Well written, well researched and very inspiring. Maria Borelius presents her findings both convincingly and balanced, at the same time that she's telling an inspiring story about her travels and search. She approaches everything with a healthy dose of scientific enquiry, discounting some things and embracing others. Not everything is 'proven without a doubt' though, but some things are incorporated into her own total picture, some things get in there because they feel good and this gives a nice and reasonable balance to something that obviously not is black or white.
I have 2 small grievances; at times, in her efforts to translate scientist speak into everyday language, it gets a bit annoyingly 'cute'. Secondly, all of a sudden, while giving examples on things you might consider doing to feel better she totally un-ironically says: Find a guru, an app, follow Deepak Chopra. And that last part I just cannot believe is compatible with a harmonic life.
But the rest is so good, so I'll happily forgive these small missteps. She even made me see a wrong thinking I made myself guilty of my entire adult life. I've always been notoriously skeptic towards trendy truths when it comes to training and diets that people are trying to sell as the ultimate answer; LCHF, paleo, the toxicity of carbohydrates, 'born to run'-nonsense, forefoot running, barefoot running etc. etc. My main objections have been that if this was true, the devotees would be better, healthier, stronger - and, even though many of them claim to be, that is just not true. The first 100 finishers in any Marathon do not run in Fivefingers, the guy that never eats potatoes is not demonstrably healthier than his peers. What I always missed when it comes to food and fitness, though, is that being healthy or not is not a digital state. Quite contrary, health is of course a continous scale. And where someone's at is made even harder to determine because of the remarkable ability of the human body to get used to and adapt to ailments or changed circumstances.
A lot of the advice and tips in this book I've taken to heart and in the short time of two weeks, I feel better in many small ways. I may be imagining stuff, but I will keep an eye on running results, the bathroom scale and my blood pressure going forward, so I'll get back to you in a few months and tell you if I was tricked and seduced or if we're on to something here. I'll keep my eye out for a follow-up to this book as well.