Ernestine Shepherd World's Oldest Female Bodybuilder: Day In Her Life

“I really don’t need an alarm clock to awaken me. I wake up at 2:30 every morning. I get up. I say my devotions. Then I’ll eat. I will eat ten egg whites. They’re scrambled, sixteen ounces of water, and a handful of walnuts. I have a certain song that I sing every morning…‘Oh I can’t sit down. Got to keep on rolling…Today I am happy and free…Nothing in the world is troubling me’.” So begins the day for 77-year-old Ernestine Shepherd, the world’s oldest female bodybuilder. In an original documentary short from Prevention, we follow a day in her life and learn that for Shepherd breaking a world record has fulfilled a life goal for not only her, but also her sister.

Her Sister’s Keeper

Ernestine and her sister, Mildred Blackwell, were inseparable. One day, at the age of 56, Ernestine was trying on clothes with Mildred. To the sisters’ disappointment, the clothes didn’t fit the way they wanted. Mildred suggested that they begin exercising. So they began weight training together – and it became an essential part of their lives.

Clearly, doing the same thing every day wasn’t Mildred’s style so she proposed a new, higher goal to Ernestine. “You know what we’re going to do. We’re going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as two of the oldest female bodybuilders. And what’s gonna’ happen is we have something else. We’re sisters…Within a year’s time, if anything were to happen to me, I would want you to keep this up.”

Ernestine was unaware of her sister’s health problems as they began training for this new goal. Sadly, Mildred suffered a brain aneurism and passed away as a result. Consequently,  Ernestine suffered from depression, high blood pressure, panic attacks and acid reflux. You can imagine that this sucked the energy and will out of Ernestine who “didn’t want to do anything.”

As soon as she gave up, her sister came to her…in a dream. Ernestine recalls her sister saying in the dream, “Get up and do what I asked you to do!” Two weeks later, Ernestine decided to fulfill her sister’s goals by weight training again. Eventually, she worked enough to perform in a body-building showcase competition, in which she earned first place in her age category. A month later, the sisters’ pact with each other manifested into a reality. The Guinness Book of World Records entered Ernestine into the book as the oldest competitive female bodybuilder in the world, just like her sister imagined!

Life After Health

“I do the same thing day in and day out. I eat the same way day in and day out. I drink four bottles of liquid egg whites a day. No high blood pressure medicine. No medicine for panic attacks. No medicine for acid reflux. And by me out running and walking, the depression and anxiety just left me. I do it because I have to practice what I preach. I can’t tell anyone to do it if I’m not doing it.”

Currently, Ernestine is teaching a weight training class, which started off with only 10 students. “That class has grown. Sometimes everybody can’t get in the room. Then I was really shocked when the men said they, too, wanted to train with me.”

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Ernestine is walking inspiration. In an emotional moment, one of her older students said, “She made me want to live again, mentally. The spirit of this woman grabbed me back. I bless her and honor her because she is the greatest woman on Earth,” she said as she began to tear up.

Watch a day in the remarkable life of Ernestine in the video above and let her spirit grab you back, too.

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