Sunshine Coast woman Kelly Greenslade’s bodybuilding success story

A teen mum who had experienced a cheating partner and subsequent yo-yoing on the scales had a tough life-turning moment which set her on a path to bodybuilding fame and a new business.

A teen mum who experienced infidelity in her first partnership and subsequently yo-yoed in weight has overcome several challenges to achieve great things in a bodybuilding world titles.

Kelly Greenslade, 41, achieved a number three in the world at the WNBF World Titles for bodybuilding last year and is sharing her story in the hopes it will inspire other women.

Ms Greenslade fell pregnant with her first child when she was 18 and 10 months later had her second at 19.

Before having kids, she said she was always skinny and fit but after the two pregnancies close together, she put weight on.

When her youngest was one, her partner at the time cheated on her.
“I had two kids under two and was now a single mum,” Ms Greenslade said.

In that difficult time, she went from overweight to very underweight in a short space of time, but she said she put the weight back on again in her relationship with her now husband.

Kelly Greenslade at the beginning of her fitness journey.

“I tried heaps of diets and different exercise and would always swing up and down in weight, losing 10 kilograms, then putting 12 back on, losing eight kilograms then putting 10 back on,” she said.

Her story of transformation really starts in August 2017, when she was about 80kg.

“I was 35 and had never seen snow before in my life, so we booked a family holiday which was supposed to be an amazing experience,” she said.

Ms Greenslade got snowboarding lessons with her kids where part of the instructions was to grab the edge of the snowboard to be able to rock yourself up.

“Every time I tried to do this, the new snow pants I bought popped open, I couldn’t reach the bottom of the board properly and I literally sat there crying at the bottom of the hill in the snow,” she said.

That was her defining moment.

Kelly Greenslade as she began to lose weight and tone up.

“I tried to lose the weight the only way I knew how, joined back up at the gym, put myself on 1200 calories and did I don’t know how many group fitness classes a week,” Ms Greenslade said.

As the new year rolled in, she decided she needed help from a personal trainer.

The family didn’t want to spend too much money, so she gave herself a time limit of six months to learn what she could from a PT.

One of her gym’s personal trainers was a strength coach who trained athletes that competed in bodybuilding.

“These women were amazing and his clients would lose weight and not seem to put it back on,” she said.

Kelly Greenslade during a bodybuilding competition.

When Ms Greenslade first spoke to him, she didn’t want to do “all that bodybuilding stuff”.

Then she started to plateau and her trainer suggested she share her story at the upcoming 2019 Transformation show at the Fitness Expo in Brisbane.

“It lit a new fire for me. I lost more weight and started training harder than I thought was even possible,” she said.

When she got off the stage, she wanted to give bodybuilding a go.

Kelly Greenslade during another competition.

“I was so lit up by my own transformation, the fact I was still able to eat food, more than I ever imagined, and lose weight, plus feel like an absolute BOSS lifting weights that I decided to become a PT and sports nutritionist myself,” she said.

While starting her studies, Ms Greenslade also prepared to compete for the first time in the sports division in 2020.

That same year, she completed her studies and officially opened up her business and she had her first bodybuilding season as a sports model, netting medals and trophies.

Kelly Greenslade Bodybuilding

Just after this season she quit her full-time job and started to coach full time.

“This season, my barbell hip thrusting 25kg is long gone, we are now doing 180kg comfortably. My dead lifts went from 40kg to now 130kg. I was so addicted to how fascinating our bodies and minds are,” she said.

In 2024, her debut season for Figure, which she said was one of the harder and more demanding categories in bodybuilding for women, netted her multiple awards including first in figure novice at the ICN Australian Titles, second in figure opens for the ICN Sunshine Coast show and NBA Nationals and third in Fit Body Masters in the WNBF Nationals.

She even represented Australia on the world stage for the WNBF World Titles in Boston USA.

Kelly Greenslade Bodybuilding

Ms Greenslade is “super passionate” about disrupting the “norm” when it comes to what women should look like and how they should eat and train.

“There are so many important benefits to women getting stronger and healthier. It is really hard to gain muscle naturally, not every women would look like this, and I understand it’s not a look everyone wants,” she said.

However, she said to get the body most women are seeking, it takes a lot more food and harder training than people think.

“The only way that I lost the weight go the body I wanted and keep it is completely relearning about my nutrition.”

“My business motto is ‘f--- the scales’, I am 100 per cent here to empower women, help them find their shine again, help them find who they are and to be unapologetically and authentically themselves.”