number of studies he reviewed to disseminate the information contained in the book is staggering. Fortunately, he has the ability to convert the technical speak found within the studies into laymans terms so anyone can easily understand the salient points.
Natural Hormonal Enchancement opens with a brief history of man and the evolution of the human diet that lays the groundwork for the basis of the rest of the book. It only takes a page or two before you're hit with an 'Aha!' moment and realize how much sense Rob is making. Our bodies have adapted to and evolved around specific dietary habits for many, many years. While we have the ability to adapt quite easily, there are consequences due to the fact that our bodies are built based on thousands of years of dietary history. Think of it like this: if we had to, we could adapt easily enough to walk around using all four limbs but it's not how our bodies are built to function. Our endocrine system and it's response to diet, exercise and other stimuli is no different.
The book continues to explore top level functions of the major hormones of the body (testosterone, estrogen, growth hormone, insulin, glucagon, IGF-1, etc) and their affect on our health (or in some cases, sickness and disease). As Rob mentions at one point, our bodies want to be healthy and in a state of good health - not sick and diseased! The body is designed to function in peak form when fed correctly and exercised often. When this happens, who knows what the upper limit of the human lifespan is. The topic of life extension and longevity is an interesting sidebar throughout the book.
Upon outlining the referenced, scientific basis for his point of view (which is hard to argue with due to all of that scientific backing!) Rob moves on to defining an eating plan to accomplish natural hormonal enhancement. This is the one area where I would have liked to see a little more detail. I understand his reasoning for not putting in specifics with regard to outlining a detailed plan (due to every body being different and requiring it's on specific balance of foods) but also know first hand that people like to be given details of what to do when, to expect certain results. If the book were to include detailed eating plans for men and women of specific weight ranges, I believe it would be able to have a greater impact on more people (The authors website, http://www.hormonalfitness.com/ now offers several other items beyond this book including a detailed diet plan). For example, it took me nine years to discover this book and I have a great interest in diet, health, exercise and fitness. I actively seek out books of this nature and just bumped into it while searching on Amazon.com.
Ironically, there's a short paragraph in the book that I feel truly captures the reason why this really, quite essential text, hasn't realized a much wider audience:
"In the fast-paced, sound-byte era in which we live, the enormous surplus of information makes it exceedingly difficult to capture the attention of a jaded public. When it comes to health information, people want to know what is going to kill them or restore youth and vitality overnight - they have no time for a balanced analysis leading to an equivocal conclusion. The result is that the health information is skewed toward sensationalism."
Is that ever the truth!
Finally, I found another aspect of this book quite interesting. For those of you who've been around the health and fitness arena for a while and had the opportunity to read some of Vince Gironda's material, you'll notice some similarities with respect to how to structure your eating plan (Rob even points this out himself in the book). The major difference I noticed is that Vince knew what diet was right from years of trial and error and seeing results first hand. I read a lot of his material many years ago but had trouble coming to terms with it due to the fact that his approach was quite a bit off the mark as it related to what was often espoused in fitness magazines and other popular diet and exercise books. Also, he was a big proponent of liver tablets and glandular supplements which have quite often been debunked in other texts. Rob on the other hand, took the time to source hundreds upon hundreds of studies to back up the results that somebody like Gironda experienced. The literal proof for the dietary pudding. For me, that scientific data, or evidence for that matter, helped to clear up any questions I had regarding the efficacy of certain dietary practices.
To reiterate from above, I highly recommend this book and feel that it should be part of anyone's library who's serious about health, fitness, diet, longevity and total body transformation. You can purchase Natural Hormonal Enhancement from:
Rob Faigin's website: http://www.hormonalfitness.com/
Amazon.com: Natural Hormonal Enhancement Page
Or: Diet For A Dollar's Book Recommendation Page (partial proceeds from sales support this site)
After the New Year I'll be realigning my diet and plan to implement a large portion of Rob's recommendations from Natural Hormonal Enhancement. Stay tuned for a play by play overview of my results!
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