Why Women Should Chase Muscle, Not Skinny

What if I were to tell you that the power in your life and your ability to really step into your power to become who you want to be is all residing in your exercise and lifting weights? So today I am joined with Ann Marie Checker. She is the author of Lift How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives. She is a Wall Street Journal journalist who had for decades reported on global crises and. And it was through her own health crises and life crises that she really stepped into the gym first time and became a weightlifter, but also is now a pro bodybuilder, competing actually in her first pro bodybuilding competition. So this conversation today was really important because it was how. One of the big topics was how did we get to the skinny culture? And the idea of making women smaller and smaller and smaller and quieter, and where did this story start? And how did it come about?

And.

And how does that compare to our ancestors? And what was really going on in cultures, you know, three, four, five, 10,000 years ago? And why women really need to step into their strength and focus on that rather than focusing on being thin, skinny, and in a lot of cases, smaller. So join me today on Menopause Mastery, where I'm talking with Annemarie about lift and how to transform your life by stepping into the gym. Oh, Ann Marie, I'm going to love this topic because I think this is a topic that women really struggle with, like how to protectively do exercise in a way that actually improves our longevity and health. But I want to, before we get into the meat of that, you went from like a Wall Street Journal journalist covering, like, global crises and all of these things to really stepping out and becoming a beacon for women and bodybuilding on stage. You know, I'd love for explain kind of the parallels and contrast you see in those experiences, because that is really unique. Like two different worlds.

It was really two different worlds. It started actually from kind of a dark place in my life. I was really struggling with postpartum depression after my second child was born, and my father died suddenly of a heart attack two weeks after she was born. And then my marriage was crumbling, so it was like, boom, boom, boom. All these kind of truths I'd taken for granted in my life were changing seismically. And all this came to a head when I took my little ones on a trip and we were staying at a hotel, and, you know, I'd been drinking a lot of forgot to mention. And anyway, we're at this hotel and I hadn't, you know, exercised in a long time. Or gone to a gym. But I poked my head in a little fitness room, and in this fitness room was this mom who was just absolutely crushing her workout. She was, like, lifting a barbell and she was, you know, lifting dumbbells and pulling bands and doing things that I hadn't really seen since I was in a college weight room all those years ago. You know, I was a athlete growing up. I was a figure skater, and then I did sports in college. I rode crew. And, you know, that was just something that was gone from my life. So I was just inspired by this lone woman in the weight room, and turned out she was a competitive bodybuilder. And she gave me the name of her coach, this retired bodybuilder that I reached out to and kind of said, I need help. I'm, like, lost. And I don't know anything about nutrition anymore, and I don't know what to do when I exercise. And so she set me on this path and weightlifting, in particular, more and better food and lifting heavy weights just completely changed my life.

Yeah. You know, I. I would love to say your story isn't true for so many people, but I think it is. You know, I think, you know, as women, we, we, we get told that, like, you have a baby, everything's going to be normal afterwards. But a significant portion of women do experience postpartum while raising a child and probably being a breadwinner, at least, contributing and all these other things. And then, you know, most the time, by the time we're in middle age, we're also either going to be caring for a parent or losing our parents. And there's. It's. To me, you know, at 55, I look at it and I go, sometimes it feels like a pyramid just got built on top of your head. And you don't know it, right, because you just keep doing and going and doing and going and doing.

As women, I think we learn there are moments that, you know, where the shit really hits the fan, you know, and life gets really, really hard and we need to, like, just gotta step up to the moment, you know, and that was one of those moments for me. And the cool thing about weightlifting and working with this bodybuilding coach and learning about nutrition was, you know, my whole life I had always thought of exercise and fitness and wellness as, like, a way to reduce yourself. So it's all about, you know, you go on a treadmill to burn calories and, you know, even the language that they use in the exercise studios, it's all like, lean muscle and, like, lengthen and tone and it's all kind of coded language for making less of yourself. And like, you just never feel enough. Like you can never do enough to make yourself less enough. And it's horrible messaging, you know, and in this world of like powerlifters and bodybuilders and like athletes, I was suddenly in this world of moreness, right? It was all about building yourself and like fueling your body to eat enough protein and the more and making yourself more. And I just loved that. And to my surprise, it made me perform way better. Like, it was like within weeks it was like I stopped craving alcohol because I was like so well fed and pumped and I, you know, could hear it in my voice when I came back from a good lift and I got on the phone and I was reporting a story. Like, I could hear the confidence in my voice and I was able to say no and like, push back on editors who like, had made decisions that I didn't agree with. And like, it was just like this kind of new person was emerging and I was like, my God, like, why have I been chasing? Oh. And I was like wearing a two piece bathing suit for the first time. Like, you know, it was like my body was taking shape into what I felt like it was supposed to look like. And so, you know, the reporter in me wanted to really understand, like, the sample size of one. Like, it was so clear that, like, something had changed, that I wanted to really understand, like, why my whole life had I been chasing this, like, less than thing, trying to chase skinny when I should have been chasing muscle. So I really wanted to understand, like, what was the history of this skinny thing and why are we all chasing that when it's so obvious that the secret to success is muscle and building more of it. So.

