As we gear up for International Women’s Day, we celebrate the women who have come before us, paving the way and inspiring the greatness we see today. In this interview, we sit down with our very own, Dr. Awele V. Elumelu, OFR, founding Non-Executive Director of Heirs Holdings, Co-founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation and Chairperson of Avon HMO, Avon Medical Practice and Heirs Insurance Brokers. In this conversation, we explore her fitness journey and thoughts on women’s health. One thing is for sure, it has been more of a marathon than a sprint.
Anu for HHPeople: Would It be an interview if we did not ask, who is Dr. Awele V. Elumelu?
Dr. E: *Laughs* Who am I? I’m Dr. Elumelu, a Medical Doctor. It’s quite difficult talking about oneself. I guess you’ll get to know me as we go along.
Anu for HHPeople: We want to get to know more about your personal health journey. You’re a Medical Doctor, has it always been healthcare for you and when did it become obvious what you wanted to do about fitness?
Dr. E: As you said, I’m a medical doctor, it has always been about health. You have the health and then there is the wellness, so the question is when wellness and why wellness? Though I’m a doctor, I’ve never really been a health fanatic, however with age, whether you like it or not, you start to become more conscious of the fact that you need to make healthier choices. It is simply not business as usual and this is from both the angles of nutrition and fitness.
You realise that you need to be better. The things you didn’t like to eat before, you eat more of them. The first time I realised I needed to do something about my fitness, was when I was leaving university and that’s the funny part. All my life, I had never done anything about fitness. Being in school, you’re walking all the time, moving from one place to the other and a university campus is enormous. I remember when I was leaving university, I thought, I was in trouble. One, I love to eat but being in school, when do you see food to eat? You’re busy. The food is not great, even right from secondary school. I was always thankful to go back to boarding school because then, I wouldn’t eat so much. I would lose weight naturally. I was active and moving around.
After the university, life truly begins. You’re going to be at home all the time, food is going to be all around you. You’re not going to have the wide campus to walk around hence, I knew I had to try.
I would say that was also when nutrition became important to me. It was not an easy journey, however, I have improved within the last few years. Fitness back then, was aerobics. Now, I don’t know what they call them, but back then, it was a lot of aerobic videos. As the years go by, you start to have children and you realise you have to lose weight.
Anu for HHPeople: We still have aerobic videos! You spoke about nutrition and there’s the saying that you are what you eat. I for one cut down on bread and rice, not by choice but I am extremely happy. Do you believe that saying? And are there any dietary guides you live by?
Dr. E: I’ve always heard that rice is the enemy and I always say to people that I don’t agree with this. I think it’s the portions. I believe in portion control because I don’t think it’s sustainable to cut things out. I believe in eating everything in moderation.
Of course, there are times you have a goal and you intentionally cut out foods from your diet for short periods. I have done things like the cabbage soup diet, maple syrup diet and other funny diets. I do not encourage these and certainly not for long periods. I generally believe in eating everything, within reason, of course. I think that would be it for me, portion control.
I love bread, I love vegetables, I love fruits, I love fish, I love chicken, you know? I love it all. I could eat dinner, a load of greens and then since I love bread, I’ll have a baguette as well. Sometimes, it’s just soups with the protein. I also love tiger nuts. I love pasta, so I try not to go near it. It all boils down to portion control. I don’t think we should cut out totally. For instance, I have a massive sweet tooth, so I indulge but try not to make it too often.
Also, we need to realise and recognise that a portion means different things to different people. When someone says, they’ve had breakfast, lunch and dinner, look at it closely. The foreign man’s breakfast is one apple and a cup of black coffee and he will tell you he has had breakfast. Here at home, we are more likely to sit down to a big bowl of food for each of our meals.
Anu for HHPeople: *Laughs* I had to learn that from movies. I watch and I ask myself, why is breakfast so small? Just a pancake or eggs? But here we are, having an endless feast. I have had to look inwards and make a decision to manage my nutrition, get checked up more to learn about my body’s needs as well and that takes us into the topic of health education. With social media and easy access to information, we’re in a time where everyone is speaking up. Everyone is sharing different stories and people are more receptive to content. Do you feel like health education can play a bigger part in dismantling the ‘health fads’ and myths, especially with women’s healthcare?
Dr. E: I think it’s very important. It’s more important for people like us because as you said, everybody is out there on the internet, everybody is a specialist, everybody is a life coach. I think it’s more important for people like us, not necessarily doctors only, but generally, people who know better to speak up. Anybody can put something out there, and then people search and find this information and take it as the gospel truth when in fact, it could be wrong information. So, I think there needs to be more health education. Hospitals need to do more. Nutritionists need to do more, fitness specialists need to do more. Information seekers also need to be careful. A lot of us go on the internet and we listen to all sorts of things. Don’t just take the first thing you hear. Read more, and get a second opinion. Do your research. That WhatsApp video that is diagnosing you is not ideal.
Anu for HHPeople: Also with where healthcare is, as have I worked in healthcare before, I saw first-hand that one of the greatest competitions of quality healthcare was and still is the ‘I reject it!’ mindset. It was difficult to educate people on concepts like stress because stress is one of the most prevailing menaces in our society. With your personal life and your career, how do you integrate these spheres of your life to reduce that stress?
Dr. E: It’s a tough one for people, honestly. What works for me, might not work for others. There’s so much stress out there, just going from point A to point B. So to de-stress, sometimes, it’s as simple as stopping, just stop. Stop and breathe. There are breathing techniques which one can learn to help deal with stress.
