A GRUELING yet exciting transformation from a plus size woman to a medium built fitness freak by Callista Sambaza can serve as an inspiration to many women struggling with obesity.
The first step was to begin a fitness regime to shed off weight, never mind the blips and blunders she encountered in her early days, something she looks back at with a smile.
Sambaza was awarded fitness coach of the year October 2022 to October 2023 under the International Coaching and Mentoring Foundation in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Aerobics and Fitness Association.
A gender-based violence (GBV) survivor, the 37-year-old former Visitation Makumbi High School student is now leading a flourishing fitness project, Sweat Field Fitness (feel the burn) which has become popular among individuals and corporates alike.
“I started trying out some workouts immediately after my first-born child in September 2010, skipping, doing sit-ups and everything which was wrong. I didn’t have anyone to guide me accordingly but what was needed was to shed off a bit of weight before starting all the high impact workouts,” Sambaza told Standardsport.
“I then resorted to a diet plan. A friend of mine gave me a diet plan which I still use today for my clients or even for myself when I have fallen off the wagon. It’s effective and a good diet plan. That’s how I started the weight loss or the transformation. So, within a year I had lost almost 30kgs then the workouts came after, and it then just became a lifestyle.
“So, between then and the following pregnancy (January 2014), it was a matter of maintaining. Sometimes you fall, sometimes you maintain, sometimes you can lose but really the chunk of the weight loss was immense. I had to do that to make sure that I excuse myself for one reason or the other. I played basketball in high school and that was it, I loved basketball and I still do.”
The post-pregnancy weight pushed her into fitness training and exercising, but it was not an easy road.
“I struggled in many areas, the joints, my ankles, my knees, my back and it was all due to the excessive weight gain after childbirth. Along the way I came across different weight loss groups and different support groups on social media. That's how the group that I’m currently in called Zim Mums Weight Loss Group was formed close to seven years ago, almost a decade now we have been together,” she added.
“That’s where we would post our workouts, our challenges and I would smash those challenges month-in-month-out. The other ladies really said 'why can’t you become a coach, the way you are doing what you are doing and the way you are getting your results really shows that you have got something'.
“Fast forward several years, I joined a gym here in Hatfield and the same thing was stated — why can’t you become a coach, you are good at this because I put 150% into what I was doing. I loved aerobics, I loved strength training, and I went to train at One Commando, and I think that’s where I got some of the elements of training somebody using bodyweight.
"When I shifted to the next gym the coach automatically said you know what, you are a coach, and I was now given the tasks to lead classes and everything. That’s how I started, and I love seeing results. If you see results, you get that energy to continue, to push. It can be my results, or my client’s results, anyone’s results — progress really gave me that kick, that inspiration to become professionally certified and accredited as a fitness coach," Sambaza said.
What makes Sambaza unique is the fact that she coaches using her own personal experiences.
“My coaching really comes from the experience that I have had, this is not just book knowledge. It’s two different things, to experience the whole process of it versus reading about the whole process of it so the clients are really inspired when they look at my fitness journey. My clients come from different walks of life, different age groups, the oldest to the youngest.
"I have trained the golden girls, these are our senior citizens, I’m talking about 70-year-olds to the youngest being the primary school kids. Looking really at weight loss, everyone and anyone are eligible. My market is not specific to any place or any group of people. I train everyone and anyone," she said.
Through her Sweat Filed Fitness, she wants to make health and fitness a religion. Sambaza,
The GBV survivor is running an anti-GBV awareness campaign through fitness. Having been on the receiving end of GBV, she does not want to see any man or woman experience the same. Dubbed Fitness Against Gender-Based Violence Ultimate Team Challenge 2nd Edition, the event is scheduled for Falcon Golf Club in Hatfield, Harare on Saturday morning starting 6.30am.
She also recently partnered with NetOne and Alois Bunjira’s Albun Academy for the inaugural Honde Valley in Manicaland.
“It is of paramount importance for a person to incorporate fitness and exercise into their lifestyle. "Exercises have such benefits to us as humans and any creature for that matter,” she said.