Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / The Lost Legacy of Women's Strength (Anne Marie Chaker) | Ep 361

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The Lost Legacy of Women's Strength (Anne Marie Chaker) | Ep 361 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: If you think women were historically weak and passive, you're about to discover how wrong that assumption is.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: Archaeological evidence reveals that prehistoric women had bone density and arm strength comparable to today's elite female athletes.
• 0:14
  Philip Pape: Viking warrior graves once assumed to be male have been confirmed female, and the delicate flower narrative you've been told about women throughout history is a complete fabrication.
• 0:23
  Philip Pape: Narrative you've been told about women throughout history is a complete fabrication.
• 0:27
  Philip Pape: Today, my guest reveals the lost history of women's strength and why reclaiming this power isn't just about looking good.
• 0:32
  Philip Pape: It's about surviving and thriving in midlife and beyond.
• 0:36
  Philip Pape: You'll discover why your female ancestors would outperform most modern women in strength tests, how perimenopause actually creates opportunities for building muscle and specific training approaches that work best with female physiology.
• 0:48
  Philip Pape: Stop believing the lie that women are naturally weak when the evidence proves women are built for physical power.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 1:09
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and today I'm excited because we're challenging what you think you know about women and strength throughout history and even modern times, because my guest is Anne-Marie Chaker, a former Wall Street journalist who made a quite dramatic career pivot to become a competitive bodybuilder at 50.
• 1:27
  Philip Pape: She's the author of Lift how Women Can Reclaim their Physical Power and Transform their Lives.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: We're definitely going to link you guys to that in that book and we're going to play on that in today's interview.
• 1:37
  Philip Pape: She combines evolutionary biology, archaeological evidence, sports science, culture to reveal how women have been I'll say, systematically conditioned to believe they're naturally weak, when the opposite is quite true.
• 1:48
  Philip Pape: And today you're going to learn why prehistoric women had strength levels that would potentially shame modern athletes.
• 1:54
  Philip Pape: The cultural narratives that have stripped women of their physical identity and how those have evolved.
• 1:58
  Philip Pape: The specific ways that women over 40 can reclaim their evolutionary advantage through intelligent training, which we're all about here.
• 2:06
  Philip Pape: Whether you're a woman looking to build strength or anyone interested in nerding out on the intersection of history and biology and performance, today's episode is going to change how you view women's physical capability.
• 2:16
  Philip Pape: Anne-marie, hope I got all that right.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: I'm very excited to get into this with you, and welcome to the show.
• 2:21
  Anne Marie Chaker: That was beautiful, thank you.
• 2:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: Thank you for having me.
• 2:24
  Philip Pape: So I want to really start from the historical lens.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: I don't know if we can make this a chronological story, but your book Lift challenges all of these assumptions about gender and physical capability, that women throughout history have been weaker, or there are certain views that we have on them culturally based on recent history, especially like the Victorian age and all of that, and that they're maybe less involved physically than men throughout history.
• 2:47
  Philip Pape: But your research, I think, suggests quite the opposite.
• 2:50
  Philip Pape: So when you look back at the majority of our history, first of all, what was expected of women?
• 2:56
  Philip Pape: What's the reality there?
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: What was expected of women in terms of strength?
• 2:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: So this book was really born of my own experience, philip, when I, you know, was in my 40s and life had hit kind of a tough patch.
• 3:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know, I, through happenstance, kind of entered this weird wild world of weightlifters and bodybuilders and kind of weightlifting had changed my life Right.
• 3:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: So it was like the world was black and white and then it was Technicolor Everything.
• 3:30
  Anne Marie Chaker: Once I started working with this coach and lifting weight, my body was transferring, but it was also my mind started transforming and so, like you know, had more confidence.
• 3:38
  Anne Marie Chaker: I, you know, would come back to my desk after a good lift and I would, you know, I could hear it in my voice I was wearing lipstick again, like everything, like I just felt like a new person, and so the dripplist in me really wanted to understand well, where has this been?
• 3:54
  Anne Marie Chaker: My whole life, like my entire life, I was chasing skinny right, always, this feeling like I had to lose weight.
• 4:00
  Anne Marie Chaker: If I did, it wasn't ever enough, and like I had to be thin.
• 4:04
  Anne Marie Chaker: And it's like the message that is ingrained in our heads from the moment we were born and suddenly embracing kind of the moreness of muscle and the idea of building oneself, kind of radically transformed my life in every which way.
• 4:18
  Anne Marie Chaker: So the journalist in me really wanted to understand why the heck have we been, you know, chasing this thing when this other thing is clearly the answer?
• 4:27
  Anne Marie Chaker: And I became enamored of you know.
• 4:30
  Anne Marie Chaker: I started, you know, kind of researching the history of the thin ideal and where the heck this came from.
• 4:36
  Anne Marie Chaker: And I kept coming back to this study out of Cambridge.
• 4:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: This professor kind of realized.
• 4:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: Study out of Cambridge, this professor kind of realized like how come, you know, early bones of women are always being compared to men but we never compare them to how women, modern women's bone structure looks.
• 4:57
  Anne Marie Chaker: So what if we took Neolithic and Paleolithic women's bone skeleton and compared them to a sample of modern women?
• 5:05
  Anne Marie Chaker: So she looked at a sample of different modern students at Cambridge University more sedentary students, athletes and she found that the early women's bones were about the size of the elite rowers with their big, developed kind of upper bodies.
• 5:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: So this blew her mind and blew my mind too, because it said these early women were buff, they were lifting heavy things, they weren't sitting around wondering like how do I get thinner.
• 5:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: They were, you know, an integral part of agriculture.
• 5:38
  Anne Marie Chaker: It wasn't like, you know, this hunter gatherer myth where, like, the men are doing all the work and they're hunting and they're doing all the things and the women are picking berries in the field.
• 5:47
  Anne Marie Chaker: No, the women were working hard.
• 5:50
  Anne Marie Chaker: So this, to me, said that this is the OG body, this is the body that women are intended to have and that we perform best at.
• 6:02
  Anne Marie Chaker: And that was why, to me, as an athlete who was lifting heavy things, of course, I was working, doing much better in every which way.
• 6:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: So it kind of went from there.
• 6:14
  Anne Marie Chaker: If I was experiencing this, if I was kind of coming home to this body that I felt like I was always supposed to have, I wanted other women to kind of experience this as well.
• 6:24
  Philip Pape: I was always supposed to have.
• 6:25
  Philip Pape: I wanted other women to kind of experience this as well.
• 6:26
  Philip Pape: You know the story about looking into the why and history.
