Forty-three-year-old Lungi [SURNAME] is a mom who works in advertising. And she kicks butt while doing it: fitness is her medicine.
“You need to take care of yourself as a person. If you don’t do it, nobody’s going to do it for you,” she says, and she can attest to that.
Every day, Lungi wakes up, prepares her son for school and drops him off. Then she gyms for 1 and a half hours before work. After work she picks her son up from school, and gyms again in the afternoon. On Saturdays, she tries to spend at least 2 hours in the gym.
At the start of her fitness journey, Lungi joined the gym after completing her tertiary education and would go regularly. But when she got married, things had to change to match her new life and the expectations she now had as a married woman.
Doing what she had to do, gymming was put on the backburner until 2016 when her life took another turn. With the changes that she had to accommodate, and not being happy with how she looked and felt, Lungi decided that it was time to get back to herself and back to exercising fervently.
One day, while she was sitting at the gym where she would take her son for karate lessons, she realised that she could do her own training while she waited for him to finish his lessons. Since then it latched on and she changed her diet and started gymming regularly again.
Lungi affirms that going to the gym just hits different than training at home. When her husband passed on in 2016, going to the gym became like a drug but in a good way. It helped her cope with a lot of things like loss and the pressure of work.
It is Lungi’s belief that when you love something, yes, it might be difficult but because you know what you want you keep going because it has become a part of you. Training or going to the gym was a good distraction from the noise of duties and responsibilities, and balancing work and life in general.
Lungi also points out that getting the body that she wants costs sweat, tears, and soreness but you just have to keep on going. On bad days, she takes it super easy at the gym, doing lightweights and cardio.
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However, what has really been working for her on lately is joining a class. On days when she doesn’t feel like gymming, joining a class has a certain energy: the music, the people that are all moving and following the instructor; there’s no reason for you not to join in and move your body. The energy is contagious.
Lastly, sticking to your fitness takes and builds resilience. When her husband passed on, Lungi had to take the bull by its horns. And at work, you cannot survive if you are a softie. Advertising is a very high stress, high adrenaline environment. So to deal with all those dynamics, the gym is where Lungi releases her stress and frustrations.
“When I get out of there I feel like I can take on anything. I’ve dealt with all my emotions, let me take on the real world,” remarks Lungi.
Lungi’s end goal, more than anything else, is to be healthy from within - outside is a bonus. Training can avoid a lot of sicknesses, especially as you get older.
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