It was supposed to be one of those happy days, as it had been for ten years every time Ian Muiruri emceed an event – bringing good vibes to the crowd, entertaining them, cheering them, hyping them up, and promising they’d have a good time.
But on this particular day, in front of a cheerful crowd, under the glare of stage lights, and carrying the weight of his own body, Ian stood clutching a microphone and two soaked white handkerchiefs, barely breathing. His heart struggled to beat, his voice faltered, his steps grew shaky, and sweat poured down like a torrent of rain. Every word felt like it weighed a tonne.
Overweight, out of breath, and overwhelmed, Ian hit rock bottom that evening as he sank into his chair. “That was in 2022. To be honest, I was seconds from collapsing. Even as I sat down, my leg joints hurt and I struggled to steady my breathing. It felt like my heart was about to come out through my mouth. I’m six feet and weighed 128 kilos at the time. Can you imagine?
“That was my wake-up call. I realised I needed to do something because everybody at the event noticed I wasn’t doing well,” the 39-year-old shares at the Workout Warehouse gym, where he has been sparring for an hour.
Now Ian is agile; he moves quickly, his punches are sharp, and his legs are fast - you would barely recognise him from past photos. Just three years ago, the only thing he was punching was his phone’s snooze button.
Back then, mornings started with excuses and ended with late-night binges — footsteps heavy, spirit heavier. Now he has traded the stage fright of exhaustion for the sharp discipline of boxercise, couches for canvas, and self-doubt for jabs, crosses, and slips.
With a few kilos off — he’s lighter and a fighter in every sense, proving that even the heaviest moments can lead to the lightest steps.
This isn’t just a comeback. It is a transformation — and the bell hasn’t even rung for Round One of his real story.
Ian Muiruri performs the battle rope exercise at Workout Warehouse.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
“I am now down to 112 kilos, I am not as light as I would love to be, but I love the transformation. The goal is to bring my weight down to 100 kilos by the time I turn 40; that means I have six months to achieve that,” he says.
Coming from a family with a history of high blood pressure, from his grandparents to his parents and a sibling, Ian believes he is lucky not to have contracted any health issues.
“I think it was in the nick of time. Had I gone down that road for another six months, probably something would have happened.”
‘I was happy weighing 128 kilos’
Up until that 2022 incident, Ian, who moonlights as an IT consultant, was happy and content with his weight. He was aware of the kilos piling on, but that didn’t bother him one bit.
“Ooh man! Party life was so good, I used to party hard, I drank a lot and ate anything and everything tasty, especially the fatty foods. I was never cautious about what I ate. I think I used to get a sense of happiness from eating. I think food always triggered my endorphins because I was getting pleasure from it. All this time, I was noticing how bigger I was getting, but I was just living life. When I look back, I realise the body doesn’t get there overnight, it’s gradual. I found myself buying bigger clothes and changing tailors as I got bigger.
“All this time, I was comfortable with my weight and how I looked, until I started struggling with moving around. Then that incident happened,” Ian narrates.
Up until a 2022 incident, Ian Muiruri, an IT consultant, was happy and content with his weight.
Photo credit: Pool
Giving up on the gym
Ian’s first call to action was a familiar one—he joined a gym. But six months later, he walked away, disheartened.
“I thought signing up was the remedy,” he recalls. “I didn’t change my eating habits or my partying lifestyle. I thought the gym would balance it all out.”
But he quickly learned, you can’t out-train a bad diet. For the six months, he hit the weights hard, giving it everything he had. But the mirror never reflected the effort. No visible changes. No progress. Just growing frustration.
“It was demoralising. I began to doubt the gym facility, I questioned the trainers, the programmes, everything. Eventually, I bounced off the gym and started jogging instead.”
Frustration growing, he turned to the internet for help.
“That’s when it hit me—my diet was the real problem,” he says. “There’s truth in that cliché that you are what you eat. I began to clean up my meals and stayed consistent with jogging, and that is when I began to actually see some minuscule changes. The weight began to come off.”
He wasn’t, however, pleased with his physique.
“Jogging doesn’t build your muscles, it burns the little you have, and so you end up not with an unimpressive physique, something that I needed and still do.”
That prompted him to sign up again for a new gym, where he was introduced to something different – boxercise.
“By the end of 2023, I started mixing boxing with strength training. Early last year, I began to notice real changes. I was getting leaner, my muscles were building, my body was reshaping, and for the first time, the weight was coming off faster than ever,” Ian says with a smile.
Ian Muiruri performs the Preacher Curls exercise.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
The party life
As an MC, partying isn’t just expected — it’s practically part of the job description. There’s an unspoken rule: you don’t walk away from the party life. It is where the energy lives and the fun flows.
“But I reached a point where I had to choose,” Ian reflects. “If I wanted to be consistent and committed to this new path, the party life had to go.
These days, his mornings start long before the sun comes up. He’s at the gym by 5:30 a.m., four days a week. The booze? Gone. Fizzy drinks? Not even a trace.
“Even tonic water doesn’t cut. My fridge now looks like it belongs to a health coach,” he laughs. “Fresh-squeezed juices, white meats and mboga za kienyeji (traditional vegetables).”
The transformation hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially by someone close to him.
“Nowadays, my girlfriend tells me she loves the new me. She admits she was never really into how I looked before; she claims she stayed quiet back then because I seemed happy. And I guess I was. But now, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”