• 6:28
  Philip Pape: Right, it reminds me of Jen Todd, right, jen Todd, who is a pioneer in powerlifting for women.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: She kind of founded many of the academic.
• 6:38
  Philip Pape: I think she even still edits a journal and she I forget which university she went to, but anyway it reminds me of that, of looking back and saying you know, we make all these assumptions about how women were acting in society.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: You mentioned the gathering versus the hunting.
• 6:50
  Philip Pape: Are there particular points in our culture's history?
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: Is it?
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: Do you have to go back to prehistory, or is there?
• 6:56
  Philip Pape: You know, during post-agriculture and civilized time, I guess, where we see this?
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: You know, because I'm just really curious what they were doing to get those massive rower density bodies.
• 7:07
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's interesting because we look at things through this modern lens of.
• 7:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know how women are supposed, you know how men behave and how women were.
• 7:16
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know we think we have so many cultural touch fairy tales, and you know marketing message on cracker boxes and you know all kinds of things.
• 7:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: There was another thing that I found which blew my mind, which was this Viking grave in Birka, sweden, that was discovered, and in the grave was this great warrior, clearly a leader, buried with the horse and chess pieces.
• 7:40
  Anne Marie Chaker: That showed that this was a leader who was thinking about strategy, clearly the grave of a great leader.
• 7:48
  Anne Marie Chaker: For eons it was assumed that this was.
• 7:51
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think the grave was found and I could be wrong here, but I think it was like 1917.
• 7:55
  Anne Marie Chaker: And so for many, many years it was assumed that this was a male, and it wasn't until just a few years ago, that very recently, that it was found that this warrior had two X chromosomes.
• 8:07
  Anne Marie Chaker: It was, it was a woman, and how interesting is that?
• 8:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: I mean I, if I found the, I would have assumed it was a man too, right, but it's like only in modern times.
• 8:17
  Anne Marie Chaker: Really, it's really the, the idea that men are the stronger.
• 8:21
  Anne Marie Chaker: Sex is really the product of the last 150 or so years.
• 8:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: Men are the stronger.
• 8:25
  Anne Marie Chaker: Sex is really the product of the last 150 or so years and I would argue, you know it's something that has benefited a patriarchy run by men.
• 8:36
  Anne Marie Chaker: If we keep women in a more childlike, controlled, weaker state, that benefits a world run by men.
• 8:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: And we see this take place most sharply in certain times where women really gain more power and influence.
• 8:50
  Anne Marie Chaker: So, for instance, when women won the right to vote in the 1920s, what did we have?
• 8:55
  Anne Marie Chaker: We suddenly had the flapper was the look where, you know, suddenly thin was in in a big, big way.
• 9:01
  Anne Marie Chaker: This reared its head again.
• 9:03
  Anne Marie Chaker: For instance, you know, we saw it in the 80s when women suddenly were infiltrating boardrooms and the corporate world and we had the power suit with the big shoulder pads.
• 9:14
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know, suddenly we had Kate Moss, and you know.
• 9:18
  Anne Marie Chaker: So there are moments where, you know, you see the skinny thing rise most sharply when women start to show an inkling of more power.
• 9:28
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I could go on and on about this.
• 9:31
  Anne Marie Chaker: But it's not just one thing that caused skinny to be.
• 9:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: There were many things, from food supply and demand.
• 9:39
  Anne Marie Chaker: We want to emulate wealth, right.
• 9:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: Well, when food became more plentiful, more people had access to the stuff.
• 9:47
  Anne Marie Chaker: So you know, the pendulum started to swing more towards thinness and you know the dawn of the calorie and the obsession of measuring it and all of these different things, kind of fueling the flames.
• 10:00
  Anne Marie Chaker: But at its core, I think you know really the skinny obsession is really a product of control and keeping women in a weaker state which has never benefited us.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I mean, I love strong women.
• 10:15
  Philip Pape: My wife lifts weights, we're talking about that a lot, and, of course, I suppose I'm the last person who can talk about patriarchy, being a man myself, so I'm not going to go there, but I could see that in history.
• 10:26
  Philip Pape: I think it's important to understand history and why certain moments and landmarks had shifted the narrative right Like the Victorian frailty.
• 10:34
  Philip Pape: You know where were our ancestors from 10,000 years ago and how they lived versus a thousand years ago in the Middle Ages, and the Vikings versus the Victorian age, and so I suppose you tell me if this is true or not.
• 10:46
  Philip Pape: Are we in a new renaissance now?
• 10:48
  Philip Pape: Because I think we're talking more about it.
• 10:50
  Philip Pape: I think there's more acceptance for strong and being fueled, but I also hear just as strong some of the terrible messaging that has hung on since the 80s, that gets amplified on social media, especially to younger girls, with how the algorithms work and things like that.
• 11:06
  Philip Pape: So what are your thoughts Like?
• 11:07
  Philip Pape: What period are we in now in terms of women's strength?
• 11:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's such a great question and I have so many feelings and so many thoughts.
• 11:15
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know, as the mother of a 14 year old girl who's just recently discovered TikTok.
• 11:21
  Anne Marie Chaker: I was just sitting on a bus next to her and literally watching her for hours scroll through my phone and look at TikTok, and so it was really kind of fascinating study on what she's seeing and what message.
• 11:33
  Anne Marie Chaker: And let me tell you, it's not pretty.
• 11:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's not pretty.
• 11:36
  Anne Marie Chaker: There's this whole skinny obsession rearing its head again and I mean, and on the other hand, I go to a gym and I see, I see we're starting to see many more women and when I started my journey, I started hitting the fitness, the weight room, and I would say 2018, 2019, I was really one of the only women in the weight room.
• 11:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: I was largely 18, 19, 20 year old young men.
• 12:02
  Anne Marie Chaker: I was kind of the grandma.
• 12:04
  Anne Marie Chaker: Now I think you know the influencers gym influencers, as they call them.
• 12:09
  Anne Marie Chaker: We're seeing a lot more women in the weight room, which is wonderful, and they know what they're doing.
• 12:13
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's impressive Like they go and they know what to do, they've watched the video and they go with friends and so forth.
• 12:20
  Anne Marie Chaker: So, and of course, glp-1s now again.
• 12:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: So there's different things going on and I think it's all kind of shaking out.
• 12:32
  Anne Marie Chaker: There was one, I don't know if you remember, in my book, a study of Miss Americas from, you know, 50 years ago to now, and it was this researcher who kind of noted that you know, we're starting to see more of a skinny, muscular ideal, which also isn't good, you know, because that's not healthy either and it's an ideal that's even more impossible to reach.
