I woke up this morning, swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and my calves immediately screamed at me.
It was a deep, tight, incredibly heavy ache that makes you walk to the bathroom like you are eighty-five years old. I stood there brushing my teeth, feeling the physical toll of the 9 kilometers I had logged the day before, and I actually had to laugh at myself.
I was not ready for how intensely tiresome walking could get.
We always underestimate walking, don’t we? We think because it is something we do every single day, it shouldn’t be that hard. But there is a massive difference between walking to the kitchen to make tea and serious walking. Intentional walking where your heart rate spikes, your breathing changes, and you are actively moving your body with a purpose.
I started doing this recently for weight loss.
If you have been reading my recent entries, you know that right now, the business side of my life is in a quiet season. Inquiries are slow. Sales are low. When you run your own business, slow seasons are incredibly dangerous for your mental health. If you are not careful, the silence will convince you that you are failing. You will sit at your desk, stare at your phone, and let the anxiety chew right through your nervous system.
I decided I was not going to let that happen.
I looked at the empty hours in my afternoon, right after I finished my deliveries, and I realized I had two choices. I could sit in my house and panic about the money, or I could put on my sneakers, walk out the front door, and use that time to achieve a completely different goal. I cannot control the market right now. But I can control my legs. I can control my health.
So, I started walking.
And man, it has been an absolute comedy of errors.
Yesterday, I was coming home from town. I know my usual route. I know it like the back of my hand. I know exactly where to turn, where to cross, and how long it takes. But as I was walking, I saw a junction.
My brain, in all its infinite wisdom, whispered, “Take that road. It’s a shortcut.”
I need to issue a formal apology to the universe for my hubris.
Nairobi is a beautiful, chaotic city. The roads are interconnected in ways that make absolute sense to urban planners and zero sense to the people actually walking on them. Yes, they all eventually link up, but one wrong move, one slightly miscalculated left turn, and you will find yourself in an entirely different area code.
I used to be so incredibly judgmental of Bolt riders.
I would sit in the back of a cab, or look at the app tracking my delivery, and watch the little car icon completely miss a turn and start going in the wrong direction. I would roll my eyes. I would think, How dumb do you have to be? The map is literally right in front of your face. How do you get lost with a GPS?
Karma is swift, and karma is brutal.
Because yesterday, I became the confused Bolt rider.
I pulled out Google Maps. That app will humble you so fast. I was standing at a junction, staring at the little blue dot on my screen. The map told me to go straight. I looked up at the physical road in front of me, confidently followed what I thought was “straight,” walked for ten minutes, and realized the blue dot was now entirely off the grid.
I had to stop, compose myself, and try to re-orient.
But navigating Nairobi on foot right now is an extreme sport. You cannot just casually stroll down the street holding an expensive smartphone out in front of you. The cost of living is suffocating the city. Desperation is high. The risk of robbery and mugging is a constant, humming reality in the back of your mind.
So, my navigation process looked like this: Stop. Quickly pull the phone out of my bag. Memorize the next three turns in four seconds flat. Shove the phone deep into the bag. Clutch the bag to my chest. Walk quickly. Forget the third turn. Stop. Repeat.
I did this over and over until I finally, mercifully, stumbled onto a road I recognized.
When I finally got home, I took off my shoes, collapsed on the couch, and checked my Google Maps to look at the “shortcut” I had taken.
It was longer.
My brilliant, time-saving shortcut was actually longer than the route I was supposed to take in the first place.
I just sat there laughing, rubbing my tired knees. It reminded me exactly of the disaster I orchestrated on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, I needed to go to Eastleigh to hunt down some specific supplies for my crafts. Now, Juja Road is my territory. I know it flawlessly. But again, that little voice of overconfidence crept in.
“You know what?” I told myself. “Instead of using Juja Road, let’s make it interesting. Let’s walk from Kamkunji to Gikomba, cut through to Pumwani Road, and slide right into Eastleigh.”
I cannot even remember the last time I set foot in Gikomba. It has been absolute ages. It is a maze of humanity, noise, bales of clothes, handcarts, and dust. But I completely lied to myself. I convinced myself that my internal compass would just automatically remember the route.
I started walking.