No, you're absolutely right. You know, it's. I always think of that and I'm like, why do we tell women to be less than and to be smaller and to be seen, not heard? I mean, those are probably all messages you heard as a kid. I know they were mine.

Be polite, keep it to yourself, you know.

Yeah. Because I was, I was a mouthy kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, it comes from a patriarchal, driven society and that we need women to be seen, not heard, and to be supportive of a masculine energy, you know, person. Because that's our role when it's really not our role, you know. And I think you had mentioned in your book that fitness and getting into really bodybuilding and lifting wasn't just about the fitness. It Was part of your survival? Like, it was like, this is how I'm going to move forward in survival. Which I think is amazing because I think a lot of women don't think about their fitness as survival. They use fitness as their greatest form of punishment.

You know, there was this study that really I became enamored with. It was out of Cambridge and it was this anthropologist named Alison Murray. And she did something kind of revolutionary which was, you know, anthropologists study bones. Typically it's the male bones that are studied. But she went to like Neolithic and Paleolithic women's bones and compared them with a group, a sample of modern women's bones, to see how the body structure compared. And what she found was the early women's bones were the size of elite rowers today with their developed upper bodies. And so that spoke to her that early women were an integral part of agriculture. They were lifting heavy things, they were working their asses off. They weren't like out there picking berries in the field while men hunted. No, they were working hard. And when I read about this piece of research, it was kind of an aha moment to me. It was like, well, duh, of course, this is why I'm performing better, because that is the OG body that we were meant to have. This is how we perform best. And you know, those early women weren't like sitting there trying to think of ways to become thinner and. No, neither should we. So.

Right, yeah, we were foraging and doing a bunch of other things while carrying children. You know what I mean? Like hunting.

We were hunters and hunting.

Yeah, we were doing it all.

Yeah, these like patriarchal systems of like, you know, there was another cool story in the book about a, a Viking grave that was found centuries ago. And this grave was obviously the grave of a warrior, a leader, because there were tactical chess pieces in there. The leader was buried with their horse, which is something that only leaders got, you know. So it was obviously the grave of a powerful person in, in an army. And it was only in 2017 that it was found that this warrior leader was actually a woman. So it was like these long assumptions, like a warrior leader must have been a man. Were these like modern 20th century assumptions? It was only in 2017 that we found that there were two X chromosomes on that, on that kick ass woman. Yeah. So these, so it's really this, these ideals of like women as thin and quote unquote feminine. And it's really only the product of the last 150 years. Women have historically been buff, badass creatures and I believe we perform best when we allow ourselves to take that shape that we are badass. We are, we are all athletes. The way we multitask and kick ass and, you know, juggle different things that we need to be well fed and our strength built upon because it's ultimately the thing that's going to help us live a longer and stronger life.

Oh, absolutely. You know, I think about, I was talking with a historian and they were talking about really the advent and then the explosion of bicycles and how particularly in the US that completely shifted women, the women's movement and the suffragists because for the first time Victorian women were able to get from one place to another because this society was super patriarchal. But we got on our bicycles and we rode to meet other women and talk about, you know, the things that were important to us. You know, and so I think about like weight training as kind of being one of the next things. Like, I know you talked about derby girls, like the roller derby, how much that was like women behaving badly and I'm air quoting badly by, by basically doing roles that were perceived to not be feminine. Yes, but I think weightlifting now and, and bodybuilding really is this next generation of women to become strong within their own world. Which doesn't mean diminishing the relationship that might be from a man and a woman. It means showing up in your true identity.

