Mantahaa – A former banker and currently a lifestyle coach, spoke to us on various aspects of her field, let’s see what she had to say…
1) You are known as a cooper certified trainer and accomplished motivator however there are numerous people operating in this market are they all certified ?
Not all working in the industry are certified and this is the problem that I have because there is not a central authority that covers fitness trends or fitness trainers in this country. What happens is that everyone, any Tom Dick and Harry who watches YouTube channels or subscribes to P90x or Insanity Workouts can go there and call himself a fitness trainer. Now the problem with this is that it’s very easy to build your own self, to transform your own body, because you can dedicate 4-6 hours a day and be the person you want to be body-wise, eat what you want for those 4-5 hours. It’s discipline. Yes I understand that, but it is even tougher to train other people because you have to know anatomy, you have to know their problems, you need to know how to modify these exercises. So it’s difficult to be a coach and it is quite different from being an athlete yourself, so a lot of people get confused between someone who has a good body, “oh he has a good body he’s a good trainer.” No, not all that have good bodies are good trainers.
2) How much time do you think it takes to turn one’s lifestyle around and what does it involve ?
It depends on the personal-self and the levels of commitment they have towards their goal. That’s the question that I always ask them, to ask not only their fitness goals but also their nutrition goals. So if they are at level 8 out of 10 then I’m going to get them into a lifestyle change of 3 months. If they are level of 5 out of 10 then if you have a trainer like me then I’ll get you again in the same time duration of 3 months but it will take me a lot of one on one appointments with you to do that. But on an average it will take you about 4/5 months to get you into a lifestyle change.
3) Mantahaa is known for providing a 360 degree service to their clients could you tell us a bit about that?
When I say I am known to provide a 360 degree programme for all of my clients I provide them everything under one roof,it’s a one stop shop that they come to me for. I provide them with flexibility I provide them with strength, resistance training, isolatory training. And also the nutrition needs I’m taking care of that. If I give them diet plans if diet plans are not sufficient I deliver meals to their homes. I have a nutritionist supervised food line nobody has a nutritionist supervised food line, it’s called Nudefood. Everything from carbohydrates to proteins and fats is calibrated, counted and weighted and mentioned at the back. I am a licenced nutritionist and I have been approved by MTA to make these nutritionals so I do not go online and copy and paste. So that is why this is the 360 degree changes you.
4) What is the best fitness advice you got yourself and from whom?
The best fitness advice that I have received is from Dr. Cooper and he told me that he gave me a lot of confidence because I was only round female over there and the first south Asian female to be certified by the cooper institute. I was feeling very conscious among the big African American athletes. The whites and Russians are known to run marathons and he gave me confidence by telling me I am very creative in my workouts and creativity is as important as science and anatomy because that is what would keep the clients consistent with his workouts and that would help me keep my client to myself and I have to keep my fitness level up to a 9 out of 10 in order for me to help my clients.
5) Do you think lifestyle and fitness is an emerging market in Pakistan and is it because of more awareness that this is happening now?
I think that slowly people are getting aware of how important health is because people are realizing the value of the physical quotient. Instead of wasting their money off at hospitals, they can live a healthy life and use that money to go on a nice vacation to Hawai. So now we can see where our happiness lies that is in how super a healthy our life is.
6) If you would pick one form of exercise what would that be and why ?
My favourite form of exercise is bar to be honest because it includes everything. It includes resistance, it includes strength and it’s not very tough on your joints and on your back. It’s a beautiful exercise for women who want to get lean, especially for the female marketand yes bar and yoga are connected.
7) What is your daily regimen like does motivating others take a lot out of you or is it something you take in your stride ?
Yes, it does. It’s very easy to say that a trainer stands over there to be instructing, they have the best job in the world. Well no it’s a lot of tension and exhaustion. You have to be a control freak basically all the time. You have to be on your guard, make sure none of them are squatting with their knees extending, their ankles when they’re lunging they’re in a straight line and legs are straight or at a 90 degree depending on what kind of lunges their doing. If anyone has a knee problem you have to go over there and give them modification exercises. To keep the class active and full of energy so that nobody is getting bored. Everybody has got their own attention span, sometimes when I’m motivating their mind goes somewhere else so I have to actively raise my tone and then bring it down again. I do about 4-5 sessions a day which means that one session of mine is equal to 4 hours of someone sitting on a desk and working on a report so that’s how we equalise one trainer hour.
8) You have been the recipient of a recent award for women’s entrepreneurship and empowerment how did it feel to be recognized?
Women’s empowerment is very close to me because most of the clients that come to me are obviously women and they face a lot of issues in their personal and professional lives and sometimes personal issues are dragged into the professional lives and they feel down about it. They don’t give priority to themselves they give priority to their family their children and everybody but themselves. Being in this field has made me really close to my female counterparts because I feel we need to support each other to bring out the positivity out of our personality as females.