• 12:55
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I think there's a lot of mixed, confusing messages going on and I don't think the skinny thing is going away anytime soon, unfortunately.
• 13:05
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I think you talked about that on a recent Substack article.
• 13:08
  Philip Pape: Yes, a little like that for folks.
• 13:09
  Philip Pape: You've got a lot of really cool articles there, some cross-posted as well with other folks that you collaborate with, but that skinny, muscular I think you were talking about an actress in particular but it makes me think of, from the male perspective, how Fight Club became like a landmark for the new physique of super skinny, not even shredded and muscular, just kind of gaunt and skinny, right Like with the six pack, and why those things are so powerful and why they take control with these huge and so I always think I don't know what you think is that if you're different, if you're weird and you're the minority, you're probably doing the right thing in any given part of society.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: So if we're to elevate this for folks listening and, by the way, a lot of our listeners, they're into lifting, they want to know about this.
• 13:52
  Philip Pape: We're trying to get the message out about.
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: You know, if you want to lose fat, that's fine, but it's not about weight, it's not about scale weight, it's not about being skinny.
• 13:59
  Philip Pape: It's about fueling yourself and being healthy and performing yourself and being healthy and performing.
• 14:05
  Philip Pape: Who are your favorite athletes today that would exemplify that or to not put you on the spot, like you know what people should look for when they're trying to follow individuals on social media or podcasts or whatnot to get the right messaging into their feed.
• 14:16
  Anne Marie Chaker: Well, I don't know that this is revolutionary or anything, but I've been really taken with Alana Marr.
• 14:22
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think you know her Instagram is just a masterclass.
• 14:26
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think she works with her sister on it.
• 14:29
  Anne Marie Chaker: I could be wrong.
• 14:29
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's just like she's funny and she's brave and she talks about her.
• 14:36
  Anne Marie Chaker: I mean, her body is unbelievable, she's big and she's unabashedly strong and she talks about how she feels and she's honest, like sometimes like she feels not so good and like she worried, like it's just a very honest, funny and brave social media account and it represents kind of the best of what social media should be, which is just honest.
• 15:02
  Anne Marie Chaker: She's very body-powered, she's strong and she's proud of her strong body and she eats like there was one where she was biting into a donut the other day and she was just like I am enjoying a jelly-filled donut and it was just like.
• 15:18
  Anne Marie Chaker: It was just so funny and you just wanted to eat the donut with her and and hash it out.
• 15:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: But you know, trying to think of other athletes, that none come to mind.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: No, that's okay, and that's a lot of Mar with an eye right, a lot of Mar with an eye.
• 15:32
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, the Mar, yeah, olympic medal is um, definitely check her out.
• 15:35
  Philip Pape: I gave her a follow as well.
• 15:37
  Philip Pape: How about have you heard of Jessica Bittner?
• 15:39
  Anne Marie Chaker: That name rings a bell Canadian forklift.
• 15:42
  Philip Pape: She's a powerlifter in Canada, super, super strong.
• 15:45
  Philip Pape: So yeah, I was just curious, right, because I think you have a 14-year-old daughter, I have a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old, right, and they actually don't have cell phones yet.
• 15:56
  Anne Marie Chaker: No, neither do mine.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: They play with.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: And no judgment on anybody, I'm just saying like that kind of wholesale takes an element out of the equation.
• 16:03
  Philip Pape: But I am also, you know, concerned about that.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: Like, how do you get educated yourself when you're raising your, your children, your daughters, to, when they see that information, to have the right judgment on that and critical thinking skills around that?
• 16:17
  Philip Pape: Right, because we can't control everything.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: Once they grow up, they're going to be exposed to all that, so what do they do?
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: So that's just kind of where all this is coming from.
• 16:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's amazing what they absorb.
• 16:26
  Anne Marie Chaker: I haven't done much with TikTok but I was like this is what you guys are interested in and you're seeing these little gym video.
• 16:34
  Anne Marie Chaker: Let's do some together.
• 16:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: So we started just a couple of weeks ago I started taking little videos in the basement here where I keep my weights and stuff with mother-daughter nonsense workouts and stuff.
• 16:46
  Anne Marie Chaker: And it's funny, my little one who's 10, she said we were.
• 16:52
  Anne Marie Chaker: I was doing a bench press with her spotting behind me and we had the cell phone camera on and she goes all about the bulk and and I was just like where do you know this?
• 17:03
  Anne Marie Chaker: Like she's like like they pick up on stuff that they see on tiktok.
• 17:08
  Philip Pape: so anyway, well, it's funny you mentioned bulk.
• 17:10
  Philip Pape: Right, because the language we use is important too.
• 17:13
  Philip Pape: Right, because you hear still fears about bulking and getting big and being muscular and and or the other terms like being tone and being lean and all that.
• 17:21
  Philip Pape: It, or the other terms like being tone and being lean and all that.
• 17:22
  Philip Pape: It's like trying to define all that or dispel what it all means.
• 17:25
  Philip Pape: You're all about, from what I understand, you know, fueling yourself and performing, and so what I'm curious about being a bodybuilder 50 awesome, this is like you're.
• 17:35
  Philip Pape: You're still you're prepping for your first show, right?
• 17:37
  Anne Marie Chaker: No, no, I've done shows before.
• 17:39
  Anne Marie Chaker: This is.
• 17:39
  Anne Marie Chaker: I'm in prep for my first pro.
• 17:42
  Philip Pape: Pro show yeah, yeah, okay, awesome.
• 17:44
  Philip Pape: So what is that?
• 17:46
  Philip Pape: Obviously, bodybuilding itself does come with certain extremes.
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: We've talked about that on the show in terms of like, when you have to lean out ready for the show.
• 17:53
  Philip Pape: But in terms of the building and the improvement season, what does that look like for you?
• 17:57
  Philip Pape: What does the everyday person, who doesn't even want to compete, who's a woman?
• 18:04
  Philip Pape: What are the general principles they should be trying to incorporate when they go down this journey of strength and health?
• 18:07
  Anne Marie Chaker: Yeah, I would say it really reframed my feelings about food as something to like oh my God, avoid guilt as like something to embrace and to really eat more quantities of, like whole and plentiful food.
• 18:26
  Anne Marie Chaker: And that doesn't mean it's a great big free for all, and but I would say that I prepare my own food ahead of time to ensure that I'm eating really well.
• 18:40
  Anne Marie Chaker: And that sort of approach of preparing ahead of time and meal prep which is like a term you hear a lot now with social media, but prepping your food ahead of time has been the big game changer for me In the past.
• 18:57
  Anne Marie Chaker: I would eat when I got hungry, you know, and I would eat when I got hungry or I would come home from work and it was like, oh shit, there's nothing in the fridge.
