This is part guide and part popular science book readers will learn about how Neanderthals used the body’s ‘brown fat’ to keep warm and how exposure nearly reverses the symptoms of diabetes. Kilimanjaro in 28 hours while wearing shorts. It is this training that enables Hof and Carney to summit Mt. Carney documents his interactions with Hof and the many others who have learned to control their bodies in seemingly impossible ways: he learned Hof’s breathing techniques for tricking the body into doing things it isn’t evolutionarily designed for, and underwent training to face extreme cold while barely clothed. Hof, a Dutch fitness guru who runs a training camp in Poland’s wilderness, claims he can control his body temperature and immune system solely with his mind though Carney set out to prove Hof a charlatan, he was instead won over.

‘As this engaging autoethnography relates, anthropologist and investigative journalist Carney was skeptical upon encountering a photo of a nearly naked Wim Hof sitting on a glacier in the Arctic Circle. Fresh and exciting, this book has wide appeal for readers interested in health, sports, self-improvement, and extreme challenges.’ Booklist View all reviews The question is, ‘What happens when we push our bodies to the limit?’ Carney calls on evolutionary biology and other modern scientific disciplines to explore and explain Hof’s unconventional methods. Our ancestors survived harsh conditions without modern technology, while we live in comfortable bubbles with little to struggle against and wonder how they survived. Carney now chronicles his journey to push himself mentally and physically using Wim Hof’s method of cold exposure, breath-holding, and meditation to tap into our primal selves.

But in just a few days, Hof changed Carney’s mind, and so began a friendship and a new adventure. When investigative journalist and anthropologist Carney heard about Hof’s mind-boggling methods and claims that he could ‘hack’ the human body, he knew he had to venture to Poland to expose this fraud. ‘Climbing a mountain in nothing but a pair of shorts seems idiotic to most, but for Wim Hof and his companions, it’s just another day.

Wim hof method debunked