Meet Mango Moodley: Sport Scientist and Self-Made Fitness Coach

She says she can't even “catch a TV remote”, but Mango’s quest for health has led her to a rewarding career path in fitness coaching – and she’s only just warming up.

Having spent a lot of time on the bench during school sports, Mango understands the struggle of facing your fitness goals when you just don’t feel like ‘that’ girl.

We chatted to her for our March series celebrating International Women’s Day and Women's History Month about how she got started with Mango Fitness – an evidence-based coaching business for programming, nutrition, mindset and habit change.

Hey Mango! Tell us about yourself.

I'm Mango, I'm in my early twenties, I don't know where I'm going in life, but I'm taking it one step at a time!

I’m just following whatever interests I have, which is currently being as healthy as I can and making it easy for other people to understand how to do the same. There’s a lot of ‘green tea detoxes’ out there and people just need to know what's actually up.

We can’t move on without asking about your name!

Honestly, I have no good excuse for it. It's not my real name, but I chose Mango because it's unique. It's just one word, you don't need the last name. Obviously not on the same level as Rihanna or Beyonce, of course.

Tell us about Mango Fitness and how it got started.

A lot of people get overwhelmed when they talk to trainers and coaches. They're like, 'oh, these people have been fit all their lives. That's not me. I can't be healthy.'

And for me… I can't catch. If you throw me the TV remote, I'm not gonna catch it. I can run, but not very fast. I'm the most uncordy person and always got picked last at school team sports.

So as soon as I graduated high school, I was like okay, now I need to take things into my own hands. So I signed up to a gym.

It took me ages to learn the basics and get confident. I want to be that bridge for other people who have no sporting or exercise background, because I've been there.

I try to get you to a spot where you’re more functionally fit, you're feeling better, you're feeling stronger, and just feeling good about yourself. There's just so many other benefits to exercise other than just, like, having a big bum.

Is there a common theme of why people come to work with you, particularly women?

Yes, definitely – not feeling that they have like a ‘good body’. But I think once people start, they don't really care about how they look as much. It's like, 'oh, I actually feel like lifting a bit heavier this week', or 'I didn't have to Google a video on how to do everything'.

Even things like not feeling super anxious before going to the gym. Not rushing through your exercise cause you feel everybody's watching you.

Mango Fitness also incorporates meal plans and nutrition tips. Can you talk more about that?

There's just so many different aspects to it health – nutrition being one of the biggest things.

It’s a huge one for women. We have emotional eating habits. We binge eat. We can have such an unhealthy relationship with food. And it's so hard to unpack and learn all of this just in one day or one article, because it's a whole attitude.

Growing up, I was having like one egg for breakfast because I thought that would keep me skinny and it was such a toxic mindset. We’re told to just, you know, to have your little salad.

What's the most rewarding and the hardest thing about running your own business so far?

The personable aspect to it. I’m not just clocking in to do some random tasks to make money for some random man. I’m getting to change people's mindset and see those changes in real time. And I think that's the most satisfying thing.

I had lots of mental hurdles because I thought “who am I to give out advice?” I'm not like one of those sporty people who’s been living like this my whole life. I just didn't believe that I was someone people should and would listen to.

So I built that belief in myself to just go out there and just see what happens.

Do you have any mottos you live by?

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.

Whatever you're wanting to do, fitness wise, study wise, anything – just get started. Cause you don't know where it'll take you.

You can follow Mango Fitness on Instagram here for huge doses of inspo! And don't forget to check out the rest of our March Series for International Women's Day and Women's History Month.

Photos: Supplied.