• 19:05
  Anne Marie Chaker: Take out menus.
• 19:06
  Anne Marie Chaker: There was a, you know, it was always like feeding myself was like a last minute thing when I got hungry.
• 19:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then, of course, you're not going to make great choices, you're just kind of going to eat what's easy, quick or yummy.
• 19:16
  Anne Marie Chaker: Kind of going to eat what's easy, quick or yummy.
• 19:19
  Anne Marie Chaker: So now I have a much more I mean bodybuilders think in terms of macronutrients.
• 19:34
  Anne Marie Chaker: So that's how I categorize my food.
• 19:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think the big three are carbs, proteins and fats and basically I do like a big shop on Sunday.
• 19:40
  Anne Marie Chaker: I'm a big Aldi's shopper.
• 19:42
  Anne Marie Chaker: I love Aldi's.
• 19:43
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's cheap and it's quick and it's everything you need and it's no frills.
• 19:48
  Anne Marie Chaker: I save so much money shopping at Aldi's and, by the way, I'm not like an Aldi, I don't get any money from Aldi's.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: This episode is sponsored by Aldi.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: This is not a sponsored by Aldi.
• 19:57
  Philip Pape: Maybe I should reach out to them, I know.
• 20:00
  Anne Marie Chaker: But so anyway, sunday big shop at Aldi's.
• 20:03
  Anne Marie Chaker: Come home I always make a ginormous big green salad and that's like the thing I keep in the fridge and I pull from that all the time.
• 20:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: I make a pot of boiled potatoes, either sweet or white, it doesn't matter and or white rice I love white rice.
• 20:19
  Anne Marie Chaker: So those things are always like those are my ready to go carbs and then proteins I eat things that the rest of the crew will like also, so I'm not cooking meals forever.
• 20:32
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know different meals for everyone.
• 20:34
  Anne Marie Chaker: So grilled chicken I buy those chicken tenderloins, throw those on the grill those last a couple of days, everybody eats those.
• 20:40
  Anne Marie Chaker: I do something I always call a tenderloins throw those on the grill those last a couple of days, everybody eats those.
• 20:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: I do something I always call a turkey crumbles, which is a pack of 93% and 99% turkey mixed together with a pack of taco seasoning.
• 20:51
  Anne Marie Chaker: That's awesome.
• 20:52
  Anne Marie Chaker: I eat that on salad.
• 20:54
  Anne Marie Chaker: I eat that with potato, kids eat that with tacos.
• 20:57
  Anne Marie Chaker: That is gold.
• 20:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then liquid egg whites are like the mother's milk of bodybuilders that I consume that in a smoothie.
• 21:07
  Anne Marie Chaker: That is like gold for my mid-afternoon smoothie.
• 21:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: I usually combine that with some banana or berries, maybe a spoonful of peanut butter.
• 21:17
  Anne Marie Chaker: If I need fats banana, but liquid egg whites is always.
• 21:21
  Anne Marie Chaker: And yeah, like I eat pretty basic but it's good food and it's satiating and I like, really like protein.
• 21:30
  Anne Marie Chaker: I mean, I like meat.
• 21:32
  Philip Pape: Yeah, no, we're all about protein and carbs.
• 21:34
  Philip Pape: So I love, I would be hungry if I didn't just have lunch, so it sounds so good.
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: But I do want to give the audience some takeaways.
• 21:42
  Philip Pape: Right, because we talk about macros and tracking and all that.
• 21:44
  Philip Pape: But there are some simple things that you just mentioned that are timeless.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: They're principles, they're things that will make your decision fatigue way lower when you get to, you know, prepping your dinner for the kids and your family.
• 21:56
  Philip Pape: And you get home and you don't have much time, you don't go for the Chinese takeout, and that is, you know.
• 22:01
  Philip Pape: Two things you mentioned One doing things ahead of time, prepping ahead of time, reducing decision from the week.
• 22:06
  Philip Pape: And of course, that could be extrapolated to anything, to preparing what you're going to eat, to the grocery shopping you do on Sunday, to having a meal plan, whether it's a loose mix and match or more, you know, firm, depending on what your preference is Right.
• 22:19
  Philip Pape: And you mentioned very simple but like great choices for foods that are high in satiety, high in fiber.
• 22:26
  Philip Pape: Right, the potatoes, for example, are underrated, source of staying full.
• 22:30
  Philip Pape: People don't realize.
• 22:31
  Philip Pape: And then all the beautiful, the egg whites.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: Actually, that's another underrated thing because people talk about whey protein and that one is really good.
• 22:39
  Anne Marie Chaker: So underrated.
• 22:40
  Anne Marie Chaker: I mean you don't even need whey protein if you're using liquid egg whites.
• 22:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think a lot of people get grossed out by the idea of the egg and, like you know, I always get like don't you have to cook them and you don't, they're pasteurized so you can consume that, and like they're totally flavorless.
• 22:57
  Anne Marie Chaker: So once you get past the mental block of them being eggs, it's totally flavorless, it's fine.
• 23:04
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, great, and you can mix it in with whole eggs as well and increase the protein density.
• 23:08
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and you said one other thing about reframing around food, about it not being a big free-for-all, and it reminded me of I think I'm going to do a podcast about this Lyle McDonald wrote an article years ago called excluding the middle, and it's basically the false dichotomy where and this is big on social media right when it's like well, over here you've got the all pop tart diet and then over here you've got the all clean and like super boring bodybuilder diet and, like you said and you mentioned Ilana Mar eating the donut, there's room for it all.
• 23:37
  Philip Pape: Don't't.
• 23:37
  Philip Pape: Don't assume this false dichotomy.
• 23:39
  Philip Pape: But you have to have structure, you have to have planning.
• 23:41
  Philip Pape: Right is that?
• 23:42
  Philip Pape: Is that the message here?
• 23:43
  Anne Marie Chaker: absolutely, absolutely, and that's really kind of like.
• 23:47
  Anne Marie Chaker: That's continues to be like.
• 23:49
  Anne Marie Chaker: My challenge is, like you know, finding the.
• 23:53
  Anne Marie Chaker: I love the way actually you put it is the structure, having the structure as the backbone and allowing yourself a life.
• 24:01
  Anne Marie Chaker: But always kind of coming back to the backbone of um, right now, for instance, you know I'm in prep and I'm like weeks before competition, so I'm not, I'm really careful and um yeah, I'm really dialed in, but in the, when the competition season is over, I'm still tracking, you know, I'm still tracking macros and making sure I'm like hitting my protein and allowing myself, you know, I might have I don't like the term cheat days, because I feel like but it's yeah, but I, you know, go on a date night, allow myself a date night with my husband or drink wine and have like a wonderful meal, and that is totally awesome and cool.
