Spoiler alert, I love this book.
The Optimized Woman written by Miranda Gray is a comprehensive guide to tuning your social, work, and home life with your cycle to ensure that you are efficiently using your energy in the areas of your life that your body and mind are already designed to focus on.
What I love about this book
It’s an easy read. You could pick it up all by yourself, read it with a group, or even go through it with your daughter.
Action Plan
The author does a good job explaining the way your body works and how to work with it, but she doesn’t stop there; at the end of the book there is a 28-day plan that contains three simple actions for each day.
It doesn’t try to be everything
Some books try to cover every aspect of the cycle when the author is clearly an expert in one category. This makes for a large, hard to navigate book that can be a little daunting to read, and hard to find the information that you are looking for when you want to refer back to a specific section.
The Optimized Woman is one of the shorter books in the world of feminine health at only 11 chapters, 244 pages from front to back.
Not an infomercial
I love the fact that I don’t feel as though the author is wasting my time, telling her life story or selling you on a different, far more expensive product. She has clearly learned valuable information and wishes to share that with the reader.
What could be better
This book serves as an informative user manual for the average menstruating woman and the information that it contains is quite valuable.
The positives far out way the negatives when it comes to The Optimized Woman, but there are a few drawbacks in my opinion.
First, it is not the easiest to use. The author lays out the four stages of the cycle at the beginning of the book, along with the Labels that she places on them (Dynamic = Folicular, expressive = Ovulatory, etc.) which is helpful, but the rest of the book is sectioned out using her definitions as the labels. This was fine when I was going through the book’s daily plan religiously, but now that I pick it up once in a while for reminders, I find myself having to go back and review her definitions before I can find the right page.
There is also an extensive list for each phase, that explains things that should be prioritized, and what activities should be avoided. This list is very helpful, if a little redundant. There are times when going through the list seems a little like the author might just be filling a word count. That being said, saying the same thing in different ways may help different people understand a little bit better.
The other two points are more of a preference thing. This last one is my only real complaint about the book. I would say that this book is designed for beginners, but helpful to women that have been practicing this lifestyle for years. Be that as it may, the author excludes some vocabulary which I believe is very important. Terms such as Follicular Phase and Luteal Phase are traded for Pre-ovulation and Pre-menstrual. This seemingly small echange is a disservice to the reader who should be made familiar with these terms. Vocabulary is important, it not only gives us the ability to accurately express our reality, thoughts, and opinions, but it also shapes the way that our brain interprets and interacts with our environment. When you understand the correct terms as well as the root of their meaning it gives a more comprehensive understanding of what’s happening inside your body, making you more inclined to act according to its needs.
Highly recommend
With these points in mind, the benefits and information in The Optimized Woman far out way the negatives. I have been following the guidelines in this book since January and have seen a major change in my ability to put my best foot forward in every area of my life. I would love to see this book on every woman’s shelf.
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