Breaking the Skinny Spell: Body Image, Building Muscle, and Midlife Resilience with Anne Marie Chaker (Episode 240)

Hit Play Not Pause

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.9 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Growing up in sport, this week’s guest was often told her body wasn’t “right”—too muscular, not tall enough, never thin enough—and those messages followed her into adulthood through the pressures of work, marriage, motherhood, and loss. Her turning point came in a hotel gym, where she discovered the power of fueling well, eating enough protein, and lifting heavy. What began as a shift from self-medicating with alcohol to self-empowering with weights eventually led her to bodybuilding, a sport that both celebrates and sometimes complicates women’s bodies. We dig into how eating more can transform health and performance, what it really takes to step on stage, how perimenopause shows up with rage, panic, and fatigue, and why muscle is the “metabolic 401k” every woman needs. This is a conversation about rewriting the script—replacing “small and skinny” with “strong and powerful”—and embracing the bodies we were meant to have. You can learn more about her work at AnneMarieChaker.com

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, from the Journal’s regional editions to the Spot News Desk during the September 11 attack. She has covered everything from politics to news events, consumer trends, education, the workplace, and the major sociological shifts of our time. Chaker lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her partner, Rick; daughters Juliette and Sylvie; and their overeager pup, Ninja. Her latest book is LIFT: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives.

Resources:

LIFT: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives here

Anne Marie Chaker Substack here

I Never Thought I’d Write This: I Am a Female Bodybuilder, Wall Street Journal

I’m 50, in Perimenopause—and About to Compete as a Pro Bodybuilder, Daily Beast

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:14.6	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help you feel and perform you best no matter what your hormones are doing.
0:24.9	This show is a production of Live Feisty Media.
0:30.9	Hello, strong feisty women. I hope you all are well.
0:35.4	So, for many of us, the sports we love growing up can ultimately end up
0:40.8	breaking our hearts and sometimes even our spirits. When we get the message that our bodies
0:46.7	are not quite good enough, i.e. thin enough, the way they are. And we can internalize those messages in really insidious ways
0:57.5	that, let's face it, we can carry around sometimes for the rest of our lives. And, well,
1:03.8	this week's guest, Amory Chaker, was definitely on one of those paths. But thankfully, that all
1:10.1	changed when she picked up some weights
1:11.8	in a hotel gym and got on another path, away from self-medicating she was doing at the time
1:18.5	with quite a bit of alcohol to self-empowering with resistance training. And eventually
1:23.8	became competitive in bodybuilding, which is also complicated because that is a sport
1:30.5	that definitely celebrates, but also can complicate women's bodies.
1:35.1	And along the way, Anne-Marie has learned a ton, like how eating more can transform health
1:42.0	and performance.
1:43.5	What it really takes to step on a stage in those
1:46.3	sparkly bikinis and high-heel shoes, how perimenopause shows up with rage and panic and fatigue,
1:52.6	and why muscle is truly, no matter if you step on a stage or not, the metabolic 401k every
1:58.9	woman needs. In the end, this is a conversation that is all about what I
2:04.4	love, rewriting the script and replacing small and skinny with strong and powerful, and embracing
2:10.8	the bodies that we as women were really meant to have. As a longtime journalist, Amory documented
	...

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