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A middle-aged woman who claims she has a better figure than she did in her thirties says men are constantly sending her dating requests.
Laura Heikkila (51) from California says she didn’t always feel confident in her own skin and would eat processed food while focusing on cardio at the gym.
The personal trainer and holistic health practitioner only started taking her health seriously when she fell pregnant with her daughter, Jayden, in 2002.
Being in her mid-thirties at the time meant she found it harder to lose weight. This led to her passion for weightlifting and cooking healthy meals.
Over the next 15 years she focused on weights rather than cardio and this helped her build muscle and quickly lose the baby weight.
Her muscular figure has prompted many positive comments from strangers who tell her she looks better than girls in their twenties.
“I think when I first started getting really serious about my health and fitness at 35 it was to lose the baby weight, but then I discovered weight training and how I could change the composition of my body and I was hooked,” Laura says.
She’s since created a fitness community called Ageless Women and has more than 26 000 followers on Instagram.
“My husband is proud to have a fit wife and he’s been really cool about all the male attention I get, especially since I started my Instagram account, which sometimes seems more like a dating site because guys are always sliding into your Direct Messages,” she says.
“But I don’t think much of it because my pictures are there to inspire women to not give up on themselves.”
Laura says her husband is also into exercise and that her fitness has positively affected their marriage.
Her advice to anyone getting started would be to begin with creating healthier habits and eating a diet of real food while avoiding processed food.
“Don’t starve yourself. Your body needs healthy food and protein to grow and maintain lean muscle,” she says.
“Concentrate on weight training as you get older, because we naturally lose muscle as we age and need to constantly be working on building more.”
Source: Magazine Features
PICTURES: MEDIADRUMWORLD/MAGAZINEFEATURES.CO.ZA
