Fitness
At 100, ‘First Lady of Fitness’ Reveals Her Daily Exercise Routine and 1 Food She Loves
Elaine LaLanne is spending the days since her 100th birthday with the same healthy habits she’s been cultivating for decades: exercising every day and eating a nutritious diet.
She starts each morning with abdominal exercises, leg lifts and and pushups, noting she’s “very strong in the core.”
The widow of famed fitness guru Jack LaLanne credits her husband for turning her life around. He hosted the first TV exercise show starting in the 1950s and has been called the “father of the modern fitness movement.”
She recalls initially dismissing him as “this muscle man” when they first met in 1951 — LaLanne booked him to perform pushups during a TV program she was producing — but becoming intrigued by his healthy lifestyle.
“I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t met Jack LaLanne. I was always eating chocolate donuts and smoking cigarettes and eating candy bars for lunch,” the centenarian, who lives in California, tells TODAY.com.
“He told me, ‘You should be eating apples and bananas and oranges.’ I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ Then I changed my tune, and I’ve been a convert ever since. I know that’s why I lived to be 100.”
She stopped smoking, started eating healthier and began exercising. The couple married in 1959. She says most women didn’t work out in those days, but the “The Jack LaLanne Show” got many female viewers interested in exercise.
Elaine LaLanne was a regular part of the program, and became an author and public speaker, touting the benefits of exercise and good nutrition and earning the nickname “The first lady of fitness.”
She was married to Jack LaLanne until his death at 96 in 2011.
The Health & Fitness Association inducted the couple into its Hall of Fame in March.
Here are Elaine LaLanne’s simple tips for living a long and healthy life:
Exercise Every Day
The centenarian has been exercising daily for most of her life.
At 100, before LaLanne gets out of bed, she still does 20 “jackknife” ab exercises every day, a routine she’s followed for years. The core workout involves starting in a lying position, then lifting the torso and legs at the same time, ending up in a V-shaped position.
She also does leg lifts and other leg exercises while lying down, then gets up to do pushups against a wall or sink.
When LaLanne was younger, she used to be able to do 50 full-body pushups. She also worked out with weights and used a treadmill. Her workout sessions usually lasted 30 minutes.
Swimming was another favorite form of exercise. “Jack said swimming is probably one of the best all over exercises one can do,” she notes. Swimming is one of the best sports for a long healthy life, studies confirm.
Eat a Healthy Diet
LaLanne doesn’t follow any particular eating plan, like the Mediterranean diet or a low-carb diet. She calls her approach “just plain old watching what you want to put in your mouth.”
When you eat, ask yourself: “What is this going to do for me?” she advises.
Her typical breakfast might be yogurt mixed with protein powder and topped with blueberries, strawberries and other fruit. She’s never been a coffee drinker, so she prefers to have a cup of cocoa. Cocoa has antioxidant properties, enhances cognition and boosts positive mood, studies have found.
For dinner, she loves to eat salmon or chicken, but otherwise doesn’t consume a lot of meat. The rest of her plate is filled with a lot of vegetables, plus rice or potatoes.
“I love potatoes. I grew up in the Midwest, and I’m still a potato lover,” she says. “It’s just simple, simple things. I eat like most people.”
She eats just enough so that her stomach is full without overindulging.
Live Life in Moderation
Her husband was extremely disciplined and didn’t eat dessert, opting for fruit and figs to satisfy any sugar cravings.
She followed suit and didn’t have any cake or ice cream for decades, but then rebelled.
“I said, ‘Jack, I’m 80 years old, and if I want a piece of cake, I want to have a piece of cake,’” she recalled.
“One candy bar is not going to kill you. … When you overindulge, that’s the downfall. And if you just have a little of this, a little of that, it’s not going to kill you. That’s what I believe.”
She has the same approach to alcohol, enjoying an occasional glass of wine.
Be Consistent
Jack LaLanne said, “It’s not what you do some of the time that counts. It’s what you do most of the time,” his wife points out.
