We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Minakshi Shekar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Minakshi below.

Hi Minakshi, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

In 2016, I had moved to the US from India after I got married as my husband had a project here in Denver, Colorado. One of the first things I noticed was as a 29 year old, I would walk up a flight of stairs and feel completely out of breath! Personally, that’s when I decided to take my own health a little more seriously. But living in the US and working with coaches who weren’t familiar with Indian food or cultural nuances, it made it hard to not think of health as a “diet”. I realized there was a huge gap in the industry and so I decided to do a nutrition and personal training certification. Initially it was to educate myself to work on MYSELF.
But I would share my own journey on social media and I would get queries and be asked tips. I realized there was a huge gap and a potential business there. I had already coached some friends and family for nominal prices and sometimes even free (Don’t ever do this haha).
It was my husband who said, “You are so passionate about nutrition and exercise, why don’t you set up a business?” And I had major imposter syndrome. I doubted myself so much because there were so many coaches and businesses you find, what would make me stand out?
I realized, what made me stand out was me, and my journey as an immigrant woman. In 2022, I launched Regular Fit – a body neutral fitness and coaching company that aimed to help immigrant women feel their fittest and confident selves without calorie obsession or obsessively working out.
Because, you see, us immigrant women, we first struggle with visas, we are initially dependent on our spouses for support, we dont have family to help out when we have kids. It’s SOOO HARD. So making health and fitness harder would only just add to the ever growing plate of these women.
My goal is to simplify health for them. You can lose weight without counting and obsessing about calories. You can get fitter working out for 15-20 mins a few times a week.

The first thing I did was register my LLC which felt super official. In the next month or so, I focused on branding. I felt like I had established a social media presence but I wanted my business to be about more than me. So having a brand, a logo and a website were on my list. This was scary because it meant putting any savings I had into this process of logo design, website, content and branding. But I am glad I did it!
From the POV of starting out, I didn’t want to go too big too fast because I was only one person and pretty much a one woman show. I do my social media, my content, coaching, the business back end stuff.

In 2023, I revealed my logo and mid 2023, my website went live.

I had built a pretty strong community on Instagram and 85% of my clients came from social media while 15% came from word of mouth!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

my name is Minakshi and I am a mom of two. I moved to the US in 2016 after I got married due to my husband’s job.

In my 20s, I had done all the low carb diets and juice “cleanses” but found my true calling in the lesser known world of sustainable fitness and nutrition when I began my own journey in 2016 after I moved to the US from India (where I’m from).

What started as my own weight loss journey soon turned into a passion and curiosity for all things nutrition and strength training. That’s when I realized there was a huge gap especially for immigrant women who lived abroad and wanted to make healthier choices.

One, no one understood how to help South Asian immigrant women because they didn’t understand their food and culture.

Two, very few coaches took into account that us, immigrant women barely had a support system and therefore found it harder to prioritize our own needs over work, kids, family or life in general.

Three, there was way too much misinformation in the community about what you should and shouldn’t eat and what kind of exercise you should and shouldn’t do.

I decided to get certified as a nutrition coach (Precision Nutrition), personal trainer (NASM) and pre and post natal coach (Girls Gone Strong) so I could help immigrant women like myself get fitter and healthier using evidence based techniques that work and not random fad diets that my neighbor did to lose 50 lbs!

I believe women try too hard to be a certain size, giving up foods they truly enjoy, over exercising and then eventually hating the entire process while I think health and fitness needs to be a part of everyone’s life irrespective of size!It shouldn’t just be scale driven.

My goal when I started Regular Fit was to help women be just regular fit like your regular pair of jeans, not skinny jeans and not size zero jeans. Get fitter and healthier so when you are in your 40s, 50s and 60s, you do not regret prioritizing your health.

I currently coach South Asian immigrant women in terms of nutrition, mindset and training and my signature program is 1:1 coaching though I also do run a 8 week group coaching program that is habit building focused.

I also coach pre and post natal women as a part of my 1:1 coaching because that’s another gap I noticed when it came to South Asian women – lack of knowledge when it came to focusing on health during pregnancy and postpartum.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I had started coaching way before I registered my business or took it seriously in terms of doing this full time, I had no idea how to get clients. There was a time I had $500 in my account to my name. It felt so hopeless and I really doubted if this was the way I wanted to go. I considered working part time in retail just to make some money to fund this dream of starting my own business.

But I refocused my efforts and instead of constantly trying to bring in clients, I focused on sharing my authentic story. I doubled down on my niche instead of trying to attract every kind of client. and that helped. I got more inquiries and my business grew. So im glad I stuck with it, learnt from my experiences. and eventually 2023 was my most successful year as a business owner and I am in the process of hiring more coaching in 2024!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I think the biggest thing that worked for my was authenticity. I have been sharing my own journey since 2016 and that was from a purely personal front. Over time, once I grew my following, once I got certified, I would answer every single DM and I still answer every single DM I get. I feel like building true relationships on social media has been beneficial. Even if I dont always get clients, I know which woman is expecting a baby, which woman is struggling with her immigrant journey, and building those connections often turn into clientele because I genuinely connect with these women.

I also try to provide as much value as I can. I provide freebies, free advice, lots of tips and tricks and I think that helps also bringing in clients because they are like “if she is giving us so much free content, what would 1:1 coaching be like?”

My best advice is to be authentic! be your true self. there is always someone like you watching you and being inspired by you and your journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://regularfit.me
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fitmomminzi/

Image Credits
Pic 1 -Samantha Behrens Pic 2 & 3 – Harsha Dhanvada