Training on Empty is the true-life story of Lize Brittin. Heavy as a child and raised in an emotionally tempestuous alcoholic home, Lize developed anorexia when she was thirteen, and soon afterward took up distance running to help ease the pain of her social and family isolation. Her high-school coach encouraged her to pursue not only cross-country and track during the school year, but also road racing and mountain running in the off-season. By the time she was 15, she was a world-class athlete despite struggling with her ever-worsening eating disorder.

Lize's parents, desperate to save their youngest child from wasting away altogether, tried all manner of interventions, none of them successful. Eventually, Lize became so sick that she suffered seizures and nearly died one night despite being in a hospital surrounded by doctors. But survive she did, and inspired by a number of people who entered her life at this critical time, Lize began a long, slow recovery that eventually led her to find a reservoir of inner strength she never knew she possessed. Though the ravages of anorexia have taken a toll on her body, Lize is currently healthy and leading a happier life in her hometown of Boulder, Colorado, where she has spoken in print, in person and on the radio about her experiences batting her illness in the hope of reaching young women who are wandering down the dangerous path Lize herself once trod.