“We Are All Wired for Strength”
As Anne Marie Chaker entered her early forties, she faced a ton. The sudden loss of her father. The unraveling of her marriage. All the while, she was raising two young kids and neglecting her own care. "I was treating my body like a waste bin," Chaker, a longtime journalist, writes. "I hated the reflection in the mirror: I looked bloated and sad."
Years went by like this. Chaker knew she had to make a change—then something kismet happened: While on a trip for her daughter's hockey tournament, she walked into a hotel gym where she saw a woman lifting barbells. Chaker was intrigued. The woman looked determined, healthy, and confident. "The combination of her know-how and superhero physique was intriguing to me," details Chaker.
That moment was in 2019, and it was the catalyst for what changed Chaker's life. She started weightlifting sessions with a coach. She leaned into her nutrition. She started caring for herself again. And a power began to build inside of her.
These days, Chaker has an outlook on life that is lightyears away from the one she had a decade ago—and she details it all in her new book, LIFT: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives. She reveals the mental and physical health aspects of strength training for women, and she takes us on a journey through her transformation into a professional bodybuilder, competing for the first time at the age of 50. The book, which is intimate and rigorously reported, is a light into how, as Chaker says, "we are all wired for strength." It's also proof that when a woman prioritizes her wellbeing, anything is possible.
We recently chatted with Chaker about what weightlifting has taught her. The following are highlights from our conversation.
The Fallacy of Perfect
Strength training helped Chaker reevaluate her relationship with perfection, which she says too many women strive for. "I think the answer is being able to prioritize," she says. "For me, strength training is a commitment to myself. I have the big commitments— my writing, my work, my children—and my training is right up there." All the other stuff—"the bomb that's gone off in the kitchen right now, the leftover swag bags from the book party strewn off all, I gotta wash my hair"—is secondary.
"We have to give ourselves a hell of a lot more grace," she adds. "We're really hard on ourselves."
Which Is Why Her Regimen Isn't Always Perfect
Strength training is "my one like thing to myself," says Chaker. It's a priority and she shows up for it. But it doesn't have to be perfect. "Sometimes it's 30 minutes in a corner of the basement where I have a couple but dumbbells and a band, and I just get it done," she admits. "I don't overthink it."
Why Women Need to Stop Shrinking Themselves
Chaker can relate when women ask if weight training will make them "bulky." The misconception, which she describes as a "zombie myth," had a hold on her for decades, thanks to misinformation she read in magazines during her teenage years. "Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I carried that for a long time," she says. "And it is such horse manure!" Chaker recognizes the deeper fear that stems from years of conditioning that promotes the merits of thinness. "The moment we're born, we are fed this messaging to the point where we don't even notice anymore because it's so relentless."
On One of the Biggest Surprises of Weightlifting
When Chaker started her journey working with her coach, a retired bodybuilder, the focus was on food. Her coach wanted her to eat whole foods, focusing on macronutrients, and more of it. "That surprised me, because my whole life, I had always been taught to always be eating less; to watch your portion sizes and always be looking at the fat grams in the back of the salad dressing bottle," says Chaker, who admits that the idea of consuming more food felt "scary" at first. But then she began to notice a shift. She was feeling better. Her body felt stronger, her mind clearer (not surprising, as research shows a link between strength training and cognitive benefits). The nutrient-dense eating, combined with lifting weights, unlocked a power. “The combination of that led me to feel like I was an athlete again."
The Positive Shift in Her Life
The benefits of weightlifting had a spidery effect on Chaker's life. It extended to her relationships, her parenting, her work, her outlook—and her self-esteem. “I started to really feel it," she says. "I could even hear it when I was interviewing people on the phone. I could just hear it in my voice. I was more solid in my confidence."
Anne Marie Chaker is a veteran journalist and professional bodybuilder. During her two-decade career at The Wall Street Journal, she held reporting jobs all over the paper, covering everything from politics to news events to the the major sociological shifts of our time. You can read more from her on her Substack, "Lift."
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