Women In Wellness: Krysta Huber of The Fitness FYX On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Unplug. If you’re like me and get wrapped up in your work or a social media scroll, take advantage of the Sleep Timer and Do Not Disturb functions on your phone. It’s a lot easier to put your phone down when you’re not being bombarded with notifications. Bonus — you’ll win some time back that you probably thought you didn’t have which could mean more time for movement, meal prep, reading… and more.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Krysta Huber.
Krysta Huber is a certified nutrition coach, personal trainer, and group fitness instructor. Her unique coaching program, The Fitness FYX, blends nutrition, fitness, mindset, and stress management into one holistic approach. Krysta specializes in helping group-fitness lovers lose weight without tons of cardio, hours in the kitchen, or passing up on the foods they love most. Krysta hosts a weekly wellness podcast, called The FYX with Krysta Huber, where she focuses on nutrition tips, goal setting, and a healthy mindset.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I found my way into the health and wellness industry in college, although at the time I honestly never thought I’d pursue it full-time. I studied journalism and my 18-year-old self was dead set on becoming a business journalist. After a few internships in newsrooms and in finance, I ultimately landed in finance right after college. It didn’t take long to figure out that I couldn’t sit still behind a desk. Less than two years later, I ditched my business professional attire for athleisure and sneakers. I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time, where I went on to help open and grow a franchise boutique fitness studio. In that first full-time fitness role, I started 1:1 nutrition coaching. It was only a small component of that position, but the more I focused on my own nutrition, the more I recognized what an important — and frankly overlooked — component of wellness it was and continues to be for the majority of people today.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
That first full-time fitness job was my first experience in working for a startup and there are countless lessons I learned from that role. The biggest? Knowing my worth. A little over a year into helping build and grow that studio, the leadership team presented me with a pay cut. I spent several months contemplating whether I had made a “mistake” in making the leap into fitness full-time and seriously considered going back into finance and Corporate America. I wound up quitting without a firm backup plan and the timing was only a few short months prior to the start of the pandemic — there was no predicting that the fitness industry, economy, and our lives were about to change dramatically. The decision to walk away from that position was the best thing to ever happen to me because it pushed me to get really clear about what I wanted to accomplish with my career, and how I hoped to make an impact on my clients’ lives.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
While this might sound like a cliché answer, but I’m not a big believer of mistakes. I don’t remember exactly where I heard this from — probably another podcast — but it’s an expression about mistakes that has stuck with me: “A mistake is a mistake only if you make it twice.” Life is really an accumulation of experiences that we’re constantly learning from — as long as we choose to look at it that way.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
When it comes to nutrition, my number one goal is to help people understand HOW to eat — not simply WHAT to eat. Diet culture (especially among women) has just completely confused and manipulated people into believing that certain foods are “good” and others are “bad.” Whether you work with me 1:1 or simply interact with my content, my hope is that your mindset around food shifts to a place of abundance versus restriction. Nothing happens in a vacuum — what we choose to eat is all relative.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
- Keep it simple: short-term fixes with 30 different rules on what you can and can’t eat are just calorie restrictions in disguise. Don’t love to cook? Start with protein options that are already prepped and ready to eat, like a rotisserie chicken. It’s one less thing for you to need to prepare.
- Consider habit stacking: James Clear’s Atomic Habits is probably my most recommended book among clients. If you want to start a journaling routine, for example, but feel like you can’t commit to it consistently, consider scheduling it before activities you do regularly — when you make your morning coffee, keep your journal nearby. Don’t pour your coffee until you’ve opened your journal.
- Start small: A lot of new or potential clients come to me with goals and plans that are a complete 360 from their current lifestyles. Let’s look for the lowest hanging fruit: What are the easiest changes we can make, first? Let’s guarantee our success.
- In a workout rut? Get started with something you actually look forward to whether that’s because it’s a new routine, a different environment like a new gym or a new class.
- Unplug. If you’re like me and get wrapped up in your work or a social media scroll, take advantage of the Sleep Timer and Do Not Disturb functions on your phone. It’s a lot easier to put your phone down when you’re not being bombarded with notifications. Bonus — you’ll win some time back that you probably thought you didn’t have which could mean more time for movement, meal prep, reading… and more.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I like to think that my work as a podcaster is already contributing to my overall goal of spreading credible information on health and wellness to as many listeners as possible. More specifically though, when it comes to nutrition, I strongly believe that we need to educate children on nutrition in a much more practical way, starting at a much younger age. I’ve recently started working with a handful of high school athletes to improve their performance through proper nutrition: our conversations have confirmed just how important it is for parents, teachers, educators, social media influencers, etc. to equip kids with actual tools and resources to understand HOW to eat, not simply WHAT to eat. I’d love to see a shift in school health courses away from outdated government guidelines toward hands-on application.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- The world isn’t designed for fat loss — and for that reason, when you have a physical transformation goal, ask for help. There are professionals who genuinely care about their clients, and are committed to sharing smarter tools to reaching your goals.
- Planning makes your life easier: Want to buy a house? Making a budget and reviewing expenses are steps we can all agree are worth taking. For some reason, when it comes to exercise and nutrition, similar approaches are met with excuses. Take these same principles and apply them to your health and wellness.
- Be clear with your boundaries: You are in control of your own happiness and that starts with your non-negotiables. We spend too much time looking externally for what makes us happy — it’s time to really trust your gut.
- Every “yes” is a “no” to another opportunity.
- Growth is uncomfortable and our brains are quite literally wired to prefer what’s familiar: it’s easy to think about this in the context of changing career paths or moving to a new city, but the same can be said for nutrition. What worked for you four years ago probably won’t work for you now — and that’s okay, as long as you’re willing to meet new options with an open mind.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Mental health is extremely important to me — as someone who has lived with seasons of depression and anxiety, I’m committed to being open about my experiences. It’s refreshing and reassuring that mental health is such a big topic because it takes talking about it to normalize it. And in talking about it, we’re all collectively empowering one another to share the resources that have helped us restore and prioritize our mental wellness. Personally, I’ve found support and guidance through therapy, journaling, and a number of books.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
Check out my podcast, The FYX with Krysta Huber, on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to your podcasts. Send me a DM on Instagram @thekrystahuber or @thefyx.officialpod — I’d love to hear from you! For more information on my 1:1 nutrition coaching program or to book a complimentary consult, please visit: www.thefitnessfyx.com.
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Women In Wellness: Krysta Huber of The Fitness FYX On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.