23-year-old Doreen Tumuhairwe is minting money as a fitness trainer

In 2018, Doreen Tumuhairwe, then 19 years old was overweight.

She weighed 89 kilos, was sickly and had swollen feet.

So, she sought the advice of the doctor on what to do to save the situation.

The doctor advised her to start doing exercises.

Fast forward, in 2022, Tumuhairwe, 23 now weighs 65 kilograms. She has taken her doctor’s advice to another level and ventured into fitness training in Kira Municipality, Wakiso district.

 “The journey eventually kicked off to do exercises, but I watch what I eat. I also had to change my diet for better results,” Tumuhairwe says of her initial days.

She says her day always began with 15 minutes of stretching before later hitting the gym for five days each week.

 “The diet included taking warm water in the morning whereas for breakfast, I had to eat food high in fibre, protein, vitamin and some carbohydrates.”

Tumuhairwe explains that after breakfast, she had to take fruits and drink plenty of water as she waited for lunch.

“At lunch, I had to eat food rich in proteins, fibre and carbohydrates like meat and eggs whereas for dinner I had to take a light meal which includes vegetable salads with eggs or milk,” she says.

She says the results were not readily visible but with time, she realized her weight had gradually gone down.

Making money

She says that having realized that the therapy was working, she started sharing videos of her work outs to share with her friends on social media but little did she know this would get her money.

“I realized I could earn money out of the videos and photos that I shared on social media and attracted so much attention. People started reaching out to me for physical training after listening to my story,” Tumuhairwe says.

She says that she accepted to train people at a fee and like that, she became a fitness trainer.

 “I have helped so many people lose weight and meet their body goals. Many of these want to gain weight, others want to lose weight but many of them want to maintain and look a certain way,” Tumuhairwe says.

She says she does online training as well as the physical one which involves gym sessions whereas adults pay Shs 30,000 and children part with Shs 20,000 per day per session.

Challenges

Tumuhairwe says the poor internet connection and expensive data are a challenge to her especially while conducting physical training lessons on zoom for her clients.

She says she spends a lot of money on internet simply because of the poor network.

“Some of the clients take long to see the results simply because of their poor eating habits and they end up blaming me. Many of these are told to follow a certain eating plan but they ignore it and the results don’t come as easily as they would wish,” she says.

Tumuhairwe says because she also does home training by moving to homes of clients who have invited her to help them exercise, sometimes poor weather and traffic jam hinder her.

“Where I am required to train a client from the gym, the gyms ask me to pay for using their services on top of the client paying them. This becomes challenging.”

She however says that no matter the hardships, she keeps going.

Keeping fit

The 23-year-old explains that her work is not just a walk in the field as she also must keep fit and maintain a certain level of weight.

“To maintain my weight and fitness, I have to be disciplined. I try to keep track of my diet. I calculate my calories and protein intake every day. I exercise five days a week for at least 1 hour and 30 minutes. I go to the gym every day and then I do the stretching and yoga from home,” Tumuhairwe notes.  

She says she starts her day with a prayer after which she stretches for 15 minutes, takes a warm water, showers and starts her day.

Tumuhairwe says she intends to start group sessions targeting many people in different areas to minimize the amount she injects into transport to move to different clients.

“I am planning to do group sessions in different areas so that I can reach many people who would want to train with me and have a feel of working out as I can.”