Elite CrossFit athlete Dani Speegle says you should stop avoiding food if you want to get strong

• Elite athlete Dani Speegle said she's learned to enjoy foods she loves to fuel her strength.
• As a young athlete, she struggled with pressure to lose weight, and stigma around strong women.

If you want to build muscle and get strong, you need to pay less attention to the scale and give yourself more room to eat foods you love, according to elite CrossFit athlete Dani Speegle.

Speegle, a four-time CrossFit Games athlete, earned two event wins last year by lifting a 250 pound sandbag onto her shoulder, and a 215-pound log over her head — and said she didn't get there by cutting out carbs or skimping on calories.

"You're not going to put one-and-a-half times your body weight over your head if you live off salad and you're starving yourself," Speegle told Insider during an interview about her partnership with TYR Sport.

She said she fuels her training with a balanced diet including foods she loves like cookies and pizza, and hopes to empower other women to do the same with her "Girls Who Eat" campaign.

"A lot of women for a very long time have been scared to eat and are so concerned with the number on the scale," she said. "I want them to learn to fuel their body for health and performance over an unobtainable aesthetic."

"If you want to be strong, you have to eat"

Speegle has already made a name for herself on social media by showing you can work hard in the gym and still enjoy a treat. An image of Speegle from the 2022 Games livestream went viral among CrossFit fans, and shows her gleefully chowing down on a piece of pizza, watching as a fellow athlete proposed to his girlfriend during the awards ceremony ("I was so in the moment. It was like reality TV," she said of the shot).

However, building a healthy relationship with food takes time, and Speegle said she struggled with body image and pressure to conform to unrealistic ideals of thinness.

She grew up competing in gymnastics, where her muscle and power helped her excel at vault and floor, but she said the pressure to lose weight was intense.

"One of my core memories as a young athlete was I got pulled into the office at the gym, when I was 11 years old, and told I needed to lose 15 pounds to be at an elite level," she said. "At that age, I was like 'well, they're the adults, I guess they must be right.' I didn't have any role models to look at in being strong and healthy."

Since then, she said she's learned that it's crucial to eat enough to build muscle and strength, and maintain it for peak performance (although Speegle said her great genetics and natural muscle mass help, too).

Now she's working to make sure women, especially young athletes, know that they can prioritize strength and health over weight loss.

"So many young girls get into those situations and just take it because they don't know better. I want them to know better. I wish I would have known better," Speegle said.

She also wants to get rid of the stigma around being strong, including the myth that weightlifting makes women "bulky."

Ultimately, Speegle said her goal is to shift the conversation away from women's bodies entirely, freeing up time to focus on accomplishments instead.

A flexible approach can help you enjoy food and meet your fitness goals

Over-analyzing food choices or agonizing over calorie counts can be counterproductive, since food is not only crucial to fueling your body, but also something you should enjoy, according to Speegle.

"My thing is, just be in the moment. Just eat the cookie," she said. "Thinking you have to completely cut everything out, that's not living."

She said her approach to eating is to listen to her body and focus on what she needs to recover, following a generally nutritious plan with plenty of treats like Friday night pizza and "Wing Wednesday" with her friends.

While she stays conscious of macros like protein, fat, and carbs, Speegle said she doesn't let it rule her life, and doesn't stress if an indulgent day or two falls outside of her plan.

"You're not going to be on your deathbed wishing you hadn't eaten those Oreos," Speegle said. "But you might think 'I wish I hadn't wasted 10 or 15 years of my life worrying what people would think of me if I ate that.'"