Well, it's interesting and there's been such a shift in the gym just in the last couple years. It's unbelievable. When I started this journey, pre Covid, I was one of very few women in the weight room. Now it's like 50% of the people in the weight room are women. And many of them, I would say most of them are young women in their 20s and 30s who are, you know, on TikTok and seeing like, you know, these gym fluencers. And you know, I have my issues with tick. I have a 14 year old, I don't love everything she watches on ticket. But I do think that is one of the positives that, you know, there is a. And also for women of our age, you know, it's one of the things that it's being communicated now more than ever is that strength training is good for your bones. We are particularly susceptible to bone loss and osteopenia and osteoporosis and, you know, this. But muscle is the ultimate cushion of bone. And it's also on a cellular level, the thing that helps build strength training helps build bone. So it's a twofer that you get from strength training. And given that, you know, hospital visits for falls are the single, you know, biggest reasons that older people end up in emergency rooms. You're doing yourself a great, great service by working on your strength.

Yeah, yeah. We have a specialty in our clinic and also our telemedicine company with osteoporosis. And, you know, a lot of it is because we do hormone replacement and we help women. But the, the biggest challenge is, is they haven't lifted weights outside of whatever groceries they carried from 20, 30, 40, 50. And a lot of these women are in their 50s and 60s and lifting for the first time. You know, but the reality is, is even if they weren't on hormone replacement, lifting in your 70s will still help build bone. Now, whether they can recover from, you know, just weightlifting alone from a significant amount of bone loss, that it doesn't seem to hold. True. But if they're doing all the other things, eating right, adding hormone replacement and other things, we can see that. And I think it comes out of that sort of diet culture that really, really hit its all time high in the 80s. You know, that's where I think it really ramped into high gear with all the extreme diets. Right. One day it's carbs, the next day you can't have fats, the next day you're just having fats. It's just, you know, there's so much of that. And I think even in the weight room and women lifting, there's still probably a struggle with them eating enough and the right amounts and not pairing that with thinness. Still with like a caloric deficit. Plus weight training. I don't know if you see that, but I still combat it professionally.

Oh, all the time. I mean, and it's not, I say it's not our fault because from the moment we're born, we're fed these messages. I mean, it. Thin is in the name of the crackers we buy at the grocery store. Skinny is in the name of the jeans we buy. I mean, skinny thin, you know, it's everywhere. And it's been shown like, to us as the marker of success. And all that is good. And of course we're, you know, we're constantly. It's almost like the color of paint on the wall. You get it so much, you stop noticing it after a while. But one of the interesting things that I experienced writing the book is really kind of a deep dive of like, you know, when did the skinny thing really begin and why? And it's really like, you know, in the Last couple hundred years. It came from different influences which I explore was, you know, just food supply and demand. And then kind of there was some religious movement towards, you know, gluttony and restriction became kind of seen as all like a good thing. And then you started hearing more about corpulence, the word corpulence coming into play. And that's kind of like, you know. And then, of course, the birth of the calorie. You know, the calorie is something that only, you know, it's a measure that only kind of came to into existence and use in the early 20th century. And then, of course, there was no going back after that. We had this unit of measure that people became obsessed with for all kinds of reasons. And then you had the diets. We had the cabbage soup diet in the 1950s to, you know, diet pills in the 1960s and 70s. And weight watch just went on from every single iteration of food, fat and diet just completely obsessed as a society to now GLP1s. And, you know, I would argue it's interesting that some of these intense moments of skinny obsession come at a time when women are really gaining power in society. So, for instance, you know, when women got the right to vote, you had the flappers, right? That was like a, you know, the boyish, almost kind of like society's way of rejiggering ourselves back to a childlike and controllable figure. When, you know, women entered the, you know, the new wave of feminism in the 1960s and the era and all that, you had Twiggy, you know, when women entered the work, the boardrooms and, you know, big shoulder pads in the 80s, you know, they entered law firms and newsrooms and droves. You had kind of the heroin chic. So it's like these, you know, waves of skinny follow, these moments of empower. And up to today when, you know, our reproductive rights are under threat and we almost had a female president. We have GOP1s and Ozempic and all that. So I'm not saying causation, but it's interesting how it follows. You know, I think it's more than coincidence. It's sort of society's way of recoiling us back into control.

Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah. To look at kind of the feminine movement. So we have the feminist movement that's, you know, has really been here for the last 150 years and it's resurfaced many, many times, like it's not new. And then you have, yes, the, the surfacing of GLP1s. And skinny at all costs. Like you see everybody in Hollywood. Skinny at all costs. Who cares if we lose muscle? We're skinny. Right. Which is, which is going to lead to, you know, probably a shorter health span if we don't sort of recoil it back. But I think the other side of it, too, is, you know, if. If women become more powerful and step into their strength and, and start to say no where they mean no and no, I don't. No offense, but I'm not a trad wife. Yeah. I'm not gonna stay home and bake bread. That's not happening in my world. No offense to anybody who wants to do that. That's just not what I'm about. But the reality is, is that's to keep the small group that's in power in power. Right? We. We scare, especially men that are weak and afraid of, of, you know, getting usurped and getting. Getting pulled out of power. I think that's absolutely true.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's. It's not that hard to start. You know, we live in this world of like, oh, you need to, you know, you need tons of time and tons of money, and I don't have time. I don't have money. But the truth is, is that you don't need a ton of time and you don't need a ton of money to start, you know, working on your strength. And I think of it as I tell people to shift your mindset. We think of, like, self care as something that is, you know, a nap or a manicure. It has to be. But this is also a form of self care, going out for maybe 30 minutes three times a week to work on your strength, which is something that will improve your quality. It'll help you carry things. It'll help you be able to go on that hike with your partner. It'll help you carry your grandchildren. But just working on this for 30 minutes doesn't even have to be an hour, maybe three times a week. You will be doing so much good for your body and your mind and your soul.

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Right.

Visible.

I remember reading the Teeny Bop magazine. I loved the teen magazines and Superbop and all those magazines when I was in middle school growing up. And I remember very specifically reading about how, you know, if you do higher reps of lower weights that will help you not get bulky. And I just, that for some reason it's like a zombie myth that will not die. Like I still get asked all the time, well, I want to strength train, but I'm, am I going to get bulky? The answer is no, you will never get bulky. You don't have enough testosterone said in order for you to.

Yeah, and there, yeah, because there is still a lot. There's some very famous people that do very low weight. Lots and lots of repetitions. You know, that may help tone small accessory muscles, but they don't necessarily add that, that bone building triggering of the muscle cells. The true strength. You know, I, I'm constantly battling that. Our clinicians are battling that. I'm like, okay, so no vanity muscle activity. We need, we need to lift heavy stuff.

The name of the game is pushing your muscles to fatigue. So if you think a scale from 1 to 10, you know, hitting, hitting that 8 or 9 a couple times on that scale and we, we know what it is, we can feel it. Like when you feel like you can only maybe do one more or two more, that's when you're nailing it. That's what you want to. And so whether you're getting that in 10 reps or 12 reps or 5 reps or 15, just you want to push your muscles to fatigue. That's the name of the game.

Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I think it's probably a real combination. You know, occasionally low repetition, higher weights and vice versa.

That's right. That's right. Mixing it up is a good thing. You Want to hit the muscles from different angles.

So what's the most unexpected thing you really got out of? Really going into the gym and going, okay, I'm going to start becoming strong. You know, you talked about kind of stepping into, you know, being able to speak for yourself and sort of stand up to editors and things like that. But what was more of, like, I didn't think that would happen.

You know, the thing I think of, and I still feel to this day like I'm gonna go out in a few minutes. And, you know, like, often I don't really feel like going, and I'm not, like, feeling it. Like, I just, you know, especially if it's cold or it's raining or there's just, like, other things I want to do. I'm not. Not feeling like going, but I make myself. I say, you know, just start. Just do one thing. Allow yourself to do one exercise and give yourself five minutes. And if you're still really not feeling it, then, you know, but it's never happened. When I leave, I'm. Oh, once I get there, I'll look in the mirror and I'll say, I don't like the way I look, or I'll feel like negativity, right? I do one set of something and it's like, I have a brand new outlook on life. I'll be like, felt some, ooh, like good. You know, it's just. I don't know if it's the dopamine effect or what, but that feeling, I mean, if we could bottle that and sell it, man, it is. I feel like a brand new person when I come back and. And I feel like I can tackle anything. It is so powerful with strength. And I want that for women. Like, the other day I was sitting on a project and it was just not getting done, and I was pretty procrastinating. And we've all felt that, right? Like when it's just like, you have to do this thing and it's just not getting done and we dread it. I went and had a good lift, came back and just like, said, screw it. The thing got knocked out. And that's powerful stuff, you know, and that's why I keep coming back to it, is it's not for the aesthetics. It's really for the feeling that it gives me in my capacity and, like, my positivity and my spirit. It's. It does so much more for me than just aesthetics.

Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, you. You often hear someone say, well, I need to feel motivated. Like, I need Motivation.

Yeah.

I need motivation to do the thing. I'm like, if you do the thing, motivation will show up.

Yes, yes. Don't wait for motivation.

Just do it because. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you have. Is. Am I correct? Is it two daughters?

Two daughters, yeah.

Two daughters. Now, I would bet that there's probably some really interesting observations slash changes your daughters have seen that probably is extraordinary for them, too.

Yeah. You know, I think they're. They're really proud of their mom. I think they've, like, seen this journey and they, you know, I have, like, a little basement set up downstairs, and, you know, sometimes I'll be doing a little. And they'll ask, what are you doing? Can I try? You know, and I think it's cool that they think it's not, like, weird or unusual to see their mother, you know, grunting and lifting heavy things over her head and want to try to imitate it. Doesn't last very long. They'll do a couple things and then move on. But, you know, I think, like, it's there and they're starting to get interested, and that's cool.

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's. It's. It's the sidebar effect, I think, of the unexpected stuff that you see in the gym. It's like, oh, my parenting gets better. The mindset shifts.

Yeah.

You know, and. And I think that's the unseen part of it that is extraordinary.

Totally, totally. I think, you know, we have to be careful, too. The messages that we send our daughters, you know, that's something that I've had to keep in check. You know, the. I remember one time I was putting jeans on or something, and I. And they weren't coming up, and my daughter said, I thought this was so cool. She said, I think it's because of your quads. And I was like, you know, I stopped myself short of saying, oh, shoot, I can't get these up. And she almost saw it as kind of a positive. She was like, I bet it's because of your quads. And I was like, that's great. You know?

Yeah.

You know, we're. We easily, as women, like, negative self talk, even with each other, as a form of, like, girl bonding, like, I can't. I feel so fat. Or, you know, and it's like, just have to stop that. And especially in front of our daughters. It's something that I've had to work on.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's hard because they're getting those messages anyway.

Yeah.

You know, and it's the old adage that your children do what you do, not what you say. Right, right. So if, even if you're not saying it out loud, if your energy is such. They pick up on it.

Yeah.

You know, they pick up on the opinions and the things that we say to ourselves, which of course are usually the most negative things. We would never repeat the stuff we say to ourselves to anybody else on the planet.

Yeah, yeah, I do. Like, I'm training for a bodybuilding season now and I, I weigh my food. They see me weigh my food. But I often, you know, you know, I'll say like, mommy wants to make sure she's getting enough protein because you need a lot of protein in order to. So I try to always position it as like the more. And you know.

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to dig into that a little bit because I think probably a lot of my listeners, you know, couldn't imagine doing bodybuilding. I think I told you, you know, I was, I got into that in my 30s after a divorce. And, you know, and I was just like, so excited that I'm like, oh, I can go back to the squat rack and lift as much as men, you know. But I think the thing that I struggled with the most is when I went into it in my 30s, a lot of it was I hated my body. So I'm gonna air quote it. You know, I was getting all these messages in the 90s about, you know, heroin chic, thinner, and I'm not built like that. You know, I was like, thank God for JLo because I have a JLO butt and I will always have a JLO butt. But the other part was recognizing really how to eat for those different time periods of, you know, you want to make sure that you're putting on muscle because lifting heavy and not fueling properly doesn't really get you to the goal. And I think a lot of times people have a misconception that I want to, like, you'll hear it. I want to get, I want to put muscle on and I want to burn fat and lose weight at the same time. I'm like, well, that's not necessarily how it always works.