• 24:43
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's not every night, because then it wouldn't be special, right.
• 24:46
  Anne Marie Chaker: But you know, a date night, or like, if I'm, you know my kid is having a birthday, like I'll enjoy birthday cake because it's birthday cake, it's my kid, it's life, you know so it's not like it's, it's not like it, just life, you know.
• 25:00
  Anne Marie Chaker: So, it's not like it's, it's not like it.
• 25:01
  Anne Marie Chaker: Just because you're a bodybuilder doesn't mean like you're negating everything, you know it's within a framework and allowing yourself, you know the times, to enjoy the special things which is important and very important, you know, and that's like, and they're special.
• 25:16
  Philip Pape: So yeah, and so I don't know how natural this segue will be, but because we're talking about bodybuilding and also mentioned your age, the natural question is okay, perimenopause, menopause, hormones hot topic today.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: We've touched on it on this show, talking about some of the chain acceleration and muscle mass, and obviously it's very different from one woman to the next as to how they're going to respond and whether HRT is in the mix and all this other stuff.
• 25:40
  Philip Pape: I think the listener wants to know that phase of life does it present certain challenges for some women that they need to work around with their lifestyle, with their training, with their food?
• 25:50
  Philip Pape: Because I know what a lot of women tell me is I'm trying to lose weight and I'm having trouble doing that, and it becomes a weight loss discussion as opposed to, maybe, a building or muscle discussion.
• 26:00
  Philip Pape: Where do you stand on all of that?
• 26:01
  Philip Pape: What should be the first focus for someone in that age range?
• 26:05
  Philip Pape: What are your thoughts on all of that?
• 26:07
  Philip Pape: The perimenopause, training, lifestyle, all of that?
• 26:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: Yeah, no, it hit me.
• 26:12
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know, I kind of had this idea of like menopause, like you know, like I don't know it was like for those people, like you know.
• 26:20
  Anne Marie Chaker: And so when I started feeling these symptoms I would say about a year ago, and I thought a hot flash was like oh Lord, I'm having, I'm hot.
• 26:33
  Anne Marie Chaker: No, it didn't feel that way to me at all.
• 26:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: It was like a prickly sensation and I thought I was having a panic attack, like that's what it felt like to me, like prickly, like anxiety.
• 26:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I didn't associate it at all with menopause.
• 26:47
  Anne Marie Chaker: But then it started happening with some frequency and I had this like really bizarre road rage incident with this other driver and which was very unlike me.
• 27:01
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I remember coming home and Googling road rage and menopause and it turns out rage is a thing.
• 27:08
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then I realized the prickly feelings and then I was having other symptoms and so, yes, menopause is real and I found some relief with I take an estrogen patch and that has helped a lot.
• 27:25
  Anne Marie Chaker: But it's funny, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about how, like certain phases in your life where you age more and like for men, it's like between I don't know, I don't remember, it was like between 43 and 44.
• 27:38
  Anne Marie Chaker: And like for women it was like between da, da, da, and it's just like I just feel like the last year has been like suddenly, like I have hit, kind of like I, I have aged more and I've felt it at the gym, like I feel like my body feels different, like I, you know, like I've aged, so I don't know.
• 28:01
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's kind of exciting this competition season because I'll see how things shake out.
• 28:03
  Anne Marie Chaker: Like you know, I no longer, like in the past I used to be really competitive against other people, like I used to really want to win and kick butt and you know, this time around I'm more interested in like myself, like I still want to win and do well, but I'm more interested in like how I'm going, still want to win and do well, but I'm more interested in like how I'm going to look compared to the last time I stepped on stage and kind of this is so no, but I'm feeling pretty good.
• 28:29
  Anne Marie Chaker: But it does feel like I will say 50 feels different than the last time I competed, which was I was 48, 48 and a half.
• 28:36
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I mean I like that.
• 28:38
  Philip Pape: It sounds like a very healthy perspective of competing with yourself, right?
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: Because one of the common questions I get is like how strong should I be for my age, or how big should my muscles be for my age, or how, whatever I'm like, the best standard is yourself, Like where were you last year or last month or what are you trying to improve in, and compare yourself to that.
• 28:55
  Philip Pape: But let's dig one level deeper though, in the whole menopause thing, because when I had Holly Baxter on the show and I asked her the very first question, like what are most women not doing or should do that they're not doing, she said just building muscle, like whether it's in a calorie surpluspost-menopause.
• 29:19
  Philip Pape: I mean really everybody.
• 29:20
  Philip Pape: As we age, we hit these age markers that you mentioned and things start to change as well, as we've had a certain lifestyle for like 20 years, 30 years.
• 29:28
  Philip Pape: That is, I guess, catching up to us, if you will Like.
• 29:31
  Philip Pape: Where should someone start?
• 29:32
  Philip Pape: Where should a woman listening here say, wow, Ann Maria, that's awesome what you're doing?
• 29:36
  Philip Pape: I don't think I'm going to be in a show next year, necessarily, but I want to get healthier.
• 29:39
  Philip Pape: What's the first step?
• 29:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 29:43
  Anne Marie Chaker: So a couple things.
• 29:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: You can decide whether you want to do this at home or join the gym.
• 29:50
  Anne Marie Chaker: My feeling is I like having both options.
• 29:54
  Anne Marie Chaker: It doesn't take a lot to have a couple things at home on days where you can't make it to the gym.
• 29:58
  Anne Marie Chaker: Go to a corner of your house.
• 29:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: If you have a couple pairs of dumbbells, maybe a band, you actually get a good workout done.
• 30:05
  Anne Marie Chaker: The beauty of the gym is it's like it's nice to get out, it's nice to see other people, you might make a couple friends, you know, and you have space to kind of spread out there's more stuff.
• 30:16
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I really enjoy going to a gym and kind of seeing the familiar faces and kind of high fiving my pals that I see there.
• 30:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: And benefit of gym too is if you join, like you'll get a freebie session or two with a personal trainer.
• 30:30
  Anne Marie Chaker: So really work them to give to, you know, push them, to give you kind of a plan to start but really like if you're doing some kind of weight training three times a week, give it 30 minutes three times a week.
• 30:45
  Anne Marie Chaker: I sort of feel like most people can do that.
• 30:47
  Anne Marie Chaker: And when I say 30 minutes, like you know, the other day somebody said oh yeah, it's 30 minutes.
