Antony Mburu's road to fitness after a health scare

Before we join Antony Mburu at the gym in his home in Nairobi, we are served pineapples and an apple.

This is a new norm the 40-year-old businessman and his wife are adjusting to. In the past, they ate fruits sparingly until a doctor put them on notice.

“It’s now six months since we started this journey of dieting and trying to eat clean, it hasn’t been easy giving up on the junk we were used to, but with the progress we have made so far, it’s all worth it,” Mburu says.

It all began in January this year when the father-of-three and his wife went for a full body checkup.

“The doctor told me my BMI (Body Mass Index) was a bit high, my blood pressure was at the borderline and so we were advised to exercise,” he says.

His wife’s situation was rather different. She had developed hyperkyphosis, a condition where the back curves and someone assumes a stooped forward posture.

“Before she joined our business, my wife was employed. Her job entailed sitting for longer hours which ended up affecting her posture. She developed some back deformity, certain posture and was under some intense discomfort,” Mburu says.

Acting on the doctor’s advice, the couple decided to enrol in a gym despite having already set up one on the top floor of their home.

“We set up our home gym in 2016. Health-wise, I was already doing badly and while on a trip to China, I realised the gym equipment was cheaper there so I bought this multi-functional machine plus the dumbbell weights, the treadmill and the bench. It cost around Sh400,000. I’m sure they would cost more here,” he tells the BDLife.

The reason Mburu and his spouse abandoned their home gym was simple.

“We thought it would be easier exercising at home by ourselves but it proved to be a nightmare. For the eight years since acquiring the equipment, we tried exercising by ourselves but lacked the discipline and someone to push us. This is why after the doctor’s visit we opted to enrol in a different gym hoping to find some motivation,” he says.

The move did not last as the Mburu’s realised they were not getting any value.

“There were always one or two instructors handling several people. So we found it not to be very effective. We backed down for a while until a friend of mine introduced me to our current personal trainer, Mrya Denousse, and we got back to the groove,” he says.

With Mrya now on board, the couple reverted to their home gym which now extends to their beautiful patio.

“In February I weighed 98 kilos. Currently, my scale reads 87. For my wife, the doctor recommended a physiotherapist for her back but Mrya advised strength training, her back is now straightened and no longer pains,” he says.

Two things that will never skip your mind when Mburu speaks of his fitness journey are how highly he speaks of his personal trainer and the many times he mentions ‘eating a lot of vegetables.’

Many people underestimate the benefits of a personal trainer. However, they help one set realistic fitness goals, support one's plans to get fit and prescribe exercises to achieve the goals.

One also gets to do many exercises within a limited time as well as train on their schedule.

“Before we found Mrya, there were so many things we were unable to do, like walk long distances, run, have endurance in working out and also getting good quality sleep. We would really struggle at night to sleep. They might sound simple, basic tasks, but we had difficulties doing them.”

One of the many changes Mrya brought to the couple's new way of doing things was tweaking their diet.

“We could eat anything. As much as high blood pressure is hereditary in our family, there was the issue of lifestyle. You see, when you take a lot of uncontrolled diet, junk and processed foods and then you don’t exercise, the body will react towards that. When Mrya came on board the first thing she did was ask us to change our diet. Now we only do two meals a day. We have brunch around 10am or 11am then our second meal is around 4pm. The rest of the hours before bedtime we snack on fruits, a lot of vegetables and water,” he says.

Mburu says the idea to have unconventional breakfast allows them time to have intermittent fasting of cumulatively 16 hours.

The issue of meals at the Mburus is so sensitive to the extent that they had to buy a kitchen scale.

“We had to ensure we get the right portions of different types of meals. Previously, we could eat anything provided we got satisfied and vegetables were the least. Now we are trained to take portions and in grammes. For starch, there is a portion I’m supposed to take, according to my body weight, same applies to protein but for vegetables, she advised we eat as much as we can,” he says.

For breakfast, in the past, Mburu would have bacon, sausages, chips or bread or two chapatis and a cup of tea with lots of sugar, but now he does two 200 grams of beans, two eggs, and vegetables.

“I stopped taking tea and substituted it with lots of water. My wife is still struggling with tea a little bit, initially, she would drain a flask of tea alone now she does two cups with no sugar.”

In a week the Mburu trains four days, Monday to Thursday.

“On Monday we do a lot of cardio. We do sprints on this hill (points on the 150-metre carbo-paved driveway), 12 laps. Then we would do different types of cardio burpees, jumping jerks, skip ropes, farmers carry, you name it,” he says

The rest of the days the couple strength train however sprinting remains constant.

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