SOBER BODYBUILDER –
July 8th, 2025 – When Anne Marie Chaker walked into a hotel fitness room during a youth hockey tournament, she was struggling with postpartum depression, the recent death of her father, the collapse of her marriage and a growing dependence on alcohol. A former Wall Street Journal reporter of 27 years, she decided to turn her observational skills inward.
“I saw this hockey mom just crushing her workout. She wasn’t skinny; she was strong. And I thought, ‘That’s what I want,’” Chaker told Athletech News in an interview about her new book, Lift: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives. “That single moment changed everything.”
What followed was an unlikely evolution. Chaker began working with the woman’s coach, changed how she ate, took up strength training and eventually entered a bodybuilding competition, earning her pro card.
“It was never about aesthetics,” she said. “It was about saving my life.”
Chaker’s new book, recommended by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Robbins, among other celebrities, traces her journey out of emotional and physical depletion and into strength. But it also investigates the forces that have led generations of women to fear muscle and idolize thinness.
