Sweat it out with Shamma

Words by Muna

Bustling between a full time job, running a gym and taking care of her son, Shamma Ibrahim leads a hectic life. She completed her Degree in Business Management in India and did her Masters while working in Male’. Today she is the co-owner of Rage, the first HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) fitness gym in the Maldives which she runs alongside her husband and an additional partner. After opening her gym, she became an ISSA certified Personal Trainer who also provides nutritional coaching to her clients.

I got really sick when I was doing my degree back in 2004. Initially, I was studying in Lanka but then I moved to India and I consulted a lot of doctors from both these countries regarding my lack of ability to eat anything and whenever I could eat, I was unable to keep any food down. I became very thin and only weighed around 43kg.After struggling to find a diagnosis for my disease for two years, one doctor finally diagnosed it as “psychological vomiting” and referred me to a psychiatrist who then referred me to a gynecologist. The gynea doc then did a bunch of tests on me and said that I’m suffering from PCOS. After a month of medication, the vomiting completely stopped and I was able to eat regularly. I got back my appetite with a bang and started eating whatever I could get my hands on, relishing myself with all sorts of junk food and gained 14 kg!

Shortly after I returned to Maldives upon completion of my degree, my mom suffered a heart attack. I took her for treatment in India during which I started to do a lot of research on my own about the food and lifestyle habits that lead to heart attacks. I was shocked to find out that the risk factors of a heart attack are very common. On top of this, my dad also had a heart attack and I don’t know whether it was anxiety or panic attacks but whenever I felt something odd in my body, I start relating to their symptoms and briskly search things online and come up with my own conclusions and get scared. However, this blow really made me look at things from a different perspective so I started researching things on my own and I personally realized the importance of leading a healthy and active lifestyle. Slowly, I started to bring little changes in my life like doing yoga which later turned into running. This was my start-up into fitness, I went running everyday no matter how late I finished work. I began including fruits and vegetables in my diet and gradually cut back on oily and unhealthy food. I stopped taking heavy meals late at night that really helped me fall asleep easily which was something I struggled with and I started losing weight as well.

Motivated by the amazing changes in my body after doing yoga and running, I started going to a gym. My husband is a gym enthusiast so he also went with me and guided me. With his support, I was able to achieve the results I wanted. After getting married, we decided to take our passion for fitness to the next level and decided to open a gym together.

I’m very proud of myself for being able to handle the daily grind, from taking care of my kid to managing a business and going to work. Juggling everything takes up a lot of time and energy everyday and it’s a lot going on in my life. Despite my busy schedule, starting a fitness career is something I’m really happy about.

Since I started training clients, every day becomes a really busy day for me. I wake up at 5am, pray, get ready and reach the gym by 5:30am. Then, I begin training my clients after which I go home and get ready for work. After work, I go straight to the gym and finish my workout before my son comes home from school. I spend the rest of the day with him and involve him with the tasks around the house such as cooking and cleaning. Sometimes I take him out for a walk or to the park in the evening. However, these days I have to return to the gym in the evening at 5 pm, two days a week to train more clients. On these days, my mom takes care of him until I come home around 6:30 pm. I manage to cook something, fix him dinner and put him to sleep by 8:30 pm. When I first started, I was only able to catch some Zzzz after about 1 and a half hours of tossing and turning in the bed which got me a bit sleep deprived. However, now I feel that my body is slowly adjusting and I can sleep earlier.

I usually train 4 days a week with weights and exercises targeted to upper body and lower body. During the remaining 3 days of the week, I do cardio on two days and leave one day for getting some rest. Although it’s a rest day, I’m very active on that day as well since it’s the only day that I get to do some deep cleaning around the house and spend some quality time with my kid.

I listen to all types of music, from pop and house music to alternative rock to 80s hits, especially 80s rock songs. Metallica is my all time favorite but I listen to artists like Weeknd and Dua Lipa too.

Some people are under the misconception that the more they work out, the better the results they yield. These people work out during the morning, noon and night without any rest/recovery and proper sleep. Some people even go so far as to hitting the treadmill straight after eating a heavy meal to “burn off the calories” they consumed. Rather than punishing yourself at the gym for what you ate, it should be done to improve one’s fitness and health by getting the much required rest/recovery and proper sleep as well.

In short, I’d say that the biggest mistake that people do at the gym is overtraining without giving any importance to intake of nutritional food and not allowing themselves to get proper rest/recovery and sleep. Overworking without any plans is not going to achieve anything.

I don’t believe in the idea of taking cheat meals and then eating super clean if you really want to sustain a healthy diet. I used to do that too but what really worked out for me was tracking and controlling the portion of what I generally eat instead of strictly limiting myself to only super clean food. The important thing is to be aware of what you eat and how much you eat. Some days I eat very nutritious food but I don’t stop myself from having an ice-cream if I’m in the mood for one. It comes down to calorie intake and monitoring the nutritional value of what you generally consume.

My first step in helping them as their instructor is to check what they want to achieve. According to their purpose (whether it’s to gain or lose weight or work on general fitness), I teach them different techniques that would help them achieve their goals. Then, I monitor their ability to perform the techniques correctly and complete the reps that I assign them in full range during training.

In the first week, I assign everyone a full body workout and evaluate their performance. Then, I personalize a workout program for each person based on their individual needs and follow it through to the end of training. Next is monitoring their nutrition intake which I find is the most important aspect of the training. Anybody can go and workout in the gym but if you’re not careful with what you consume, you won’t get the results you want.

Even so, I don’t devise a specific diet plan as that would be far too restricting. Instead I check their eating habits and make them monitor what they generally consume. For example some people prefer to eat roshi for breakfast while others prefer bread or oats. So based on what they actually prefer to eat, I advice them to take the proportion of these foods that would not exceed more than the desired calorie intake. In order to achieve this, I assign each of them to create a 3- day log of what they eat from Thursday to Friday by asking them to record the type and quantity of the food they eat (eg: how many cups of rice, how many spoons of sauce) during this period. For people who are unable to get a rough idea on how much they consume, I do it for them when they send pictures of what they eat.

Most importantly, rather than spoon feeding I want to educate my clients in terms of training and nutrition. I want to hold them accountable, in order to work with them to identify the challenges they face in achieving their fitness goals and help them bring the changes on their own. After all, they are the ones who put in the hard work and bring changes to their lifestyle that help them achieve their goals. And I’m just only there to guide them.

My advice for others who want to embark on this career path is to make connections and build rapport with people in the field. Even though you may lack experience in the field as a beginner, provide as much value to others in your capacity and be willing to help others. That is how you can learn and grow. Staying educated and up-to date with newest information even after certification is just as important for a beginner as it’s crucial throughout a fitness career. Fitness industry is ever evolving and changing. What’s written in textbooks can be updated or replaced with newer findings.