Casey Johnston grew up in a family where being thin mattered. In college, the internet told her to eat 1,200 calories and do endless cardio if she wanted to lose weight. That habit followed her into her late twenties, until she came upon a Reddit post about weightlifting that changed her relationship to her body and just about everything else.

Casey Johnston is the author of Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting, and she writes the substack, She’s a Beast.

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The Internet Taught Me to Diet, Then Saved Me With Weightlifting

Death, Sex & Money