Body image and fitness are hot topics for both men and women. is not a how-to guide but rather a fitness memoir in which Charlotte Hilton Andersen sifts through the morass of contradictory claims and information in todays health- and fitness-obsessed world. Andersen tries a new workout each month for a year in an attempt to discover what works, what doesn't, and whats just plain weird. She delves into such subjects as the Action Hero Workout, Cross Fit Training, Going Vegan, Double Cardio, and others. Interspersed between the chapters on the monthly experiments, Andersen offers personal essays on everything from her past experiences with eating disorders to testing the ugliest fitness shoes on the planet to lesson about, as she puts it "what Ive learned from being a girl in our body-obsessed culture." She writes candidly about her history of anorexia, orthorexia, and "general-low-self-esteem-exia," including anecdotes about the effects of the health craze on her students, friends, and gym buddies.