After initially establishing a Facebook page designed to empower women to exercise and maintain a healthy lifestyle during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Nicole Moos, from Vaaldam in Humansdorp, has been able to use the power of social media to inspire many women across the country to get fit and healthy.
Moos said that she was slender for most of her life, but always desired to gain more weight and become fit.
To work towards her goals, in 2018 she decided to begin exercising and adhering to a balanced diet.
Finally, in 2020, she began seeing the results of her hard work.
Moos said that people in her community also began noticing the change in her body, and wanted to know how she was able to gain weight but remain healthy at the same time.
She said that she would often share her experience with others, but it was only in 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, that she established Nicole’s Fitness Fury Facebook page where she regularly posted exercise routines in the hope that it would improve the physical, and more importantly, the mental well-being of women while they were unable to leave their homes.
“While the gyms were closed during the COVID-19 lockdown many women were depressed about their weight and did not know where to go to,” said Moos.
She further said that she shared her fitness videos on her Facebook page and to various people on WhatsApp to get their minds off the pandemic.
To her surprise, Moos said that many people from across the country reached out to her to tell her that her videos had helped improve their mental health.
“From the time I first started posting videos online in 2020, and even today, my focus is to help people reach their fitness goals, but more importantly help people improve their mental health,” said Moos.
In addition to helping people improve their mental health, she said that she also received a great deal of positive feedback from women who had seen great results after following her fitness advice and doing her exercise routines at home.
Moos said that she has posted many of the progress pictures of the women who have completed her exercises and have followed her eating plan, which has motivated many more women to begin their fitness journey.
She further said that her videos have allowed beginners to feel more comfortable exercising in the comfort of their homes.
She said that while creating videos, and before offering people health advice, she had to do a lot of research to ensure that she was giving her viewers the correct health and fitness-related information, which also helped her learn more about the fitness industry.
Despite initially posting videos online, she said that she noticed most women were not consistent with their exercise schedule.
To help them be more consistent, Moos began offering face-to-face classes in her backyard towards the end of 2020.
In 2021 she registered her fitness company to further help more women get fit.
“Once the COVID-19 restrictions were partially lifted I wanted to get the women exercising together to motivate them,” said Moos.
Unfortunately, as the number of women gradually grew, there was not enough space in her backyard and she had to stop giving group sessions and instead focused on one-on-one sessions.
Looking ahead to 2024, Moos said that she hopes to have her own studio where she can offer both one-on-one and group sessions.
Even though she refers to Nicole’s Fitness Fury as her “first love”, recently she also started working towards establishing her own décor company, In Time Decor by Nicole, which is something she has always been passionate about.
To share her experience as a young entrepreneur, and to offer the necessary guidance, Moos said that she will be assisting her friend, Megan Jansen, when she opens the doors to her crèche in Vaaldam. Miemie’s Nurturing Daycare opens in January next year, which they are both very excited about.
“Since I have experience as a young entrepreneur, I have been able to give guidance to my friend as she takes on this new journey. I have also been able to help her get the necessary documents to establish her own crèche in our community,” said Moos.