About Me!

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Hi, I’m Monica!

Welcome to The Oma Life, where I will share a natural approach to health and fitness. “Oma” is a word from the Igbo language, which means “good”. I truly believe a good life is one where we feel and look our best!

My background is in Engineering, but after overcoming weight gain and health scares, I have become passionate about health and fitness. I am an NASM Certified Personal Trainer, and am exploring the world of fitness modeling.

The Oma Life is not a diet or workout plan – it is a wholistic lifelong approach to health and fitness. What you can expect from this site is education on, and my personal experiences with a healthy lifestyle and tips on staying fit through any situation.

Thanks for reading, and come back soon!

Monica

Interested in The Oma Life? Follow me!

Email: [email protected]

 

43 thoughts on “About Me!”

    • Hi April! I don’t offer meal plans at this point since everyone is so different in terms of what they need to eat. I try to stick to 7 or more servings of fruits and vegetables, I only eat fish (for personal reasons, I definitely don’t think other types of meat are unhealthy), and I eat dairy, eggs, beans, nuts, and oils. My main thing is that I eat as much real food as possible, I just try to stay away from processed grains (like white bread, white pasta, white rice, etc.) and instead go with whole grains, and I avoid white sugar as much as possible. But I do use other natural sweeteners like honey, fruit to sweeten things, brown sugar, etc. I plan to post more recipes soon so please stay tuned and thanks for visiting the page!

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    • Please stay tuned for more articles! I’ll let you know when the first article comes out. Thank you for your interest in the website! 🙂

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  4. Hi Monica,

    We just started following each other on IG and I wanted to find out about your challenge. Where do I locate it?

    Thanks in advance.

    P.S You do great work 🙂 (waves bye)

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    • Hi Cola!

      Thank you so much for your interest in the challenge, and instagram page! I just posted a “The Oma Challenge” page to this website (your comment prompted me to do so, thank you!), check it out and let me know if you have any more questions!

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  5. Hey Monica !!! I read all about the Oma challenge and Im super interested… i dont wanna lose any weight though I just want to tone up and learn to live and eat alot more healthy I also dont wanna lose my butt :)) I started the insanity workout and do sone zumba but i have bad eating habbits living in the south now makes it really hard all they do is cook with everything that was suggested not to eat during the challenge. Can you give me some direction and pointers to get started?

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    • Hey Cortney!!! The good thing is that you don’t have to lose weight on the challenge, but you can lose inches. If you eat the same amount of calories that you’re burning you won’t lose weight. The Insanity will definitely help with toning up, and if you include squats, lunges, and deadlift exercises using weights at least 3 times a week then your butt will sit high and will still be round and big – I want to tag you on instagram to this picture of a girl that lost fat all over but her butt was still the same size and sits higher because she was doing lower body workouts, I gotta find the picture. For your eating, the main thing you probably would have to try to do is limit fried food and the sweets to one time a week, but if you’re cooking your own food you could get more fresh fruits and veggies and meat, and bake the meat instead of frying it. I would say the best way to get started is to cook your own food so you can control what’s in it. A lot of restaurants have “under 500 calorie” meals and other healthier options. If you want something sweet, maybe once a week that’s fine, but just try to slowly reduce it. Substituting whole grain bread for white bread, and brown rice for white rice, and oatmeal instead of cereal. It might seem hard at first but if you look up recipes you can make almost all the same things healthier. When I want a recipe for something like homestyle cooking I usually look up “clean _____”, like “clean macaroni and cheese” or “clean cornbread” and get a good healthier recipe. Let me know if this helps!

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  6. Hi Monica!
    First I would like to say I love your website! I need to loose belly fat and tone my butt, lol. My belly has been flabby ever since I had my son, no matter how much weight I loose. And I like the size of my butt, but it’s too giggly. What is a good, fast workout plan for a working mom?

    Thanks,
    Fabfourmember 😉

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    • Thanks Chaunte! For a tighter stomach and butt (and really just tighter body all over), you’ll have to work those muscles while losing fat. If you just lose weight without working your muscles, you’ll be more likely to lose muscle and be flabby even though you weigh less. I always recommend weight lifting to retain muscle, along with high intensity interval training. I have found that this combination will provide really good results given the amount of time needed to exercise. I recommend 3x per week lifting and 2-3x per week high intensity cardio (cardio can be done on the same day as lifting if you’d like). Since you’re busy and maybe don’t have time to go to a gym, you can try a workout from home using your body weight, and as you get stronger can add weight using a book bag filled with books or cans or anything that weighs something. I’m going to email you the workouts that I do that includes body weight lifting and cardio.

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        • Hey Jazmine, sorry I’m responding so late. Which workouts? I have some workouts I’m posting in the support group you’re a part of. I’m not sure if those help or you’re looking for something different.

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          • Thanks again for the tummy workout advice .I will put that to work today at the gym. I wanted to inquire about joining your support group. I read over some of the comments on this page and it was mentioned can you please tell me more about it and how can i go about joining it Thanks again

          • Hey Kisha! The support group can be found on the The Oma Challenge page. If you have a hard time finding it from where you are now, the direct link is theomalife.com/the-oma-challenge. The link to the support group is at the top of that page. Let me know if that helps!

