Young entrepreneur finds solution for making Nairobi women trim weight

By Kamau Mutunga

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We all thought obesity and weight issues were Western afflictions fit for the First World in line with bad eating habits.

That was until one TV programme exposed how lifestyle choices have consequences that are not limited to developing excess love hooks and not a few acres of midriff cellulite.

Those in the know, food speaking, lamented that consuming sugar, fat and other sources of empty calories does not equal nutrition – if jumping rope, doing push-ups and sweating through the treadmill are not included.

Indeed, when the whole question was extended to children, one wiseacre – an American one no less – argued that “childhood obesity is best tackled at home through improved parental involvement, increased physical exercise, better diet and restraint from eating.”

Okay, that could be stretching ways of cutting weight, but how about slimming while sipping?

We mean Brazilian Slimming Coffee involving drinking one 5g sachet cup a day.

“It suppresses appetite and one doesn’t have to eat all the time,” says Kate Njeri. “And one has to drink 30 minutes before eating. It is a cheap way of losing weight which one can combine with homework and jogging.”

Njeri reckons the slimming, which she imports from USA, costs Sh2,500 (15 sachets in a box) is below the Sh11,000 quarterly gym fees Kenyans fork out. She is obviously referring to gyms in Hurlingham and other plush estates, not the homemade weights with cement stuffed inside empty cooking fat cans.

“It takes five to seven days to experience changes and so far we have received overwhelming response. We can hardly meet the demand,” says Njeri, who was inspired to get into the business largely due to her passion for diet.

“I researched, watched videos while searching for products that work,” she says.

The biggest challenge in the two years her company, Slim Now, has been trying to make Nairobians lose or maintain weight are the health shops in malls.

And though the business is online and is spurred by word of mouth and social media campaigns via Facebook and Twitter, one American oufit saw its potential and excited her with a buyout but “we are not selling out yet”. There is a market out there as weight is not about being rich or lifestyle.

“Eating ugali, mandazi and bread is all starch. Beer and nyama choma does the same. Burning 400 calories in a gym then eating to recover does not make any difference either,” says the alumnus of Strathmore University where she studied for a degree in commerce.

Slimming Coffee dehydrates for which you have to drink six to eight glasses a day “which is what the doctor orders anyway,” is what Njeri offers.

So, how does slimming coffee work? She refers to it as 100 per cent herbal coffee powder that is a “fat burning beverage” made from Brazilian virgin forest black coffee.

The businesswoman says the product works by suppressing appetite while “increasing lipolysis” – burning of fat. If you have heart trouble, is diabetic, has peptic ulcers, high blood pressure and other serious medical conditions, you can give the Slimming Coffee a miss. Same as those heavy with future voters.