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A Physical Education

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What to expect

From the most visible woman writing about weightlifting today, a "profoundly engrossing" 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 (Elizabeth Greenwood).

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, exercise, and codependency. As she progresses on her weightlifting journey, she begins to eat to fuel her growing strength—and her food cravings vanish. Her physical progress fuels a growing understanding of how mainstream messaging she received about women’s bodies was about preserving the status quo. Previously convinced that physical improvement was a matter of suffering, she now knows it requires self-regard and patience. 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 and are looking to come home to ourselves. 

Critics Review

“This book performs power from the inside out. It reminds us: when we turn away from the cultural messages that we must be young, beautiful, and thin—false fictions that ask us to destroy ourselves—we might learn to turn toward hundreds of other forms of beauty, erotic power, senses of self. Where Casey Johnston takes her body, there is joy, release, revelation.”—Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water and Reading the Waves
“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

“A thought-provoking memoir about falling in love with weightlifting—and, perhaps more importantly, learning how to unapologetically take up space in the world.” 

—Bonnie Tsui, author of Why We Swim and On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters
“I can't stop talking about this book. A Physical Education is for every woman who ever dieted, looked at herself in the mirror and hated her stomach, or cried when she stepped on the scale, which is to say: every woman. This book is both a rallying cry and a testament to what happens when a woman finds her strength. Read this book and get free.”
 —Lyz Lenz, author of New York Times bestseller This American Ex-Wife
Author Casey Johnston
Narrator Casey Johnston
Duration 7 hours and 22 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781668648490
Format Audiobook
Publisher Hachette Audio
Genre Feminism and feminist theory, Memoirs
Availability US

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