She sums up her own philosophy as the acronym ARCH.
- A for attitude.
- R for resistance — “If you resist that muscle, it’s going to work for you. If you resist the food that’s undermining your health, you’re going to be healthier,” she says.
- C for consistency.
- H for harmony.
Think Positive
“I’m a very positive person, and I don’t let anything bother me,” LaLanne says.
“If people could get rid of negativity, they would be a lot happier.”
Her husband encouraged that mindset, always reminding the family, “We do not talk negative in this house,” she recalls. He was also a believer in visualizing a positive outcome before it happened.
Accept and Persevere
When LaLanne’s 21-year-old daughter died in a car accident, she got through the tragedy by telling herself she couldn’t change things, so she had to accept what had happened.
“Just before I turned 100, I was thinking, how can I sum this whole thing up in all my life? I thought about my acceptance,” LaLanne says.
“Through my life, I’ve accepted what I’m handed, and then I persevere. … Those two things are my mantra.”
She’s still applying that mantra today as she deals with macular degeneration that’s caused her to lose sight in one eye. LaLanne accepts her worsening vision but looks for ways to work around it. She can still see her computer screen and keep writing, so she perseveres.
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — 8News got a visit from two special guests Friday to learn about the benefits of Pilates and try out some beginner moves.
8News anchors Autumn Childress and Delaney Hall were joined by Laura Mae Harper and Angie Madison with Point and Flex Pilates. The studio, which opened on Sept. 3 last year, offers a variety of classes, ranging from beginner to intermediate and advanced.
“We went through years of teaching at other places and developed this beautiful studio for them and this community, and we’re super excited about it,” Harper said.
For more information, visit Point and Flex Pilates.
Like every piece of gear you wear on your body day in and day out, fitness trackers are incredibly personal. The right tracker for you should be comfortable, accurate, and tailored to your lifestyle, including your preferred workouts and health goals. Do you bike, row, or strength train? Do you run on trails for hours at a time, or do you just want a reminder to stand up every hour? Do you want to wear it on your wrist or your finger, or tuck it into your sports bra?
No matter what your needs are, there’s never been a better time to find a powerful, sophisticated tool to help optimize your workouts or jump-start your routine. We test dozens of fitness trackers every year while running, climbing, hiking, or just doing workout videos on our iPads at night, to bring you these picks.
Our top choice for most people is the Garmin Vivoactive 6 ($300), which works well with Android and iOS, but we also vouch for the latest Oura Ring 5 ($399) and the budget-friendly Google Fitbit Air ($100). For more wearables, check out our guides to the Best Smartwatches, Best Smart Rings, and Best Sleep Trackers.
Jump To
Best Fitness Tracker Overall
Garmin makes some of the most accurate fitness trackers on the market, and the Vivoactive 6 is the best midrange option for most people. It strikes a solid balance between smartwatch features and fitness tracking, with support for both iPhone and Android users.
Why WIRED recommends: The Vivoactive 6 is accurate, comfortable, and packed with useful wellness features without feeling overwhelming. It uses Garmin’s proprietary algorithms to power features like Morning Report and Body Battery, which provide daily insights into your sleep, recovery, and readiness. It also has built-in satellite connectivity and GPS, so you can track outdoor workouts without bringing your phone along. There’s also incident detection, which alerts emergency contacts if it detects a serious fall.
Garmin’s biggest advantage remains its free Connect platform, which enables health and fitness tracking without requiring a subscription. The company also continues to add new software features through regular updates without putting them behind a paywall.
The trade-offs: Garmin launched Connect+, a $70-per-year subscription with extras like live tracking and access to Garmin’s AI-powered Active Intelligence. Former editor Adrienne So doesn’t think most people need it, but it’s worth noting if you’re looking for a completely subscription-free experience. The Vivoactive 6 may also feel like overkill for casual users who only want basic activity and sleep tracking.
