Boundless: Upgrade Your Brain, Optimize Your Body & Defy Aging Hardcover – January 21, 2020

I read this book from cover to cover. Here's why it's brilliant and why the negative reviews are misguided.1. The book is clearly the result of a lifetime of research into health, fitness, and well-being. It covers a range of topics, and it weaves together a big-picture perspective with a nuanced account of physical processes. For example, you'll learn about how the body deals with digestion generally (big picture) and *why* specific practices like extended fasts can be helpful for weight loss (nuance). This, by the way, is really hard to do - most health books will give you the big picture, which is interesting but doesn't help you operationalize the knowledge, or the nuance, which gives you a laundry list of tips without a holistic explanation of why they are effective. Negative reviewers complain that it's long - um.... yeah, he's covering every single topic related to the body, what did you expect? This is specifically designed to be a live-with-it, learn-with-it, read-what-you-need type of book. If you were expecting a weekend read, then you didn't do any research into the design or intent of this book.2. The book combines peer-reviewed scholarship with the author's experience as a fitness coach. I'm a college professor, and the negative reviews related to the use of scholarship are completely absurd. The studies he mentions are behind a paywall, yes - academic publishing is an industry, and the vast majority of studies are behind paywalls - welcome to the marketplace. The studies he mentions are not in footnotes, yes - this is not a university-press-style textbook, it's a synthesis, so the standards of citation are entirely different. If he did include the footnotes, people would complain that the book is too much of a textbook. The studies he mentions have not been duplicated, yes - this is a major problem *in the sciences as a whole*. Again, the author is not responsible for problems proper to academic research - problems about which most of the negative reviewers, with all due respect, know nothing.3. The book spans the conventional and the unconventional. There are really compelling pieces of advice here - pieces of advice that are embedded within a broader framework of health and fitness. Negative reviewers claim the advice is weird, and then complain that the advice is obvious - ok, which is it? It's an invalid critique, because the author always begins with more established, well-studied methods and then moves onto less established, cutting-edge methods. This is a good thing - we want to understand both the orthodox and the avant-garde. Again, it is rare to find a book that offers both - you typically find orthodoxy in textbooks and experiments in biohacking publications.4. The book is extremely well-organized. I write for a living, so I'm hyper-aware of how a book is structured, how it flows from topic to topic, and how it positions the reader. The author begins with a big-picture explanation, then moves onto operational practices; from there, he begins with conventional/accessible practices and then moves onto experimental/niche practices. Readers also have the choice of reading one chapter at a time, out of order, which makes the book very compelling - follow your interest and hop around between topics - the print version of surfing the web. I jumped around before deciding to read it from cover to cover.5. The book has heart and personality. Through jokes and anecdotes, the author ensures that this does not read like a textbook. It's playful, which is necessary if one is not to take oneself too seriously. Some of the negative reviewers took issue with the tone - I would much prefer to feel the presence of the author than to read a dry textbook.All in all, the book is a masterwork on health and fitness. It is well-researched and well-structured. It is playful and pleasurable to read. At the heart of the typical negative review is a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific study, book composition, and authorial tone. At the heart of the book is a lifetime of research into health and fitness, a spirit of inquiry and play, and a sense of empowerment that you can feel energized, strong, and, indeed, boundless.

I'll begin with the fact that people who are interested in open their mind to new aspects, subjects in life - getting books like Boundless.I've learned a lot from people like Ben, but my interest started way before with Tim Ferriss. He changed my thinking, my view on health and raise my interest on studies and the world of biology and biochemistry.These people literally changed my life, got me out of depression, and got me to the best physical and mental health I've never been at.Books like Boundless have impact on people, and if stuff Tokolosh called "Magical thinking" and Pseudo, eventually lands on people who are curious, and they, like myself - will never stop with Ben, but will take is further and search for themselves, be interested in amazing personal like Rhonda Patrick, and develop the urge to talk about these subjects so more of those subjects will reach everyday conversations.About the actual comment of Tokolosh, it's very vague, vain and niche to VERY SPECIFIC POINTS in this HUGE book. If feels very narrow-minded, and self-centered thinking.People are not very smart, OR interested in looking for the references by themselves.Some, will dig deep to know more.The point of this book, as many others, is to get people like Tokolosh, others, and myself - more open minded to way more ideas than what everyone stick onto.It is correct that it is HUGE.HUGE as Ben's mind.But it seems Tokolosh judge a book by it's cover.Let's start by the fact that there are MANY good information other than Tokolosh's hair-splitting points.For example - like the Navy SEAL's breathing technique as an example, which REALLY helps me to take a long run EASILY.He saves the references online, and he also said so in his intro, and/or newsletter or his podcasts which Tokolosh probably don't listen to. Ben has definitely said it somewhere.This probability explains Tokolosh's - Bad jokes - point.People who love listening to Ben - got to know his old-timely humor, not judging by those people's level - but by their connection to his personality.Which takes me to the point where Ben's knowledge is richer than you, me and Tokolosh together, meaning he actually took his time writing this book, looking into every reference he had.I trust his skill of researching.Referring to Tokolosh's point on the turmeric amounts - its referring to different results. Not "one subject".Everything else Tokolosh has said - which I got really bored because it got too long :) - is like copy-pasting the general ideas of 90% of the world's population.Homeopathic approach for example - is mostly placebo based - and placebo helped MANY. PEOPLE. around the globe.And the judging a book by its cover as I mentioned in the second line of my reply - WHO SERIOUSLY WRITES A REVIEW ON THE BOOK'S COLORS?? who cares? This is pure hair-splitting Ben on irrelevant stuff.And Ben - I'm not a huge fan, but I'm good in understanding one's ideas and purpose.You've gone to great lengths building your knowledge, body and this book is a huge result.Keep up the great work.David.