• 30:52
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's like yes, but make it 30 minutes where you're not like looking at your phone or staring at the wall or thinking about something else, like really make it that like I'm going to give myself 30 minutes and I'm going to be out the door and here's, I'm going to do these three or four exercises, you know, three sets of 10, and like get it done.
• 31:12
  Anne Marie Chaker: But yeah, we're all guilty of, like you know, getting distracted or looking at our phone and wasting time, but, like you know, if you make it efficient, you're likelier to, you know, come back again and again and and stay on top of it.
• 31:25
  Philip Pape: I feel like uh, yeah, we're all about efficiency, because that that's one of the biggest excuses to consistency is the time and I like, how you mentioned, make it count.
• 31:34
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 31:34
  Philip Pape: I was listening to, I think Dr Mike is retell talking about training hard and people will say, well, I'm in the gym, you know seven days a week, bro, and you know I'm hitting, but of course they are on your phone.
• 31:44
  Philip Pape: You're doing maybe one set.
• 31:49
  Philip Pape: You know you're not training with relative.
• 31:50
  Philip Pape: You know you're at like five or six reps shy of failure.
• 31:51
  Philip Pape: You know you're not training hard.
• 31:52
  Philip Pape: But if you could, those 30 minutes, like you said, three or exercises which I look at your content and it's what I would expect for somebody who knows how to lift.
• 31:58
  Philip Pape: It's a lot of compound lifts and variations on those and a little bit of accessory work in there, because obviously you're a bodybuilder working on your physique.
• 32:05
  Philip Pape: What are those three to four exercises in general for a new lifter?
• 32:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I am a big fan of, I love the squat.
• 32:15
  Anne Marie Chaker: So having a barbell at home, I think is a good thing.
• 32:18
  Anne Marie Chaker: You can also do with just dumbbells.
• 32:21
  Anne Marie Chaker: But the squat, the deadlift, the chest press, you know, pull up, those are kind of like my meat and potatoes that I think of.
• 32:31
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then from there, you know, then you can talk about rows or other push exercises, pushups and you know kind of work from there.
• 32:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: But those really lead my workout.
• 32:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know the hip thrust, those lead the beginning of every one of my workouts and you know, from there the accessory work is really done at the end.
• 32:54
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense.
• 32:56
  Lisa: Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to give a big shout out to my nutrition coach, philip Pate.
• 33:00
  Lisa: With his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds.
• 33:03
  Lisa: He helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple longevity.
• 33:08
  Lisa: I want to be healthy, active and independent until the day I die.
• 33:11
  Lisa: He introduced me to this wonderful little app called Macro Factor.
• 33:14
  Lisa: I got that part of my nutrition figured out.
• 33:16
  Lisa: Along with that is the movement part of nutrition.
• 33:19
  Lisa: There's a plan to it and he really helped me with that.
• 33:22
  Lisa: The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in.
• 33:24
  Lisa: So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is and the easier it is to lose weight.
• 33:29
  Lisa: When it's presented to you like he presents it, it makes even more sense.
• 33:33
  Lisa: And the other thing that he had was a hunker guide and that really helped me.
• 33:37
  Lisa: So thank you, Villa.
• 33:40
  Philip Pape: I still hear a lot of people wanting to do the circuit YouTube workouts, and no judgment.
• 33:46
  Philip Pape: I mean there's specific trainers and workouts that are very effective, but there is a culture correct me if I'm wrong where, especially I see it with women they want to do these kind of follow along circuit style, not very much rest.
• 34:00
  Philip Pape: What are your thoughts on those types of workouts?
• 34:02
  Philip Pape: Can they be effective or not?
• 34:05
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think you know we've been conditioned to think of exercise as like cardio, right, that you have to like end it in a breathless state of like puddle of sweat and want to die in the middle of the floor.
• 34:19
  Anne Marie Chaker: And you know I none of my workouts looks like that.
• 34:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know I hit an eight on the scale of one to 10 of the RPE rate of perceived exertion.
• 34:31
  Anne Marie Chaker: The name of the game is to fatigue the muscle.
• 34:35
  Anne Marie Chaker: If you're fatiguing the muscle, then you're doing it right and you know your body, you know when you hit that point.
• 34:42
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know what an eight is on a scale from one to 10.
• 34:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then you know you keep doing that, you keep lifting heavy things and hitting that eight, and that's what you know.
• 34:54
  Anne Marie Chaker: I'm fatiguing, but in a good way, and I finish and I don't feel like I'm dead.
• 35:02
  Anne Marie Chaker: I feel like I've put in a good lift and I can move on with my day.
• 35:06
  Anne Marie Chaker: Good lift and I can move on with my day.
• 35:13
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then I am likely to do that again and again and again, consistently.
• 35:15
  Anne Marie Chaker: That's the thing.
• 35:16
  Anne Marie Chaker: None of my workouts is like kill yourself material.
• 35:17
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's like it's a good lift and I do it consistently and that's it.
• 35:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: That's not sexy, but that's what it is.
• 35:28
  Philip Pape: I mean you hit on at least three principles that are important.
• 35:31
  Philip Pape: One you mentioned the eight RPE over and over again, which for anybody who's thinking about that would realize and understand.
• 35:40
  Philip Pape: Strength.
• 35:41
  Philip Pape: That means you're actually going to get stronger over time because to be able to hit that eight the next time in the gym, you've adapted and you've gotten stronger.
• 35:47
  Philip Pape: Right, that's a great approach to training.
• 35:49
  Philip Pape: What I want to do is connect that to a little bit back to the history again, maybe over the last I don't know century or so, when we think of the culture of women in powerlifting, which was kind of non-existent until I don't know 60s, 70s, you tell me, I'm not sure when women powerlifters even existed.
• 36:07
  Philip Pape: Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
• 36:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: Women powerlifters.
• 36:12
  Anne Marie Chaker: So there's a chapter in the book where I looked at strong women over time, starting with kind of even the term strong women we looked like in the 1890s.
• 36:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: They were, you know, circus performers.
• 36:26
  Anne Marie Chaker: They were you, you know, they were anomalies.
• 36:29
  Anne Marie Chaker: They were almost like the bearded woman, like, oh, the woman with the muscles, who's like lifting the dumbbell, you know.
• 36:34
  Anne Marie Chaker: So there was that.
• 36:36
  Anne Marie Chaker: And then over time there were, like these flickerage moments of women athletes.
• 36:42
  Anne Marie Chaker: They're, you know, like the roller derby, you know it was this whole thing like the sport in the 1940s and 50s where, like, women were, you know, pushing and shoving each other around and they were, you know, on roller skates and they, you know, they were stars and people knew their names and they they were on television and you know, for whatever reason, that kind of fell out.