Yeah, yeah. I think we live in this dichotomy of fat and thin and I just want to get women away from that. That there's this whole beautiful middle called strength and muscle. And, you know, if you start building your strength, you're building like a bigger and better metabolic engine for your body. So it all goes hand in. And yes, nutrition is important. You want to make sure you're you know, eating as many whole foods as possible, so not from a box. And that's been a big, that's been a big one for me because I have kids and they like to snack and I've realized that stuff is just like, it's super addictive. This and that's food companies make it so it's that way. It's just once you start it's hard to stop. So you know, try to keep that stuff in moderation. But most of my, you know, I do a big shop, big grocery shop on Sunday and then a fill in shop on Thursday. And like protein is like I lead with protein basically. I try to get between. For me I use the adage about a gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. So for me that's somewhere between 120 and 130 grams a day. And I lean on fairly lean sources of protein. So bags of frozen shrimp live in my freezer. I do what I call turkey crumbles which are combination of 93 and 99% ground turkey with taco seasoning in a pan. And we live on that stuff all week. Great for tacos. You can put it on salad wraps, whatever. Grilled chicken on the barbecue and liquid egg whites which surprises a lot of people. But they're pasteurized so totally safe to consume raw. And those are the liquid in my stomach smoothie. So it gives a really nice amp of protein. And they're totally flavorless. So highly.

I never thought about using that.

That is.

I'm going to borrow that.

Yeah.

That's awesome. Because it is because you know, having come from that world, that was always the struggle. Like how do I get that much? And I think the two things I learned from bodybuilding and still lifting weights today is you have to meal prep.

You do. You have to keep a well stocked fridge so that you're not leaning on like quick fixes and you know, snacky or takeout and that stuff like, and you know, my food is pretty boring, let's face it. But I think it's delicious and with like seasonings you can make it interesting. Carbs are not the enemy. I always have my go to carbs in the fridge are cooked white potatoes and I love white rice. So I have a container of cooked white rice. The potatoes can be sweet potatoes sometimes, but usually it's white potatoes which I feel like can demonize potatoes but they're such a great source of potassium. I always have like a small potato and some protein, whatever. And I have that before going out for A workout. And I have the same like protein plus carb whenever I come back. Um, but yeah, that's the basic essence of. Oh, but I was gonna tell you, my smoothie is. So I'll do liquid egg whites. For the liquid, I usually put a banana in there.

Yeah.

And for fats, I'll do like some, a little bit of peanut butter and maybe like a scoop of whey protein just for. Mostly for the flavor. But that gives you another nice boost of protein. And that thing, let me tell you, that is delicious. You can even put like some cold brew coffee in there.

I was gonna say coffee would be what tops it up.

Yes. So good. So good. Yeah. And you can save money on those Starbucks runs and get more protein out of it too.

Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know if you saw this study. It came out, I wanna say, in 2023. And I can't remember the research off the top of my head, but they looked at muscle protein synthesis, so our ability to take our foods, make muscle out of it. And they looked at younger individuals and for the first time really stratified and looked at older individuals. And one of the things that they found that I thought was really interesting because it caused us to really change how we talk to midlife women in particular. But what they showed was that younger people, let's say a 20 year old, they could get, you know, 10 to 15 grams here, 10 to 15 grams of protein here, 10 to 15 grams a little later. And they were really efficient at muscle protein synthesis, making muscle. But when you get into those late 40s, 50s and beyond, we're actually inefficient. And I would say some of it is the loss of estrogen and the impact of that, but that we are better at doing it when that first meal of the day is a high bolus. So a significant amount of protein in that very first meal and the very last meal. Because, you know, a lot of people are like, I'm having two eggs and some avocado toast. And I'm like, not near enough protein.

Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. Because I started looking at it and I'm like, okay, no, I don't want you to have a little protein snack here and a protein snack here, unless you're lifting. But I want you to make sure breakfast and dinner has a lot. Right.

Oh, I did not know this, but that's very, very interesting.

Yeah, it shocked me because I was like, dang, now I have to go rearrange all of our instructions. Because I was like, now the science really shows it to be true because so much of the data is done on young men. Right. And so we were trying to see this, but I think, I think women have gotten a little bit of the message about protein, but they forget that carbs are not bad. When we're lifting, we need carbs. That's the fuel we burn, and then we burn fat more after the lift and for hours afterwards. And particularly rice and potatoes, when you cook and cool them, a lot of the starch in it becomes resistance and it feeds our microbiome. So I'm with you. That carb phobia, the movement of carnivore diet and whatever else extreme out there really is not the answer.

