Amanat Kagzi is not just the founder of the ever-soaring Fit Mantra, but also is wild, crazy, adventurous, dominating, outgoing, outspoken, a strict mother who plays sports with her girls on Sunday, and identifies herself as a leader instead of a boss, got on a coffee date with our editor, to spark out one of the most inspiring conversations.
“I belong to a conventional community that encourages females to study, but not step out of the house to work.”
Yet we know the heights Fit Mantra has achieved, which shows the amount she has fought through all these blind notions that define what a woman should or should not do.
The building blocks - Amanat Kagzi Studies
Sometimes our younger days prepare us for a better future. Amanat Kagzi, though belonging to a well-to-do family, began working in 7th grade, and earning since 10th grade.
“My father used to say that until you don’t earn, you won’t respect it. That’s how I made it here today and respect what I earn.”
Initially, she wanted to pursue a career in Gynaecology, dreaming of opening her hospital. But the conventional community stepped in with their “Itna kyu padhana hai, itna kharcha kyu” (why do you want to study so much and spend so much money?) mentality, so she managed with what was available in her city.
She is Bachelor’s in Medical Lab Technology, which was equivalent to B. Sc. in Microbiology at that time. Since the course was expensive, she earned her money to pay the fees. And she finished her studies post-marriage carrying a child!
“I had to fight a lot to even get that!”
She returned to the books 2 years later and got into nutrition, which led her to take many courses and certifications and a diploma in nutrition. She shares, interestingly, that she began studying nutrition for personal health. After gaining weight from bearing her daughter, she turned to gyms, and would overtly ask a lot of questions. This would irritate the trainers and they’d ask her to do some reading herself! Now, being a bookworm, she happily got to the books, and one thing led to another and bam! starts Fit Mantra.
“I wish to make a statement that no matter where you come from, who supports you, and what your background is. You must plan your journey, create a roadmap and decide your move.”
The drive to clinical dietetics
Her father was a mountaineer, but an unfortunate fall had damaged his kidney. Later in his life, he suffered from cardiac arrest, and Amanat decided to stay with her dad in the hospital. That’s when she receives a file with his diet. Since she had gained quite a knowledge about dietetics, she asked her father when the dietitian stopped by, but she never did. And the diet mentioned to him horrified her because dietary protocol needs to be mentioned for a diabetic patient, and the diet mentioned in the file had no account of his diabetic history whatsoever and could hamper his health. She talked with the hospital authority but to no avail. And since she was not a certified dietitian yet, she could not prescribe a diet plan to her father. And till she could get certified, it was too late, the damage was done and she lost him two years ago.
“So initially Fit Mantra was mostly for weight loss, fat loss, and sports nutrition. But after this incident, my focus shifted towards clinical.”
She did her certification for clinical dietetics and hired experts who have Master’s degrees in different fields of nutrition. She now has a team of many specialists for kidney, children, cancer, and diabetes, involved from across the country.
Fitmantra started as a clinic, but now it’s an organization, paving its way to becoming a franchise.
Boon of pandemic
The pandemic hit distinctly to different industries and different people. But it sure turned out as a boon for Fit Mantra, which was still a small clinic at that time.
One fine day of lockdown, a friend of hers calls her informing her that Dr Maulik from Ahmedabad has initiated a project to treat people at their homes since the hospitals were overflowing with patients. And since Amanat and her team were dietitians, the majority of their work could be done online, so they ended up having patients from Surat, Ahmedabad, and Mumbai, running twice as much business as it did before.
“It not only helped in business growth but helped with our personal growth since we came across so many different patients and learned so much!”
Besides, they even launched their app during the pandemic!
How does amanat kagzi stay fit?
“Since I have a lot of meetings scheduled throughout the week, I can't refrain from eating out. But I watch what I eat, mostly limiting myself to salads, dal, paneer ki sabzi, and lots of water.”
Other than that, she also did powerlifting but had to drop out of that road due to a knee injury.
She likes to drive, listen to music, write, cry or just talk to her friends to keep herself sane.
Words of wisdom for Generation Z
“Today Gen-Zs are quite advanced with the zeal to do something worthwhile. But I’d say that if you start something, don’t just stay rigid to that path, and keep your minds open, because a lot of us pivot after a point. We start with one journey and turn to something else, which probably turns out to be better.
Learn from seniors and find mentors. Mentors are very important. And try to create and be a part of the network. Have consistency and patience.”
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