• 37:08
  Anne Marie Chaker: There was the queen of Muscle Beach, pudgy Stockton.
• 37:12
  Anne Marie Chaker: She was, you know, the first woman to wear a two-piece bathing suit and you know, she kind of like was the starlet in Hollywood of Muscle Beach and she was kind of the first female body.
• 37:25
  Anne Marie Chaker: So yeah, so, like over time.
• 37:27
  Anne Marie Chaker: Then what else did I write about?
• 37:30
  Anne Marie Chaker: The women of glow, the, the women wrestlers, and then the dawn of you know female bodybuilders around that time.
• 37:38
  Philip Pape: So yeah, yeah that show glows is good too if you haven't seen, it was great.
• 37:44
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I know, I was just wondering about that, you know, because again, we keep tying it back to culture and identity and I mentioned Jen Todd because she was just in the local newspaper, for some reason, talking about lifting the Dinnie Stones over in Scotland.
• 38:00
  Philip Pape: I hope I got that right and the identity and psychology thing is important, right, because here you are, you're a journalist.
• 38:07
  Philip Pape: Maybe we could talk about did you not lift?
• 38:10
  Philip Pape: Until when did you start lifting?
• 38:12
  Philip Pape: How old were you?
• 38:20
  Anne Marie Chaker: So it's funny growing up, the first time I really hit a weight room was when I rode crew in college for a time and that was the first time that, like the weight room had come and I loved it.
• 38:28
  Anne Marie Chaker: I loved it, I felt like very at home and comfortable in it and I could see changes happening in my physique and and then that just kind of disappeared.
• 38:38
  Anne Marie Chaker: Once I, you know, graduated from college, like started life, growing up, working, having a boss, paying off student loans, like that space in my life was gone and suddenly, like everything exercise related was about, like you know, losing weight and you know, or yoga or polite or things that, like I wasn't interested in.
• 38:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: So this was a different time.
• 39:01
  Anne Marie Chaker: But the weight room wasn't something that, like I come back to for decades.
• 39:07
  Anne Marie Chaker: So when I started with my coach again when I, you know, in my 40s, it just felt like this wonderful homecoming.
• 39:14
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's like, oh God, I remember this stuff and I did this stuff when I was in college and felt so good then.
• 39:20
  Anne Marie Chaker: So it was just kind of like this wonderful, like coming home to my body.
• 39:25
  Philip Pape: So then, how it sounds like the relationship with building the physical strength like changes your psychological relationship with a lot of things, like with aging, with your capability, with your function, like how powerful is that?
• 39:40
  Philip Pape: Because you're right, even people.
• 39:42
  Philip Pape: I wasn't into athletics as a young person, so I just kind of found it later in life.
• 39:46
  Philip Pape: But I equally see many, many dudes.
• 39:48
  Philip Pape: For example, who I know, a guy.
• 39:50
  Philip Pape: He was had interest from the Yankees for the major leagues when he was in college, you know, and he ended up being an engineer.
• 39:56
  Philip Pape: And you know, you look at them 10 years later you would have no clue, right, cause he just got into that world, he stopped lifting, he stopped being active, and so you kind of lose it.
• 40:04
  Philip Pape: How powerful is that, that connection?
• 40:09
  Anne Marie Chaker: that identity, especially for women.
• 40:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: Oh, it's everything.
• 40:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's everything.
• 40:12
  Anne Marie Chaker: It gives you a core sense of capability and confidence and feeling like you can take care of yourself.
• 40:19
  Anne Marie Chaker: And the wonderful thing is like, now that I'm a mom, I love that my daughters can see me doing this stuff in the basement and they don't think it's weird or anything.
• 40:31
  Anne Marie Chaker: And they've like started kind of picking up a dumbbell or whatever and like becoming interested in doing it with me.
• 40:37
  Anne Marie Chaker: And so, like you know, I'm not going to say they do a whole lot, they get bored very quickly but at least they're like you know, they're kind of like doing it with me and it's not weird for them, and enjoying like coursing around some weights and stuff with their mom, something I never got to do with my mom.
• 40:55
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it's not like they're having fun.
• 40:56
  Philip Pape: That's the important thing at that age, right yeah.
• 40:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: Yeah.
• 41:00
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah, and I think it's an underrated thing is why I ask Cause it's until you do it you don't realize it.
• 41:13
  Philip Pape: I mean men and women.
• 41:14
  Philip Pape: You know, for me, just the idea of doing this hard thing and getting better.
• 41:15
  Philip Pape: There's a lot of things we can't control in our life, right, but we can control the shaping our body and then I think it really does shape our mind.
• 41:19
  Philip Pape: So it's really powerful to hear what you've been through.
• 41:21
  Anne Marie Chaker: We're in our heads so much.
• 41:23
  Anne Marie Chaker: We're in here so much.
• 41:26
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's important, I think, to make yourself do something hard every day to push yourself physically to lift heavy things and put them down and do that and it's part of like what makes us tick, like what makes us go.
• 41:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: We shouldn't lose sight of that.
• 41:53
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's a healthy thing, building your strength.
• 41:56
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 41:56
  Philip Pape: So then, thinking about the societal relationship we started with and the history and kind of the phase we're in now, you know we've seen the explosions of, for example, CrossFit.
• 42:05
  Philip Pape: Crossfit started around 2010 to become really popular.
• 42:08
  Philip Pape: Then we have things like Orange Theory and Curves was around for a while.
• 42:12
  Philip Pape: Right, Remember that.
• 42:13
  Philip Pape: Are they still around?
• 42:13
  Philip Pape: I don't know.
• 42:14
  Philip Pape: I think, they're still around Bodybuilding right, which you exemplify and powerlifting.
• 42:20
  Philip Pape: So what's next?
• 42:22
  Philip Pape: What's happening next?
• 42:23
  Philip Pape: How do we get the message out?
• 42:24
  Philip Pape: I mean, is this just a matter of women following the right content and going to the gym and just seeing how they feel?
• 42:30
  Philip Pape: Like do you have a system, a process and approach that you'd recommend somebody you know do?
• 42:34
  Philip Pape: Or is it more on the food side first, like, what are your thoughts there?
• 42:37
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think they go hand in hand.
• 42:39
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think you know starting to think about things that you want to change.
• 42:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: So, on the food front, maybe it's like maybe you are snacking on you know your kid's lunchbox or maybe you're eating out too much, but find the one thing that you think you'd like to change and start there nutritionally For workouts.
• 43:03
  Anne Marie Chaker: I mean, I think you know starting with body weight is you know, if you have a body, you have a gym.
• 43:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: You don't necessarily need to be lifting dumbbells.
