Mitchelle Adagala is a Kenyan certified personal trainer with over 7 years experience who is inspiring and motivating her over 50,000 dedicated followers to staying fit and healthy.
She not only shares fitness and workout tips online but also works with clients directly to create a personalized workout and diet plans to help them with their journey.
Looking for pointers on how to stay fit in 2020? The Sauce had an insightful and informative chat with Mitchelle Adagala on dieting, how to avoid giving up on your fitness plans and her own journey.
What prompted you to start your fitness journey?
My mother used to go to the gym and she prompted me to join her for a weight lifting session, which was pretty much the beginning of my obsession with the weights. I started mostly out of inspiration which I got from watching my mum exercising from a very young age. I also started just out of the mere fact that I wanted to challenge myself, see what my body is capable of and take my health and wellbeing to the next level.
What’s your advice to someone who wants to start working out?
Get to work with a fitness professional, which in this case would be a certified personal trainer. This ensures that you are going about your training safely, in the most efficient and effective way possible. Saves you a lot of time as well, as a beginner who may not know how to get around the gym and utilize equipment as needed.
Secondly, working with a certified nutritionist or registered dietician should get you on track in regards to your nutrition. The best thing about working with fitness professionals is that we ensure our clients’ programs are customized and individualized according to their specific needs, which then guarantees results. You can never go wrong with investing in your health!
Diet is a major contributing factor to staying fit. What are some of the food items you suggest cutting out and some you suggest adding more of when one is starting out?
Nutrition is the foundation of a successful fitness journey indeed, whether you are trying to gain, lose or maintain your current weight, it is all dictated by your nutrition and supplemented by the workouts you do. However, instead of cutting out foods and replacing them with “healthier” options, it would be more beneficial to you as an individual if you got to expound your knowledge on nutrition in regards to how many calories you need to consume per day, be well acquainted with the macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) and how you can track them in order for them to fit in your daily calories, be well aware of the foundations of nutrition and learn how to eat in order to nourish, fuel, build and replenish your body for optimal functioning. However when starting out, you would want to reduce your processed sugar intake eg. from cookies, soft drinks, ice-cream, reduce your trans-fat intake (which is worse than cholesterol) eg. from bacon, sausages, and you’d want to increase your water intake to at least hit the daily recommendation of 2 litres per day. You would want to add on some more volume foods eg. broccoli, green leafy vegetables, which keep you fuller for longer.
Also add on some complex carbohydrates like oatmeal, brown rice and sweet potatoes into your meals. Getting a certified nutritionist or a registered dietician to draft you a customized, individualized meal guide would be of great help.
What tips do you have for people who usually give up after a few weeks of going to the gym?
Reevaluate your “why”. Why are you working out? What is your sole purpose for being at the gym? After answering that question, ask yourself whether your future self will be happy or would benefit from the decision you are making at the moment.
Secondly, its always best to cultivate discipline and consistency as soon as you start hitting the gym, other than a feeling which comes and goes like motivation, to get you up and moving. Discipline over motivation, mind over matter always. Setting short term and long term goals is always beneficial as well because its a constant reminder of where you would like to go. A short term goal could be along the lines of: ” I want to lose 5 kg within the next 8 weeks.” whereby a long term goal could be: “I want to improve my blood pressure levels through exercise within the coming 12 months.” or ” I want to increase my bone density through weight lifting over 5 years, so I can decrease my chances of getting osteoporosis when I get older.” Always think long term and how your choices right now will benefit your future self.
Do you have anyone you admire in the fitness world or aspire to?
Honestly speaking, I can’t say I aspire to be like anyone. I do draw inspiration from several people within the larger fitness community for sure, but I cannot say I want to be like so and so. It has never occurred to me. Often times I am so internally focused, I often aspire to be better than I was the week before, last month, last year, yesterday, in terms of my performance, my knowledge, my mindset, my physique, amongst many other things. I am my own pacemaker.
What’s been the most fulfilling thing about what you do?
Changing and transforming lives, mindsets, habits, attributes and health statuses for the better. Working one on one with my clients has been the highlight of what I do so far. Being able to see them smile and be happy about meeting their fitness and wellness goals have been so fulfilling, yet I am just getting started. Being able to have an online presence whereby I can pass on my knowledge to the larger collective has also been fulfilling because it is through the sharing of informative information that we get better each day.
Do you have any goals for 2020 in terms of staying fit; either for yourself or your clients?
This year marks my 7th year when it comes to training (weight lifting) and I at this point I am training mostly for my long-term health and continue working towards being the best version of myself, given that fitness is a lifestyle for me. So that means training 5 days a week, alongside training my clients as we continue to strive to get better and thrive on a daily basis, not only physically, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically and spiritually too. The goal is to make fitness a lifestyle, not necessarily or always about what you would selfishly want to see in a mirror.
Under Mitchelle’s platform Thrive Fitness, she has managed to change lives. As one of the most trusted online coaches we have locally, she is the perfect example of someone who has managed to transform her life, the lives of others and has built a viable business platform all through digital networks.
The online coaching business in the United States was projected to be worth $9 billion in 2018 by Ibis World market research. We don’t have a report yet on the market in Kenya, but with rising health concerns, it’s highly likely the market value for fitness trainers, aided by digital platforms is likely to go up.
