Pro CrossFitter Kelsea Hellyar Reveals Why She Never Goes On A Diet - Exclusive

In a lot of ways, Kelsea Hellyar is just like any other fitness influencer you'll find on Instagram and TikTok. She's a professional CrossFit athlete. She creates and shares free workout videos. She works for a fitness gear brand, Constantly Varied Gear (CVG).

But Hellyar is also different from other fitfluencers in a few key ways. She doesn't believe that bodies have to look a certain way to be fit or that people should change their bodies in order to fit a certain aesthetic. She believes that fit, strong, and healthy bodies come in all different shapes and sizes. And Hellyar doesn't believe in dieting. In fact, she never diets, which is in sharp contrast with most of the fitfluencers out there who are constantly pushing some diet trend or weight loss product.

In an exclusive interview with Health Digest, Hellyar explained why she never diets, how she fuels her body for her intense workouts, and why she tells women they don't have to lose weight to get fit.

When Kelsea Hellyar went to her first CrossFit class, she noticed something different about the space. There weren't any mirrors anywhere in the box (the CrossFit term for a gym). She quickly learned that this wasn't a design choice. In fact, there aren't mirrors in any CrossFit boxes because the CrossFit philosophy focuses on how the body performs, not how it looks.

Hellyar discovered that though CrossFit was one of the most hardcore workout programs she'd ever done, it was also one of the most body-positive fitness communities she'd ever encountered.

"I love that it doesn't matter what your body looks like," she said. "The main goal isn't aesthetic. Strong, capable, and healthy bodies come in so many different shapes and sizes, and each one of them is valued in a CrossFit gym ... The weight on the bar doesn't care what I look like."

After consistently doing CrossFit's WODs (Workout of the Day), Hellyar also found that CrossFit gave her a confidence in her body that had nothing to do with how it looked. "I have developed a relationship with my body out of respect and admiration," she explained. "I don't look at it as a way just to look good, but [also to] admire the things it can do."

The confidence in and respect for her body that Kelsea Hellyar found, paired with CrossFit's focus on performance over aesthetics, led her to the realization that she needed to eat to fuel her body, not to change her body's shape or size.

"My nutrition supports the amount of work I am doing in the gym," Hellyar explained. "I eat a lot throughout the day and never limit the amount of food I consume. Proper fuel is really important. If my nutrition drops off or if I haven't had enough water, I feel it in my workouts."

Hellyar eats as much as she needs to for her body to perform, which is a lot more calories than many people in the fitness industry recommend. That's one of the reasons that Hellyar is so vocal about not dieting — to combat the "harmful language around diet culture and all the misinformation in the fitness industry."

She wants people to know that being fit isn't about counting calories or following a specific diet or making your body look a certain way. It's about seeing what your body is capable of and appreciating it for what it can do.

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