Idala Ogufere: I’m determined to enlighten many women
[bctt tweet=”Idala says ‘Don’t work out for the wrong reasons. Do it for your active 90 year old self.’” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Idala Ogufere is the go-to fat-burning, body-transforming FlexiMum Coach, she left her career as Chartered Accountant to serve and add value to young mums, grooming them spirit, soul, and body to live and maintain a sustainable healthy lifestyle. This dream was birthed after a near-death experience with eclampsia. Doctors say she’s a walking miracle, but it was for a greater call to help young mums see the importance of healthy living. Idala gives tips on her FlexiMums Facebook Community and Instagram page @IdalaOgufere showing how she shed her 30kg baby fat and stays toned after two boys. Have you always been a fitness enthusiast? Not exactly. Although I used to do lots of yoga stretches with my dad (I didn’t know it was yoga then, I just loved exploring my flexibility), my dad has always been the fitness enthusiast. I started taking fitness seriously after I gave birth to my first son (who’ll be 5 years old in June), but I would just workout and not eat right or I would starve myself, now I know better. When did you start taking fitness seriously? It was after the birth of my second son. His birth was very seamless even though he weighed 3.73kg. I was discharged two days later but when I got home, settling in was tough because I’d developed severe headaches and swollen feet. I thought it was just the normal postpartum stress but the headache became intense. My mum pleaded that I should see the doctor and so I went to the hospital to find that my blood pressure (BP) was outrageous! Here I was with BP reading 180/100, I’ve never had high BP before, so this was strange and ridiculous to me. I was tensed and had to be monitored for a while with ice packs in my head but there was no improvement. Eventually, they had to rush me to the ICU to stabilize my BP and I had seizures during the process. Honestly, how I survived that saga, is still a miracle. God kept me for this purpose, to preach the gospel of healthy living to all young mums I come across. It’s much more than work for me, it’s my ministry! So I take it your experience is why your ‘ministry’ is targeted at young mums? Yes, because obviously as a young mum I know and feel the pain of other mums. This feeling inspired my first business @MyBabyStoreNG which helps young busy moms to shop for their kids. I’ve always been endeared to the challenges young mums face. After my second son and a near-death experience with eclampsia, which was majorly due to my obesity, I felt the calling to enlighten more mums about it. There have been maternal deaths caused by eclampsia although it’s a small percentage, many women and even young ladies need to be aware of this deadly eclampsia. Choosing young mums/ladies was very deliberate as many in this category, haven’t “hung their boots” yet with regards to child-bearing. It’s thus important for them to embrace fitness and good nutrition so that they live healthy lives. [bctt tweet=”I’m impacting more people and that deserves all my time -Idala Ogufere” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”] Now I’m interested in this business, MybabystoreNG. Is it still up and running? Before I answer this let me give a brief story about how I started MyBabyStoreNG. About a year after I had my first son, I had no clue what to do. I loved shopping for my son and I kept putting up pictures of cute baby outfits I saw in the market, people liked it and boom! I saw a business opportunity. MyBabyStoreNG was birthed yet it still didn’t fulfill my desire to help young mums so I decided to help them work on their bodies through Wholly Groomed Academy. These mums that I had sold baby items to wanted to know how l lost so much weight in less than a year. I got more attention as a Fitness Coach and I began to impact them positively. I thought I could handle both businesses together, but it was impressed in my heart to hold off activities in MyBabyStoreNG. This was because it was becoming burdensome for only me to handle both as a sole proprietor. I still have great dreams for MyBabyStoreNG, she’s my first baby, but now Wholly Groomed Academy has taken the lead. I’m impacting more people and that for me is very fulfilling and deserves all my time. My target was busy mums because it was a relief for someone they trusted to help with shopping for their kids. They just gave me a list of what they wanted and I shopped it. More like a Personalised BabyShopper. My dream is to create a Made In Nigeria Showroom where all items are locally sourced and produced here in Nigeria for Nigerians with our cartoon-inspired stories! How easy/difficult was it to actually get MybabystoreNG properly functioning according to its purpose? It was easy when I started at first because I just loved helping mums shop for their kids’ outfits. It became very challenging at a point because I didn’t have enough stock to meet up customer’s demands. I was acting as a middleman and I couldn’t control their stock. As we began to grow, it became increasingly challenging. Then my dream to create my own line of Made In Nigeria Kiddies Line was birthed, it’s still in my dream box. I haven’t given up on it. When the time is right, it’ll manifest. Ok, let’s get back to workouts. Other #MotherlandMoguls might want to know the importance of a fit body, why is it important? I always say, man is a spirit, has a soul and lives in a body. These three elements need to be taken care of effectively to achieve wholeness. Most of us went to school to feed our mind (the soul, seat of our