Fitness goals: Forget fads, follow the science

If you engage science during your fitness journey, you avoid guesswork, trial and error attempts, and fruitless efforts.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

It is written in Socratic Dialogues that when he noticed his most dedicated disciple—Epigenes—was getting out of shape, Socrate had no easy words to use on him. He said thus, “It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

Whenever a new year starts, people set goals and resolutions; they draw vision boards as a roadmap to where they want to find themselves in the coming days. Trying to settle on what kind of people you want to be.

Chief among them is fitness. Like a choir on cue, the dawn of a new year springs forth with many people signing up for gym membership and joining Yoga or running clubs. Taking up on a new diet.

If you are standing outside looking in, it is a scintillating site to watch as people dig deeper into their core to achieve fitness goals bigger than themselves.

For some, it is shedding a few kilos, for others, it is toning their bodies. While some want to be fit and not pant while climbing a flight of stairs. The reasons stretch far and wide, but the overarching goal is the same.

Few people engage science when deciding to embark on a fitness journey—a mistake scientists say could be costly. It is just a dollop of stretches here and there, strength training, and much more that constitute physical and mental fitness but that is not tailored to suit their bodies.

Science is the gateway to optimizing the prospect of achieving one’s goals as it is evidence-based. Simply put, you avoid guesswork, trial and error attempts, and fruitless efforts. We caught up with two fitness enthusiasts who shared their experience with goal science-based fitness goal-setting.

Mwenda Thuranira

A change in diet led to an astronomical weight gain for Mwenda Thruranira—a real estate expert and CEO—MySpace Properties while he lived in the United States. He admits that he had been a gym rat in the years preceding this relocation, but with many relocations, diet is the first aspect of one’s life that gets hit hard.

Mwenda Thruranira - a real estate expert and CEO of MySpace Properties, shares his fitness goals for the year.

Photo credit: Pool

“By the time I was getting back to the country, I weighed over 100 kilos I wanted to lose weight for health reasons.”

To embark on his transformative journey, he walked straight into a gym. He had not consulted any professional about losing weight to chart a path for him to achieve his desired goals in a calculated and balanced manner.

“When you get to any gym, the allure of doing everything is enticing. With all the workout stations and equipment at your disposal, you will find yourself laboriously engaged in your session. While some people are lucky with the results over time, you will notice some giving up after periods of great dedication to their cause because the results they want do not show up just yet.”

Fitness, as he learned early in his journey, went far and beyond showing up at the gym.

“The gym is a good place because that is where I have achieved most of my fitness goals. I must add, however, that had I not engaged professionals about my journey, the efforts would have been futile. There was commendable progress, but optimizing these efforts is where I failed.”

Eureka moment

Mr Mwenda has been actively working out for a combined period of close to two decades and only sought professional consultation about five years ago.

“It is a Eureka moment I had while I was at my gym. I silently wondered why I didn’t involve someone with knowledge about these things while I engage professionals from various fields when I am doing other things in my life.”

He first sought a nutritionist, then a certified fitness coach.

“I got to understand my body better and how best to feed and work out. This included advice on when to eat, when best to go to the gym, the right food portions to take, and much more that I had ignored.”

Mr Mwenda says that the fitness ecosystem has many unqualified opinion makers, and if one is not careful, they may find themselves taking the wrong advice.

“With people whose only claim to is social media aesthetics, be wary of where you take advice from.”

For 2025, Mwenda insists that if one should choose working out as their way to attaining fitness, the best place to start is at a professional’s office. “It may seem expensive at first, but it pays off eventually.”

Sheila Mwanyigha

Sheila Mwanyigha grew up with very active parents.

“Both my parents were police officers. I think that is where I caught the fitness bug. I can’t remember a time in my working life when I wasn’t a gym member or regularly went to swim.”

For Sheila, fitness goals are nothing unless they are backed up by data and evidence.

“Access to gym equipment will make you think that all you need to do to get to certain levels of fitness is to get to the workout station in the gym and push, pull, and lift things. Yet some things don’t align with someone’s goals.”

Sheila has three Yoga sessions a week, three to four cardio sessions a week, half-hour walks for at least five days a week, and three weight training sessions a week.

All these condense into what she calls a functional workout.

Media personality Sheila Mwanyigha at the gym.

Photo credit: Pool

“The rule book—if any—can never be universal. It varies from person to person as our needs differ according to body type, age, et cetera.”

Her back surgery in 2016 may have been a trigger for her scientific approach to fitness.

“One inevitably learns to listen to their body from an information point of view when they undergo a potentially life-altering procedure like I did. My doctor would have allowed me back to the gym without properly examining me. The doctor, together with the gym instructor at Maish Gym at The Serena Hotel, worked around a regime that would best work for when I went back. As time has gone by, I have caught up on other routines after professional advice.”

Sheila’s advice to anyone with goals—especially fitness goals?

“Science never lies! Be methodical about your goals. Approach them scientifically. Use all available resources you can get. It pays off.”

More harm than good

Anthony Muchiri, the Kenya Rugby Sevens Strength and Conditioning coach during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, agrees with them.

Anthony holds a bachelor’s and master of science degree in sports science and is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer currently working as a management analyst at Eastern State Hospital in Washington State, United States of America.

“To start without consulting a professional could be counterproductive. You may end up with injuries because of stressing certain parts of your body unknowingly.” He offers.

So, where should one start?

“The first step is to consult a professional who can take your anthropometric measurements. You need to establish where your body is first, even before considering what to do with it. Once that is done, get advice on what areas of focus you need to incorporate into your lifestyle. Working from a knowledge vantage affords you the chance to make the right decisions. Some people are unaware of existing medical conditions that could be exacerbated by exposing themselves to certain types of workouts.”

Secondly, Anthony says that regular assessments should be done to ascertain one’s body response to your workout regimen.

“Think of fitness as your time in school; there are several things that come into play to make a wholesome student, checkpoints are a necessity for one to measure progress and establish if what they are doing is working.”

Anthony concludes with an intimidating question to people who have already started pursuing fitness goals either through working out or dieting, “do you know what you are doing?”

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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.