Teaching Women to Reclaim Their Strength

After more than two decades at The Wall Street Journal covering the high-pressure world of finance, journalist Anne Marie Chaker became something she could never have imagined: She became the story.

Chaker’s essay about her transformation from journalist to bodybuilder went viral, which led to her new book, “Lift: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives.” It also birthed a new mission: Helping girls and women reclaim their strength.

Chaker’s journey began at a low point in her life when she suffered from postpartum depression and the end of her marriage.

“Everything was crashing,” she told Clark on the podcast.

What started as a half glass of wine to ease anxiety soon became a nightly crutch. Then, on a hotel trip with her daughters, she noticed a fit mom “crushing her workout” in the tiny hotel exercise room. Intrigued, Chaker approached the woman and learned she was a bodybuilding competitor in the bikini division.

“That moment changed everything,” Chaker says.

Within 18 months, she had hired a coach recommended by the fit mom. She went through the process of training and eating like a bodybuilder and entered her first competition, a natural, drug-tested show. Her story, published in The Wall Street Journal, launched a new chapter of her life.

Empowering Women to Choose Muscle over Skinny

At the heart of “Lift” is a question Chaker couldn’t ignore: Why had women been taught for generations to chase skinny instead of strength? Through personal narrative and research, she traced the cultural obsession with thinness from diet culture to fashion marketing.

“It’s everywhere,” she told Clark. “We’ve been conditioned to believe smallness is the goal when the answer is in the ‘more-ness’ of muscle.”

Her message has resonated widely. “Lift” has earned endorsements from people like Mel Robbins, Billie Jean King, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who called it “eye-opening about female strength.” But Chaker is most moved by messages from everyday women who found courage in her story.

“It makes the hard work worthwhile,” she says.