I, you know, and we forget that carbs, you know, roughage and fiber is carbs. So, like, you pick up a green salad. I mean, that's, Those are carbs. So just the notion that carbs are, you know, not good is just really silly.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I'm like, this is a silly, silly notion. But especially if you're lifting, to get the most out of it, you have to have them on board as well, you know, for sure. So, so, so tell my listeners if you were to, if you were to kind of say, okay, I'm thinking about lifting for the first time. Maybe I, you know, I've never really thought about strength training or maybe they've been doing strength training, but they've been kind of on the lower side of weights, you know, doing, doing light weights that, you know, I always tell people if you don't feel a little, a little sore afterwards, like, sitting on the toilet might take a little bit of effort. You probably didn't work hard enough. Yeah. You don't be so bad that you can't get back up, but you should feel it. Yeah. So, so could you, could you give them, like, okay, here's your, here's your best case scenario. Here's a great way to start. What would be a great way for the woman that's like, okay, I haven't done this, but I'm thinking about doing it.

Yeah. So I would think about, like, you know, some people are like, the idea of going to a gym. Some people don't. Some people would rather have, I'll get set up at home and not have to go to the gym. Either is fine. I like both. I like, you know, I belong to a gym. I kind of like getting out of my house sometimes and seeing other people and having, like, all the space to, to do stuff. But sometimes, like I said, if it's a crummy day, I don't feel like going out. I have my little basement set up. And if you want to do that, you don't need to. A whole ton of things you need. Maybe be good to have a couple pairs of dumbbells. A resistance band is good. An incline bench, which, you know, is just a flat board that you can adjust at different inclines. You know, maybe eventually a barbell, but you don't even need that to start. I like to think in terms of threes. So pick three exercises. Maybe a chest forward exercise, a back exercise, and a leg exercise. So three exercises, three sets of 10 performed three times a week and 30 minutes a day. And I'm telling you, you will, you will start to feel it, and then that's feeling good. Build from there. But just for starters, think in terms of threes. And actually for the gym, joining a gym is great because you, you usually get a freebie session or two with a trainer, and that kind of helps give you the lay of the land and really put those sessions to work for you. Like, have them devise a program for you that you think you can follow for a few months and then maybe take another session with them and see if they can build or adjust on that. But, you know, having the mix of the gym and the little home setup is, I think, is great and it doesn't have to be expensive.

No, I, I agree with you. And I think it's, I think it's really valuable and so important to at least have some training sessions to particularly make sure you're doing, you're doing it with good form. Right?

Make it a joyful part of your life. That's the thing. I, you know, don't make it like an obligation or I have to do, make it. I get to do this and this is fun and I get out and I'm doing something good for myself. And if you bring it, bring joy and positivity to it and enjoy like this moment in your day and starting to, like, see results after time, you're just going to, you're going to want to do it more and you're going to make it like this area of positive positivity in your life.

Absolutely, absolutely. And like you said, it doesn't have to be a gym. If you're intimidated, you can get some stuff at home. Heck, you could pick up two, two water jugs and do exercise with them. You'll feel it.

Totally. Totally. Cans of soup. I mean, I was saying to someone the other day, if you don't have dumbbells. A jar of spaghetti sauce is about a two and a half pound weight juice. Do some rows or something with that and then see if, like, you know, do a few things with that and see how that feels. Something is always better than nothing.

No, that's so true. That's true. So, so true. So your book Lift. So this is an excellent book, I have to say, because it's not just about how to lift weights, but a lot of it's. How did we get here? Like the, like you said, like, how do we, how do we get the skinny culture? And why is it, you know, kind of pushed on women? It's such a good, you're such an amazing storyteller. You're blending kind of the science and the memoir and the stories, which makes it a very, very enjoyable read. You know, I think, I think women would appreciate reading this and I would. And the other thing I would say is somebody that doesn't have children, but of course, you know, anybody without children always can tell you what to do with children. I think this would be a huge, a huge book for a teen daughter to read.

Yes, right.

