We recently connected with Duanita Norman and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Duanita thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I have been a personal trainer and nutrition coach for 14 years. I am very passionate about helping others to live their best life through fitness and nutrition. However, people’s lives are getting busier and gym/training studio memberships keep getting higher. It seemed like the perfect solution would be to conduct fitness and nutrition training sessions online. This way the rates could be lower than a gym/training studio, because the overhead costs would be less. Also, people would be able to train in their homes, which would eliminate having to schedule the time to get to the gym/training studio. Therefore, I started researching how to go about establishing an online fitness and nutrition business in 2020.

With the onset of the pandemic, online training has been catapulted into mainstream fitness and is growing more popular daily. Therefore in 2021, I began implementing my plan to conduct fitness and nutrition coaching online. In March 2022, I finished my website and established my online business, Mature Fit and Fabulous. I chose this name for my business because the focus is on mature adults who want to live a better life by improving their fitness and nutrition. I have found that people want to live a healthy life, but they don’t know how and/or don’t make the time to do so.

Due to life circumstances, I made the decision to move full speed ahead with Mature Fit and Fabulous in January 2023 and am so glad that I did. It is one of the best decisions I have made. I love what I do and my clients are happy with the results they are getting. What more could I ask for?

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a child, I had open heart surgery to close a heart murmur. Therefore, when I went to the dentist I had to take antibiotics before any type of work could be performed. When I questioned this as a young adult, I was told my heart was fine, but due to the surgery it was a precautionary and necessary thing to do. At that time, I decided to do whatever I could to make sure I would have a strong heart. This is when I started attending aerobics classes.

Years later, when I had my son, I found it difficult to get to the gym to workout. This is when I was introduced to in-home fitness training via video. This was the answer to my fitness dilemma. I was able to workout and spend more time with my family.

Fourteen years ago, I made the decision to leave the corporate world and enter the fitness industry on a professional basis. I chose to be a personal trainer and nutrition coach because I wanted to be an integral part in helping others to gain and maintain their healthy lifestyle.

With my style of training everyone is treated as an individual. No two lives are the same, so no two programs are the same. I also help my clients to incorporate nutrition and healthy lifestyle habits that work for the lives that they choose to live. My fitness and nutrition coaching is all about the client. Unlike a typical trainer, I have worked in the corporate world, so I am aware of the level of stress and busyness that my clients encounter. Since, I am aware, I am able to help them with their strategies for snacking at work, managing stress, office parties, eating while travelling on company business etc.

It thrills me to see my clients getting the results they want and learning how to maintain their healthy lifestyle at the same time.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I was working for a technical recruiting company and they laid off a number of employees and I was one of them. At that time, my son was having challenges in school (later on he was diagnosed with ADHD). I realized it would be difficult to continue to have a Monday – Friday, 9 to 5 job because I was going to need to be available to go to his school when necessary. Therefore, after being laid off from the technical recruiting company, I went into a career in real estate. Within a few years, I became a managing broker, which worked well with my son’s schedule. However, the company I was working for closed my office and many others. Also, at that time, real estate was going through a shift from having companies to having more franchises. Being an agent was not going to work because clients needed the same time as my son would need on the weekends. This is when I made the decision to go into the fitness industry.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I built my audience on social media by reaching out to my family, friends and clients to like my page, as well as, by being engaged with a few networking groups where we help one another. One of the ways we do this is by subscribing to each others social media and liking posts. However, even with doing this, the key to social media is being consistent and providing content that they want to see. So you have to know your audience.

Also, social media is something that is always evolving and changing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.maturefitandfab.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/maturefitandfabulous
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/maturefitandfabulous
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanita-norman-63457a25/
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@duanitanorman

Image Credits
Eric Lamont (Photographer)