  7. Hi Monica!

    My name is Ariane and let me say I love your IG. I just recently got into clean eating after having my son, which I lost 70lbs! I used to have the nicest body and now my butt is not as round as it used to be. Not to mention I have a baby pouch due to me having a baby. Although I have stretch marks I want a six pack, and be in the best shape of my life. I am hoping that I can tone by next year because my major is dietetics/ fitness and nutrition. It wouldn’t make sense to be in this field and not have the body to match. Do you have any suggestions to tone up and lift this booty up? Thanks!

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    • Thanks for the support! I heard from some friends that also had a similar experience – pregnancy seems to steal the booty! For the booty, the BEST workouts include squats, lunges, and deadlifts. When you do these workouts, it will be best for you to use heavy weights. This will help with growing muscles in your glutes, which will help raise your butt, and make it appear rounder. This is especially important as you lose fat, because you don’t want to make the mistake of losing even more of your butt. I’d say the weight you use should be heavy enough that you find it hard to do more than 10-12 repetitions at once, to build good definition. There are times that I might use lower weights and do up to 20 repetitions at once, but that’s generally to target fat loss, not necessarily muscle building. Either is fine, and incorporating both types of workouts will help get that booty up! Make sure you look up the best form for these workouts – form really is key in making sure you target the right muscles and don’t injure yourself. I plan on making a post about building the booty, as I have seen my own butt transform from flat to a decent size using these exercises. Stay tuned!

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  9. Hello and Happy Resurrection Day! I would love to sign up for the next challenge. I’m looking forward to continuing to improve myself mind, body, and soul. I’m very excited to get started! Nicole

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  11. I am ready to start the Oma Challenge for April! I got sick thef irst week of the challenge and was completely thrown off so I’m ready this time!

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  14. Hello Monica,

    I read about the oma challenge and I would like to join. Do you know any good excise to work on my thighs and arms? Thanks in advance

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    • Hey Teisha, I can surely get you some information about great workouts for that before the challenge starts. I’m sending a questionnaire and one of the questions is asking what type of information you’ll need about health/fitness, so make sure you include that and I’ll get it prepared!

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  19. Hello, I discovered you today on Instagram and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I have been wanting to get started on becoming a healthier “Me” and I think this challenge will be a great way to start. Your photos tell a beautiful story and they are sooooo encouraging. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

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  21. Hi Monica

    I know this is late notice but I would like to be a part of your challenge. You do not have to partner me with anyone.
    Thanks TWebb1

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  22. I would love to be a part of the April challenge but I see I am posting a comment after the deadline. Let me know if I still have to opportunity to participate please

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  23. Hey I made it…. I will love to join the challenge. I am ready for something new to motivate md to better and I believe this can be it

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  24. Hey Monica,

    Ok so Ihave time to tell you about the pancake protein recipe that I have been making for myself and my husband. We do have children so I make then regular pancakes with fruit inside. I hoep this can help you try new things when eating breakfast.
    My recipe is:
    Pancake mix (I only have Aunt Jemima for now but you can find your own if you like), egg whites (2eggs worth), 1tsp of vanilla or 1tbsp of cinnamon, one scoop of vanilla whey protein, and add fruits of your choosing. The ninja helps because it wil blend everything up equally so that I dont have any clumps or lumps. Hope this is helpful.
    Also I wanted to know if oyu knew a way to lose 1-3 lbs a week the healthy way?

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    • Thank you!

      I would say it’s healthier to keep weight loss to no more than 2lbs per week (not including water weight loss – which you may experience). A simple calculation can tell you how many calories you should consume vs. burn to lose weight. 3500 calories make up a pound of fat, so ideally you could cut 500 calories per day on average to lose 1 lb per week (I say ideally because it’s not likely that all this weight will be fat – some could be muscle as well, but the goal is to limit how much loss is muscle, which is why cutting calories too low is not recommended). Cutting by 1,000 calories could lead to 2 lbs loss per week – this is sustainable for people who weigh more, but at certain lower weights this is also not recommended. A safe range for most people is 1-1.5 lbs lost per week (500-750 cal deficit).

      To see how much you burn per day (if you were to rest all day, and barely move), try out this site: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

      use the activity calculator recommended on that site as well to see how much you burn per day with exercise, depending on your activity levels. Once you get that number, try subtracting 500-750 calories from that and aim for that amount of calories per day. It’s not exact, but it’s a very good estimate. Generally, the amount you eat shouldn’t be lower than 1200 calories, so if you subtract 500-750 calories and you see it’s lower than 1200, you either need to increase your activity so you can eat more to lose weight, or accept a slower weight loss. This is a general guideline because you need a certain amount of nutrition through food, and also need to protect muscle and bone from being lost.

      If you’re not into counting calories, there’s no way to know exactly how much you will lose per week, but by limiting low fiber/high sugar foods (i.e. sweets, white bread, white rice, potatoes, etc.), getting plenty of sleep, eating enough high protein and high fat foods, drinking plenty of water, and staying active, you should be able to successfully lower your weight without having to think about it. Calorie counting is the only way to know for sure how much you’re consuming vs. burning though.

      Hopefully that makes sense!

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