Lavina Mehta is a 43-year-old award-winning Personal Trainer and mum of three who has been awarded an MBE for services to health and fitness during Covid-19 in October’s Queen Honour’s List.
Over lockdown, she provided free twice-daily virtual workouts with her family, aimed at keeping people of all ages healthy and mentally positive from home. Her slogan was to “Exercise for Sanity not Vanity” and she also provided a free Feel Good 21 Day Workout Plan.
Lavina’s free specially designed virtual chair workouts for Seniors, in English and Gujarati, with her 73-year-old mother in law featured on national TV and radio and inspired thousands of elderly members of the community to get involved. She continues these to give back to the disproportionately affected British Asian communities and help the elderly and vulnerable stay fit, physically and mentally.
Lavina continues providing free home workouts & videos over the pandemic. She also uses her concept of Exercise Snacking for her daily Feel Good Fitness Advent Calendar workouts through December on her Instagram.
She appears regularly on TV and radio passionately promoting the health benefits of exercise to treat, prevent and reduce risks of common chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis. She is also a big advocate of the mental health benefits of exercise.
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Show notes
- Who is Lavina
- Where she was brought up
- Doing normal school sports
- Her dreams as a little girl
- Thinking about being a teacher
- Having a passion for Art
- Deciding to go down a managerial route
- Using art to help with mental health
- Her focus on education
- Lack of Asian role models in the fitness space
- Deciding to become a Personal Trainer
- Having a mild medical scare
- Joining a gym with work
- Getting into strength training and falling in love with it
- Studying in the evening after the children were asleep
- Wanting to learn more about the body
- The benefits of strength training and why everyone should lift weight
- The mental health benefits of lifting weight
- Opening up to the world of social media
- Needing to be patient with regards to getting results
- Supporting people of all ages during lockdown.
- Wanting to help people and doing 15min live workout on Instagram
- Exercise Snacking
- Time, motivation and costs
- “Exercise for Sanity - Not Vanity”
- Doing exercise from home
- Feel Good Walks - just get out - even for 10mins
- Getting adequate rest and recovery
- The benefits of stretching
- Why rest is key
- Wellness in terms of lifestyle
- Nutrition and feeding your body during workouts
- Helping her mum write her book - Feel Good With Food
- Using food as well as medicine
- Not believing in the word “diet”
- Enjoying food and not cutting out any food groups
- Peri-menopause and menopause
- Feel good fitness prescription
- Covid and mental health and the challenges of 2020/2021
- Workouts for women and men online
- Seniors Session with her mother in law
- Final words of advice to help you feel good again
Social Media