Soniya Vadher-Patel is a social media influencer, business owner, and mental health advocate from West Sussex. She is also a wife and a mother. Soniya got into fitness after having her first child due to an ultra-rare medical condition as she decided she needed to be as healthy as she could be for her family. She strongly believes in training your mind as well as your body because mental health is just as important as physical health.
How did you create your brand and what was the reason behind it?
As a mother of two, I am constantly trying to juggle daily routines whilst managing my family. Many people don’t know that I went through two challenging pregnancies due to a rare condition called Familial Chylomicronaemia Syndrome (FCS).
FCS is an ultra-rare genetic condition that affects around 1 in a million people. Those with familial chylomicronaemia syndrome have difficulty metabolizing or absorbing fat. This is usually because of a shortage in the enzyme lipoprotein lipase. When someone with FCS eats fat, it travels around within the blood. These then clump together causing symptoms of ‘milky white’ blood.*
*https://www.actionfcs.org/about-fcs/the-facts-about-fcs/
I nearly lost my life because of it and it caused me to develop psychological issues that lead to further demise in my mental health. This is where the concept of ‘SoniyaFit’ started. Sharing my experiences and speaking transparently has allowed me to overcome these hurdles and my objective with this brand is to help women who may be experiencing similar life-challenging events.
How does your brand work?
Coming from a South Asian background, my main aim is to encourage women to look after their mental health as well as their physical health, to break the stigma and talk about things that people are scared to talk about including illnesses, divorce, fertility issues, sexuality, etc. I strongly believe in chasing dreams irrespective of whether you have drawbacks. Life was never intended to be easy and what makes one win in life is based on how you get up after being knocked down.
What are the challenges you go through on an everyday basis?
I faced a number of challenges whilst building this brand. I started working on this in 2013 shortly after the birth of my son. Shortly after I faced postnatal depression during a period when I was attempting to manage a rare medical condition and not stay in employment due to recurrent hospital admissions. This is when I decided that I needed to do something for myself and at the same time help others.
Being a woman of South Asian descent, it’s not always normal to talk about and be open about personal issues nor is the family positioned to know what to do. I have always been aware of the problems I may face but I would rather start a business and fail than to not try at all. Learning to accept, grow and become stronger is part of evolving as a human being and I believe in tackling my issues head-on.
How do you manage your finances through the services you offer?
I have self-funded this business through savings and built momentum by remaining thrifty in all my decision-making processes. Self-discipline and financial acumen are paramount to running any successful business.
How far do you want to take SoniyaFit? What is your dream about taking it to the next level?
My goal is to help as many women as possible, if I can help even one woman I will be very happy. Of course my aim to provide guidance and support to as many people as possible and if I can branch my business overseas and build my team that would be a dream come true.
What message would you like to give to anybody who has a plan of creating something of their own and making a living through it?
Never think you can’t do anything. Never feel you’re not good enough. I firmly believe that you can do whatever you want but you need to put the time and energy in to create the luck needed for business success.
Currently, Soniya is in the process of writing her first book, which will be published in the near future.
“A lot of my posts on Instagram are quotes and small parts from my book, almost like a teaser”.
SoniyaFit
Email Address : soniyafit@gmail.com
Website URL : www.soniyafit.com
Instagram URL : www.instagram.com/soniyafit