This may sound like fiction but it is actually true.
Although Evelyn now holds fitness titles that many an ordinary woman can only dream about — including that of Africa’s Fittest Woman — she was once bullied for being overweight.
Evelyn is a fitness trainer and a professional bodybuilder who has represented Kenya in several international competitions.
She is Africa’s champion in wellness and was recently crowned the overall winner of Arnold’s Classic Africa Championship, blazing a path that many a woman would be afraid to tread.
"I am living my dream and I want to keep impacting people’s lives through health and fitness"
She has achieved all this success by committing to a strict fitness and health programme.
“I am living my dream and I want to keep impacting people’s lives through health and fitness,” she says. “I genuinely want to leave an impact, however small.”
Though she is today a fitness trainer, Evelyn actually trained as a teacher after her O-level education at Asumbi Girls High School.
She later worked for a while as a banker.
To keep up with her demanding fitness routine, she dedicates a minimum of four hours every day to her workout regimen and only eats selectively to ensure that her frame remains in the right form.
Today, what started out as a hobby has turned into a full-time job, with Evelyn now being proprietor of Eveal Health and Fitness, a centre that offers customised training regimens.
Whenever she is not working out, you will catch her enjoying a movie or cooking.
Her greatest cheerleaders, she says, are her husband; and her mother when she was still alive.
— Annie Njanja