Fitness
Why this unexpected exercise is most effective for building arm muscle in your 50s – and how to do it properly
When it comes to building strong, defined arms, traditional fitness advice will usually point you toward endless sets of bicep curls and tricep extensions. But according to Dr Stacy Sims, a leading women’s exercise physiologist specialising in perimenopause and menopause, isolation movements like these aren’t necessarily the most effective. Instead, she advocates for one functional compound movement: the farmer’s carry.
Speaking on podcast A Life of Greatness, when host Sarah Grynberg asks how to get arm muscles like Dr Sims, the 51-year-old explained: ‘In order to get shoulders like this, heavy farmer’s carries. I’ve been travelling so much this year, and I haven’t been in the gym being consistent with all the push presses and Olympic lifts that I love to do, but what I have been consistent in doing is heavy farmer’s carries.
‘It’s good for grip strength, learning how to walk properly, core strength, shoulders – so if there’s one move everyone should do, it’s heavy farmer’s carries.’
The magic of the move lies in its ability to engage your biceps, triceps, shoulders, forearms and hands all at once. And because your arms are working continuously to stabilise heavy loads against gravity, the exercise activates the deep muscle fibres that don’t fire up as efficiently in single-joint arm movements, like bicep curls. Here’s how to do it with proper form, plus how heavy to lift and a workout to try, straight from Dr Sims.
How to do a farmer’s carry
- Standing with feet hip-width apart and weights at the outside of the ankles, hinge your hips back and bend the knees, keeping your back flat.
- Tighten up your lower back and abdominals before reaching down to grab the weights.
- After gripping the weights, begin to stand tall by driving your heels into the ground, maintaining a tight form. Once you reach full standing position, tighten your armpits and make sure your shoulders are pulled back to activate the muscles in the rotator cuff area.
- Finally, begin to take small steps forward, maintaining a strong grip and form. If you’re returning in opposite direction, set the weights down, turn around, and then grab the weights again before walking in the opposite direction.
Set/reps for results: Aim for three sets. Try timing your farmer’s carry for 25 to 30 seconds or go for 10 steps forward and back.
Form tips: Start out with a light weight to ensure you don’t end up leaning too far forward or towards one side. Make sure to keep your back straight for safety. When it comes to moving, small strides will do. They’ll keep you balanced as you increase your weights.
How heavy to lift
As for what “heavy” means to Dr Sims, she says: ‘How many people have heard that you should be able to farmer carry 75% of your body weight for a minute? That is made up from bro science. It’s a good metric but there’s no science behind it. So, a heavy farmer’s carry is you have two very heavy dumbbells by your side and you’re walking back and forth.’
Here’s a weight guide to follow:
- Beginners: 2x 4-6kg
- Intermediate: 2x 8-12kg
- Advanced: 2x 12-20kg
Farmer’s carry workout
Dr Sims shares a descending ladder workout to try.
- 500m ski
- 500m heavy farmer’s carry
- 400m ski
- 400m heavy farmer’s carry
- 300m ski
- 300m heavy farmer’s carry
- 200m ski
- 200m heavy farmer’s carry
- 100m ski
- 100m heavy farmer’s carry
‘If you really have anything left in the tank after this workout, you go back up in 100m,’ she adds.
One of our most frequently asked questions here at Women’s Health? How to build muscle and burn fat at the same time. So, we asked superstar trainer Oyinda Okunowo exactly how to do it. In this 4-week plan – created exclusively for Women’s Health COLLECTIVE members – you’ll get the workouts and nutrition guidance needed to help you on your way to better body composition. Tap the link below to unlock 14 days of free access to Oyinda’s plan and start training today.
Get the plan
As Women’s Health UK’s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism.
After earning a first-class degree in journalism and NCTJ accreditation, she secured her first role at Look Magazine, where she launched the magazine’s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!
Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner’s World and Red. Today, she oversees all fitness content across Women’s Health online and in print, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as ‘Fit At Any Age’, which showcases the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise.
She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks – all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how. Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram.
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