I maneuvered through the chaos. I dodged the handcarts. I kept walking with the confident stride of a woman who knows exactly where she is going. I walked for what felt like forty-five solid minutes. I was sweating. I was tired. I was mentally preparing to finally see the familiar streets of Eastleigh.
I casually glanced to my left to check my bearings.
My flabber was completely, utterly ghasted.
Standing right there, mocking me in the afternoon sun, was a building I usually see when I am in OTC.
I stopped dead in my tracks. What do you mean I am near OTC? What do you mean I am nowhere near Eastleigh? I looked around frantically, piecing together the landmarks. I was just a few meters away from the Kariokor market roundabout.
Somewhere in the dust and noise of Gikomba, I had taken a wrong turn, confidently marched in a massive, sprawling circle, and ended up exactly where I did not want to be.
I had taken the longest, most unnecessary route humanly possible.
The universe has a spectacular sense of humor.
If there is anything this fitness journey is teaching me right out of the gate, it is that you cannot use shortcuts. Not in walking, and certainly not in life.
Whenever you try to cheat the distance, the road will somehow twist itself into a knot and make you walk twice as far just to teach you a lesson.
But as I stood there near Kariokor, wiping the sweat off my forehead, I realized something else.
It was actually worth it.
I didn’t get to Eastleigh fast, but I got my steps in. My app was throwing confetti at me for hitting my daily target before the afternoon was even over. The detour was frustrating, yes. But the detour is what built the muscle.
People ask me why I don’t just join a gym. It seems like the obvious choice for weight loss. You see the girls on Instagram in their matching sets, lifting heavy weights, drinking their protein shakes, looking absolutely flawless.
I am not a gym girl. Not right now, anyway.
First of all, I have to be completely honest about my finances. A gym membership is a luxury, and right now, navigating a slow business season, that is simply not in my budget. I refuse to stress my bank account just to lift a dumbbell when I have an entire city I can walk through for free.
Second, I have to protect my body. The heavy lifting, the intense, high-impact workouts, they would absolutely destroy my knees right now. When you are carrying extra weight, you cannot just shock your joints into submission. You have to be gentle. You have to ease your body into the new reality.
So, I walk.
I walk, I stay in a calorie deficit, and I balance it with intermittent fasting on the days my body can handle it.
It is not glamorous. I don’t look like an Instagram model when I am doing it. I look like a woman dodging handcarts in Kamkunji, sweating through her shirt, and getting lost because she refuses to look at her phone for too long.
But it is working.
I am learning that consistency is so much more powerful than intensity.
There are days I skip. Sometimes I am completely held up with a client order or my body just says, No, not today. And I listen. I don’t beat myself up. I don’t spiral into that toxic diet culture guilt where you feel like one missed day ruins the entire month of progress.
I just wake up the next day, lace up my shoes, and start again.
This whole experience has been incredibly humbling.
It has humbled my arrogance about knowing the city. It has humbled my physical endurance. And it has definitely humbled my attitude toward Bolt riders.
The next time my driver misses a turn and goes the wrong way down a confusing street, I am not going to roll my eyes. I am going to sit quietly in the back seat and give that man some grace. Because I now know exactly what it feels like to look at a map, make a decision, and end up in Kariokor when you were aiming for Eastleigh.
I am really liking this progress.
Not just the physical progress, though feeling my clothes fit a little differently is a beautiful reward. I am liking the mental progress.
When you spend two hours walking, you physically cannot panic about your business. Your brain doesn’t have the bandwidth to stress about low sales when your calves are burning and you are trying to figure out how to get back to Juja Road.
Walking has become my forced meditation. It is burning off the excess cortisol. It is clearing the fog out of my head.
I used to want everything in my life to happen quickly. I wanted the business to blow up overnight. I wanted the weight to fall off in a week. I wanted the easiest, fastest route to success.
But shortcuts are a myth.
The long way is the only way.
The long way is where you build the endurance. The long way is where you learn the actual layout of the streets. The long way is where you accidentally hit 9 kilometers and realize your body is so much stronger than your mind ever gave it credit for.
Tomorrow, I am going to walk again.
I might get lost. I might end up staring at a building I didn’t expect to see. I might have to shove my phone in my bag and rely entirely on the kindness of strangers pointing me in the right direction.
But I am going to keep moving forward.
Because even when you take the wrong turn, as long as you keep walking, you eventually find your way home.
