"Feeling jaded and unfit" - Afro Girl Fitness

It was June 2015; it was a little over 2 years since I resigned from my job and became a stay at home mum. It was more a case of accepting a redundancy and choosing to stay and care for my child (I had one child at this time) as I wasn’t happy with the child care arrangement; and quite frankly I couldn’t trust anyone to do a better job of caring for him than me. Yes, I am that kind of mum.

Back to June 2015; I was now a stay at home mum to 3 boys; ages 4, 1+(nearing 2) and 5 months. The monotony of nappy changes, feeds, cleaning of tears, snot, the house, laundry, school drop offs, pickups and the same old kids’ programmes, left me feeling jaded (cue the stringed instruments). I wanted something for myself; a kind of escape from routine. I was my heaviest at this point, especially as I hadn’t fully come back into myself after having my second son, then conceiving my third when he was 9 months old. With his birth, I became my heaviest weight; around 80kg; this isn’t heavy for some but for me, I felt unfit. More to that, my solitary lifestyle meant that I risked piling on the pounds; so, I decided to act.

I was hearing a lot about Instagram at the time so I opened an account to get weight loss inspiration. I discovered there were very few fitness pages for black women, and the few I came across didn’t appeal to me as they mostly featured fitness competitors. I wanted to read the stories of women like me, mums who were still trying to hold it together despite their time constraints. I wanted to see from women of my skin tone, how my stretch marks would look after losing the weight. Really what I was after was content that was culturally and ethnically familiar. I knew I needed to work out, but I also lacked motivation and desperately needed it; (if you’re a stay at home mum you’ll understand the challenge of being your own motivation…it can be lonely) and seeing the fitness lifestyles of other women really helped me meet my fitness goals.

Initially, I started the page to motivate myself but overtime I saw from the increasing following and messages from women seeking weight loss support and health advice, that the platform was beneficial and serving a purpose. So, between my strong passion and relentless commitment to trying new strategies and ideas, the page grew.

In a not so nutshell, that’s how Afro Girl Fitness (AGF) came about and has now become my life.

The growth of our Instagram page has naturally lead to Afrogirlfitness.com. here, you will be sure to:

Access accurate health information,
Learn more about health conditions common in black women,
Read the inspirational weight loss and fitness stories of other women,
Receive current news stories in the fitness industry,
Get latest news on celebrity fitness,
Access recipes and workout ideas
Connect and share with a community of other women.

At AGF we believe that population groups with differences determined by culture, religion, and ethnicity also show differences in terms of their behaviour towards illnesses as well as their beliefs and attitudes towards good health practise. AGF aims to break cultural barriers and myths that may hinder some in the Ethnic Minority group from carrying out safe and healthy lifestyles. We aim to make health information easily accessible so that you can make your own informed choices concerning your health and wellbeing. Presently when you compare the amount of health information available to the BME community with the amount of information available in the black beauty industry, the catalogue of products, tools, resources, tutorials, training and services you’ll see that it is easier for us to learn how to cornrow or apply foundation than it is to maintain a healthy diet with the foods commonly eaten in our cultures.

Really, what you can expect from this blog, is to learn how to make your fitness and health goals become reality.

This is just the beginning. Thanks for sticking around and supporting the movement; I genuinely appreciate it.