It’s amazing how it can help to just relax. Relax yourself and your mind. It is difficult but you must make time for yourself. For me, it is so funny. My me time is when I’m in the air. Luckily, I don’t have the fear of flying as some people do. When I fly, it gives me time to just relax. Wi-Fi in the air is not for me. My time in the air is my time to myself. Maybe because I have many children and a lot of work. Once I board that plane, for six hours, maybe eight, ten hours, I’m not hearing anything from anybody. I’m not reading any emails. I’m not answering any phone calls. So the bottom line is, you have to find your own ‘me’ time.
Anu for HHPeople: Are marathons part of your me time? Because we have seen and we love your marathons, by the way. You’re great at it. How and when did you decide, you were going to start running?
Dr. E: I don’t know if anybody wakes up to want to do a marathon from day one but I think it’s this fitness journey. First of all, I think it’s so important because if I had never gotten into fitness, I probably would… not probably, I would never have run the marathon.
Allow me to digress because I just want to emphasize the fact that it’s so important to find something that you do for fitness. It could be walking, cycling, … swimming or any sport. For me, after the days of aerobic videos, I always had a treadmill in the house so, it was walking. After our last set of children were born in 2015 and one had to lose weight, I decided to try to find a way to get into running. I had never run before.
I believe I’ve told this story before about when I did my first 5K. I started learning to run, and I was so excited by the idea that I could run because I had never been able to run. And this was in 2015. I then did the first 5K and I was so amazed! I was so excited, one would have thought I did a marathon.
Anu for HHPeople: Wow! And how do you keep going?
Dr. E: I did a 5K. I couldn’t believe it and I just continued. That motivation to achieve my goal keeps me going. I thought, If I can do a 5K, maybe I can do a 10K. Then I started to train for that. I did a 10K and I was excited. Again, I thought, if can do a 10K maybe I can do a half marathon and I did a half marathon. I have continued to do more half-marathons. At some point, I am not sure when, I joined a friend who introduced me to a group where they do a half marathon every month and so we’d do a half marathon every month.
What also helped me was COVID. The lockdown had its pros and cons. Being stuck abroad at some point with the children, I couldn’t do anything so I had to think of something to do. I had done a few half marathons by then and I felt a marathon would be nice to participate in so I decided to see if there were any marathons. I found the New York virtual marathon, I registered for it and did it. A few years later, I felt it would be nice to do a physical marathon. So, I did the physical marathon in Manchester. After that, I thought, it would be nice to do one of the major ones, so I did Chicago Marathon and we’ll see what next.
Anu for HHPeople: Indeed, some of the best things are born from unexpected situations. Something I noted is the support from friends and sportsmanship within your group. Now, we have more women encouraging each other to be their absolute best at anything and everything we set our minds to. A lot of IWD Conferences are underway. With the theme ‘Insirpirng Inclusion’, the topic of conversation will mostly focus on career building and personal growth. I find that healthcare is often missing in these conversations. I learned recently that black women are more likely to suffer from PCOS and I believe that, beyond being women, biologically we are people. There’s enough about our bodies that we don’t even know and we get into adulthood thinking something is wrong with you, but you’re simply not informed.
These conversations just don’t happen for us to actually know. So where do you think we could go with advocacy for healthcare, especially in terms of easing access to healthcare that’s best suited for our women?
Dr. E: That’s a big issue! Because in fact, access to quality healthcare is indeed an identified problem. And I think we can only just keep doing our part in contributing to improving healthcare standards and changing the status quo. It is a must. First of all, we have identified this as a need and realise that this is a problem that needs solving.
Women need to prioritise their health. Again, I want to emphasise that it is important that people who are in a position to help need to do more. We need to educate women more about their health. Sometimes, unconsciously women in healthcare don’t realise we know what we know because it is our field of expertise. We feel every woman would know these things. I mean, you talk about PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome). Even something as common as the menstrual cycle, we just assume we do. We must continue to recognise these gaps and educate our patients and the larger communities around us.
We also need to create and utilise more platforms for healthcare conversations. With technology, our messages can reach a global audience. Healthcare itself can reach a global audience, especially underserved communities. With emerging technologies, we can provide better quality healthcare.
Of course, Avon HMO is everywhere to ease that access to healthcare. Avon Medical is also there. We just need to make a conscious effort to educate women and educate men, too, about women. Educate everyone.
Anu for HHPeople: Beyond marathon goals, what are your long-term goals for healthcare, personally and professionally?
Dr. E: Well, one can’t run marathons forever. It’s just to continue to prioritise health, I am introducing some more yoga into my routine. My main goal is to continue to remain active on a daily, or let me say weekly basis. Sometimes, it is helpful to find a support system. This could be a person or persons one knows or it could be paid for, eg a trainer or a gym. What matters is to prioritise health and wellness. Maybe it’s just walking. You don’t have to be outside to run or walk, you don’t have to be on the bridge. Get active within the space you have and nurture yourself.
Anu for HHPeople: Oh I dance around my living room!
Dr. E: Exactly. That’s great!
Professionally, there is a passion to improve the healthcare systems and ensure that people, women, and children have access to quality care, you know. So, whether it’s through new advancements in medical treatments or enhancing patient experiences, I see us continuing to make a meaningful impact in the healthcare sector. We will also be looking to expand our healthcare services, maybe even branching out into new territories, or exploring innovative healthcare technologies. Who knows?
And I just want to add, as women, we have such great influence on our families and our environment. We need to take care of ourselves to be able to care for our families. This is not to say that men do not, but it is quite encouraging for women to see other women in these roles. My daughter, for example, was encouraged to take up running because of me and a few of her friends have been inspired to do the same. So, I would say to all women, prioritise your well-being, not just for yourself but also for your children and family whom you care for and for all those who may look up to you for inspiration.
Awesome