Check Out Sa’Donna Thomas’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sa’Donna Thomas.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’ve been an athlete my entire life and I’ve been involved in a wide range of sports such as flag football on an all-boys team, basketball, swimming, and cheerleading to name a few. It wasn’t until I started college in 2010 at UCLA, that I decided to focus solely on academics and not play any sport. I honestly didn’t realize how much of a toll that had taken on me both mentally and physically over the four years in college. I graduated and started working a full-time job (50 hours a week), got into a relationship that ended terribly and that’s when I finally looked in the mirror. In 2010, I probably weighed no more than 130 pounds and here I was in January of 2020– 202 pounds, pre-diabetic, depressed and suicidal!

Shortly after my pre-diabetic diagnosis, I had just turned 28 and the pandemic went into full swing. I believe In life, you’re given chances and choices and I decided to look at Covid-19 as the best opportunity I had to lock in and focus on my internal health and fitness goals. — I dedicated the next three months (March 2020 – June 2020) to making a lifestyle change. I worked out twice a day, took natural supplements and ate balanced meals. I also leveraged social media to hold me accountable in the process, I would go live every day and/or post videos of my home workouts due to the gyms being shut down. In those 90 days, I lost a total of 42 pounds. This reignited my passion for athletics and fitness; I was no longer depressed, suicidal or overweight. I also hadn’t realized that by going live every day on Instagram that I had built a fitness community — a community of women who were just like me, inspired by my journey back to health and wanted to join me. I had the grand opening of Squat Gawd Fitness studio in Leimert Park in November 2020 and I will be celebrating three years of training women that I meet from all over LA this year.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No one really talks about the fear of the unknown when it comes to not only starting your own business but the mental strength and confidence it takes to keep going when there are bumps in the road along the way. It hasn’t always been easy — as mentioned previously I had my grand opening in the full swing of the pandemic and besides the referral-based clients I had attracted through social media, I realized I did not have a full plan for retention and future lead generation. Instead of letting this stifle my growth, I started investing money into business mentorship programs, reading books on sales and growing a business, etc to combat this problem all while running the business itself.

I’ve also struggled with pricing my products and services in the past. I learned through different mentorship’s that you have to do a significant amount of personal development and really understand your skillset, the work you’ve put in and invested into your craft, to be able to communicate your value.

I also struggled with funding for my business early on but that was due to a lack of knowledge on business credit, and building business relationships with companies to set up Net30-90 accounts for supplies and grants. I’ve since invested the time into learning about these things which allows my business to flow without being a financial burden.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I like to consider myself a fitness philanthropist because I’m not just any personal trainer. I help women transform and develop a connection between their mind, body and spirit through fitness. — I am a strength and conditioning coach as well as a Glute specialist. I’ve helped 100’s of women both online and via my personal training packages lose up to 80lbs+ naturally.

I’m most proud of the organic fitness community I’ve built from sharing my own health and wellness journey. I am so proud of myself for continuing to push through challenging times, deaths of loved ones, financial downturns and still be running my business, quickly approaching my three years anniversary.

What sets me apart from others is the genuine love I pour into my clients. I strive to help them become better women overall not just in the physical realm. I strive to make living a healthy lifestyle attractive, fun and a normal thing as opposed to it being a chore.

Any big plans?
I have plans to launch a fitness app in 2024 that will house a large library of fitness and nutrition programs as well as challenges and health and wellness events to attend.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/squatgawdfit
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/squat.gawd

Image Credits
Credits to @macshotvisuals for the still shots inside my gym studio