Today we’d like to introduce you to Uti Middleton.
Uti, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always been athletic and active. I played basketball through high school and college and continued to play and workout in my young adult years. Although I was no stranger to the gym, my actual journey as a fitness professional started after I left the corporate world to focus on raising my son 12 years ago.
I had been attending a couple of classes at my gym pretty regularly to get back in shape. One day the instructor didn’t show up and I was elected by my peers to teach the class for the day. I had no idea what I was doing, but they enjoyed it enough to request me to substitute train classes when instructors couldn’t make it. I was subbing quite a bit when I realized that I could teach classes to pay for my gym membership and put a little money in my pocket as well. I quickly learned a variety of different formats and soon began teaching at other gyms in the area as well.
People say that I enjoyed working out and started asking me for private training, so I became a Certified Personal Trainer and began training and running boot camps. I just feel in love with helping people lose weight, get stronger and become healthier.
I had been enjoying my newly found fitness passion, when in 2016 everything I thought I knew about healthy living was tested when my husband Bill was diagnosed with Stage-4 Bladder Cancer. As his caretaker, I dove into trying to discover different ways to support his medical treatments through nutrition, mindset and other holistic strategies. Fortunately, he was able to fully recover and we equate that in part to good nutrition and keeping a positive mindset throughout the ordeal.
As his caretaker and supporting him through his fight, I let my health, happiness and well being fall to pieces despite staying consistent with my workouts. This is when I realized through this tough period that no matter how hard you work out or how well you eat, if your heart is heavy, if you’re not sleeping, second-guessing your abilities, or if you aren’t managing stress effectively, then you are not truly living the best version of yourself.
Hence, New Afya was created with the belief that you can’t take care of your physical self if your mind and spirit aren’t being nurtured just as well.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Last year I felt I needed a change from just training and running outdoor boot camps. I wanted to develop my own programming that can really help people beyond just the workouts by giving people the tools to transform their health from the inside out. So at the end of 2018, I walked away and started New Afya with an amazing business partner who is as passionate about helping others as I am.
As first-time entrepreneurs, I guess we have gone through some of the same starts up obstacles as any other company. But I never thought coming up with a name and logo would be one long and drawn-out struggle. We finally came up with New Afya.
New is an acronym for Nutrition, Exercise and Wellness but also represents a ‘new’ approach to good health, and Afya is Swahili and means good health or the state of being free from disease or malfunction.
We have only been active in business for 3 months, but as we build our client base we are discovering what works and doesn’t work, how to implement new programs and how to best market our services.
We’d love to hear more about your organization.
New Afya provides on-site fitness and wellness solutions customized to meet the needs of all size companies and organizations. We offer a variety of onsite high and low impact exercise classes, health assessments, nutrition solutions, wellness education and team-building events directly to our clients. Our programming is designed to help clients increase recruitment and retention, decrease healthcare costs, increase focus and productivity of their staff, and build a healthier, happier and more connected team-oriented community.
Our programming is different because we work with each client to pinpoint specifically what their employees want to get out of a wellness program and we build it from there. This creates more buy-in and engagement from the staff.
We are not a movement tracker and an app with a point system. We provide in-person on-site workouts with certified personal trainers, proven nutrition solutions that are specific to individual needs and metabolism, mindfulness classes and stress management tools, fun and rewarding team-building events, and body composition testing to give real and honest feedback to each participant on their progress, and to each client to ensure their wellness dollars are being put to good use.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is being able to discover something you are passionate about and to be able to share that passion with as many people as possible in order to create positive change. I believe that when you are operating within your purpose you are your highest, truest, most authentic and happiest self. And if I can use that energy to help others find happiness then I’ve been successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.newafya.com
- Email: Info@newafya.com
- Instagram: @NewAfya
- Facebook: /NewAfya
- Other: LinkedIn – /NewAfya
Image Credit:
Rance Elgin
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