• 43:15
  Anne Marie Chaker: You can start light or start just getting used to the motion with your own body and starting in a corner house, picking three things Maybe one day it's an upper body, Maybe day two is a.
• 43:26
  Anne Marie Chaker: Chapter six of my book actually gives you a nice way to frame your week and think about picking exercises and what to do on each day of the week.
• 43:34
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I would, you know, recommend starting.
• 43:37
  Anne Marie Chaker: You don't have to know anything.
• 43:38
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I recommend starting there and think about joining a gym.
• 43:42
  Anne Marie Chaker: Pick a place that is within easy reach of your house that you're not going to be.
• 43:47
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know driving 15 minutes or more, but you know within.
• 43:51
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know 10, 15 minute drive and aim to go there.
• 43:55
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know, once or twice a week, maybe it's like, one day you do it at home, a couple of days you do it at this gym and just kind of like figure out your rhythm and see how that's working for you.
• 44:05
  Anne Marie Chaker: And I think, getting out of the house.
• 44:07
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think it's good to have a setup at home, but I think getting out of the house is really important.
• 44:11
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think it's great.
• 44:12
  Anne Marie Chaker: I like seeing new people, meeting people, exchanging words with people.
• 44:16
  Anne Marie Chaker: I think it's very healthy.
• 44:18
  Anne Marie Chaker: It's something that I really underestimated the power of community and you know needing each other.
• 44:24
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I think I'm a big believer that gyms and, you know, workout spaces and studios can, can fulfill some of that for us.
• 44:32
  Philip Pape: I mean, it makes sense, the number one, the number one factor for wellbeing is relationships right.
• 44:37
  Philip Pape: Is having having social network, and obviously you gave people a framework for a lot of flexibility here and some really good ideas, right, like maybe you start at home, you maybe have the gym, maybe mix, maybe mix them both.
• 44:48
  Philip Pape: Right, people don't often think out of the box like that, like I don't have to do it all at the gym, I don't have to do it all with weights.
• 44:53
  Philip Pape: I love your quote.
• 44:55
  Philip Pape: If you have a body, you have a gym.
• 45:03
  Philip Pape: Like no, there's no excuse.
• 45:05
  Philip Pape: But we're also not telling you like yeah, you know, you got to.
• 45:07
  Philip Pape: I love that, because one of the first things people when they ask me, like how should I train?
• 45:11
  Philip Pape: And I start to give them principles and they're like, okay, what do I do with that?
• 45:14
  Philip Pape: And it's like, okay, here's a simple program that'll get you started.
• 45:18
  Philip Pape: And then we can tie that back to the principles that Anne-Marie talked about today and training hard and putting your you know, putting effort into it and making it count.
• 45:26
  Philip Pape: Because why waste the time You're there to get some work done, Right, awesome, all right.
• 45:31
  Philip Pape: So really good things, really empowering.
• 45:33
  Philip Pape: Is there anything you wish I had asked that we didn't cover on this topic?
• 45:36
  Philip Pape: I'm sure there's a few things, but anything that comes to mind that you wanted to answer.
• 45:41
  Anne Marie Chaker: No, I mean, I would just for women in particular.
• 45:44
  Anne Marie Chaker: I would just, you know, don't underestimate your strength.
• 45:48
  Anne Marie Chaker: You, I would just you know, don't underestimate your strength.
• 45:54
  Anne Marie Chaker: You know you are an athlete, you have always been one.
• 45:55
  Anne Marie Chaker: Even if you think you're not, you're not, you are.
• 45:56
  Anne Marie Chaker: You multitask like nobody's business.
• 45:58
  Anne Marie Chaker: Our bodies are incredible.
• 45:59
  Anne Marie Chaker: We bring life into the world.
• 46:02
  Anne Marie Chaker: We live longer than men.
• 46:04
  Anne Marie Chaker: We are so strong stronger than men in a lot of ways that you know we didn't talk about, but that you mean like childbirth, that.
• 46:13
  Anne Marie Chaker: But also, you know, just like in this day and age, when we're obsessed with longevity, how interesting is it that since the dawn of time, across all cultures, women have lived longer than men?
• 46:25
  Anne Marie Chaker: We still don't understand really why.
• 46:28
  Anne Marie Chaker: And that's because, you know, we don't study women enough.
• 46:31
  Anne Marie Chaker: We tend to study men.
• 46:33
  Anne Marie Chaker: In terms of muscularity, you know women have different types of muscle fiber.
• 46:38
  Anne Marie Chaker: More of quick response.
• 46:41
  Philip Pape: Like power, explosiveness, yeah Right.
• 46:43
  Philip Pape: But women have more like endurance, yeah.
• 46:46
  Anne Marie Chaker: And we are able to withstand and endure more than men.
• 46:50
  Anne Marie Chaker: So I mean, just women are like, incredibly strong in ways that we don't give ourselves enough credit for.
• 46:58
  Anne Marie Chaker: So build and capitalize on that strength and stop trying to whittle yourself down.
• 47:03
  Anne Marie Chaker: Power yourself, build yourself, and you're so worth it.
• 47:09
  Philip Pape: You are, and I've seen I've been surprised myself how many women, when they lift and kind of show me their recoverability and their ability to push reps and volume, like there is a an edge that women have with recoverability and and which almost means like you might have to even work a little hard in the gym sometime, cause you can handle more, which is fascinating.
• 47:26
  Philip Pape: So you said you are an athlete and have always been one.
• 47:30
  Philip Pape: We're going to leave it at that.
• 47:31
  Philip Pape: That's a beautiful quote.
• 47:32
  Philip Pape: Where do you want listeners to learn more about you, anne-marie?
• 47:35
  Philip Pape: And you work besides a book, which I will definitely link in there as well as your sub stack, so I've already got you covered there.
• 47:40
  Anne Marie Chaker: Okay, my website is annemariechakercom and it's C-H-A-K-E-R-A-N-N-E, so A-N-N-E, mariechakercom, to learn more about who I am and what I'm doing and what I'm writing about.
• 47:55
  Philip Pape: Awesome.
• 47:55
  Philip Pape: We'll include that and all the other links in there.
• 47:58
  Philip Pape: Thank you again.
• 47:59
  Philip Pape: This is a fun topic.
• 47:59
  Philip Pape: I know we just barely scratched the surface.
• 48:01
  Philip Pape: You guys pick up her book if you want to learn a lot more nerd out on that, or check her out on other podcasts as well.
• 48:06
  Philip Pape: And, marie, thank you so much for taking your time and being on Wits and Weights.
• 48:10
  Anne Marie Chaker: Thank you, Philip.