A Physical Education

How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting

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By Casey Johnston

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$14.99

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$19.99 CAD

From the most visible woman writing about weightlifting today, a memoir and manifesto about how lifting helped dissolve her allegiance to diet culture; taught her to be at home in her body; and led her to grow every kind of strength.

In A Physical Education, Casey Johnston recounts how she ventured into the brave new world of weightlifting, leaving behind years of restrictive eating and endless cardio. Woven through the trajectory of how she rebuilt her strength and confidence is a staggering exposé of the damaging doctrine spread by diet and fitness culture. 

Johnston's story dives deep into her own past relationships with calorie restriction, cardio, and codependency. As she progresses on her weightlifting journey, carrying groceries and closing heavy doors become easier. She eats to fuel her growing strength, and her cravings vanish. Her physical progress fuels a growing understanding: how mainstream messaging she received about women’s bodies was always less about transformation and more about preserving the status quo. Having previously been convinced that physical improvement was a matter of suffering, now she learns it requires self-regard, and patience. Ultimately, she is dazzled by what a little pushing at a time adds up to: the reawakening of parts of herself she didn’t even know were there.

A Physical Education asks why so many of us spend our lives trying to “get healthy” by actively making our bodies weaker. Casey Johnston is a voice for those of us who feel underdeveloped and unfulfilled in our bodies, for all of us looking to come home to ourselves. 

  • “A Physical Education is a profoundly engrossing journey of how one woman stepped into her power, literally and metaphorically. Casey Johnston is our Virgil through the weightroom, seamlessly blending memoir, history, and science. In lucid prose, Johnston shows how strength training is an exit ramp off the hamster wheel of diet culture and antidote to the shame and isolation so many women experience. Full of heart and humor, this book made me want to get stronger.” 
     
    Elizabeth Greenwood, author of Playing Dead and Love Lockdown

On Sale
May 6, 2025
Page Count
320 pages
ISBN-13
9781538773277

Casey Johnston

About the Author

Casey Johnston is an American writer, editor, and fitness influencer. She has written the fitness advice column “Ask a Swole Woman” since 2016 for The Hairpin, SELF, and VICE and a newsletter about weightlifting, She’s a Beast, since 2021.

Learn more about this author