Like imagine that. Imagine that being what kind of fills their mind of how, how they could become a woman.

Yes. Thank you for saying that. You know, it's something that I have a 14 year old and I'm, you know, I've kept. She doesn't have a phone yet. I've tried to keep it, but she does like look at stuff on my phone. She's on TikTok and, and you know, it's the messages that they get. Even, even if it's subtle, it's still that, you know, the skinny thing still reigns and the more we can. There was actually a researcher at a Stanford who talked of a specialist in eating disorders who talked about being like your own advocate and filling yourself with messages of like, no, that's actually not a normal body. That's actually not something to aspire to. That skinny does not mean success. That like, you know, strong and like well fed is, you know, is, is a better, like verbalizing that stuff and reading stuff like this can go a long way with, you know, establishing a better mindset with these awful messages that we, we've been fed from day one as women. I mean, it's really, it's really unbelievable.

Yeah, I agree. I remember, you remember Gabrielle Reese, the, the volleyball player. Like she modeled for Revlon and L'. Oreal, all these companies at 161 pounds, sending next to 110 pound woman and looked fabulous, but she was actually much healthier looking. She had muscle definition, you know, healthy, just healthy. And I'm like, we, we think of, of beauty as this other aspect. And she was and still is amazing. Like, I don't know if you've seen a picture of her later lately. She's still rocking it.

I think she does a podcast, doesn't she?

I think she does.

I've not listened to, but yeah, yeah.

So I think, I think it's so important to get those messages out. And I think your book is a good primer for women in, in our age group, but also for younger women to, you know, basically push back on those messages of thinness, smallness and quiet.

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, it's not going away. It still exists. I mean, there's a lot of conflicting messages out there. On the one hand, yes, we are seeing more young women post picture, you know, videos of themselves at the gym lifting weights, but you still get an awful lot of nonsense on, you know, you know, look, look at my shredded abs and look how thin I look, how good I look in this, you know, thing. So it's, it's, it's ever present.

That's, you know, it's interesting because as a journalist, I want to ask you this question. As a journalist, you know, I remember when I was younger, I would pick up whatever magazine Shape, you know, I'd be in the airport court somewhere and I pick up Shape or whatever. And now it's funny because I, you know, I would say that shifted at about like late 30s and I walk through and all of those magazines geared towards women are repulsive to me because it's all of these messages of that, you know, I don't look at any of them. I don't look at, you know, whether it's people or whatever, because they're really, you know, they really aren't giving positive messages. They're feeding this narrative of you're not good enough. Right. The ultimate narrative is you're not good enough. So therefore, you need these things. You need to buy this, do this, wear this, be this.

Yeah. And it's interesting. Even these, like, even the magazines that you think have this halo of good for you, like the Shape and the fitness magazines, like those shredded muscular bodies on the COVID those are not, those are not naturally lean physiques. I mean, those. As someone who competes in bodybuilding, I know what it takes to get to that level of leanness and muscularity. And, you know, I have good coaches who say, you know, that is for the stage. And then when you're done with that, you build back to a normal level of a normal layer of fat. You need fat in order to build muscle. So I don't know, it's not, you know, it's, it's not meant to be a normal, normally performing, healthy body.

No, I mean, that's one day. Like, I don't think people realize when, when you get up on your pro stage.

Yeah.

You have done a ton of things in the week leading months for sure. But the last weeks leading up to it. So that you get definition for all of about five hours.

Right? Exactly.

And then immediately after that, like even, even restricting water and other things. Like, there's a lot to make that look good. And that's the same thing that happens on, on covers of magazines.

Exactly.

And then we've got AI and the ability to airbrush and make everything look great. It's like, yeah, yeah. So that's a message that nobody needs to hear anymore. So, so where, where can my listeners get your books? I'm assuming all the great places people can buy books. For sure.

Yeah. So it is widely available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, anywhere books are sold. And if you go to my website, annmarie chakr.com you can see the various buttons. But it's, it's widely available anywhere you can buy your books.

Yep. And everybody, it's called Lift. How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives. You can't miss it. It's got a gun, Arms of Steel on the front. And it's, like I said, a very, very good book because it's not just about lifting, but it's really about how, how to step into your power. So this has been great, great conversation. Thank you so much.

I really enjoyed it.

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