Grandmother, 58, enters bikini competitions after people told her she was too old

A grandmother has hit back at those who told her women over the age of 50 ’shouldn’t be wearing bikinis’ by entering bikini competitions.

58-year-old personal trainer, Terry Coulter, from Tennessee, USA, has been active all of her life, but claims that she’s stronger now in her fifties than she was in her twenties.

Terry, who has a daughter, a son and one grandchild, said people tell her daughter they’d be intimidated to have a mum as fit as her.

Despite hearing people say that women over 50 shouldn’t be wearing bikinis, Terry doesn’t listen to what they say and decided to enter bikini competitions.

“I’ve been active all my life. I love the outdoors, so I played kickball, softball, rode horses, rode my bike, climbed trees and hiked,” Terry said.

Terry got married when she was 19 and moved to Houston. By the age of 21, she claims she was ‘out of breath’ by just running a short distance. So she began to run three times a week.

“Running kept me slim and trim. I continued this through my pregnancy with my son who was born when I was twenty-three,” she said.

After giving birth to her son, Terry started teaching aerobics, which continued for eight years, before she picked up running again.

“I was thirty. I loved running. I remember saying that I was going to run as many years as I could,” she said.

While she has always been sporty, defining her muscle tone was a happy accident when she had knee surgery.

She used to run 50 to 80 kilometres a week, with a bit of weight lifting between the ages of 30 and 50, whereas now she weight-lifts four to five times a week with around 30 to 45 minutes of cardio at the gym.

“Everyone was asking, ‘what have you been doing?’ Of course, when people notice, it’s motivating to do more, and so I did,” she said.

“My arms were sculpted and looked great and that’s when women would say, ‘I want your arms, would you train me?’ Looking great and feeling strong just fuelled me to do more.

“I’m stronger now at fifty-eight than I was in my teens and twenties. All these years of consistency have paved the way to where I am now.

“Also, I remember thinking, reading and hearing that women over fifty shouldn’t be wearing bikinis. Well at the ripe old age of fifty-six I did my first bodybuilding bikini competition. Really? Who would’ve thought?

“I actually had a friend meet my daughter recently and she said to her, ‘I would be intimidated to have your mum as my mum’, my daughter said yes, it was a little intimidating to have me as her mum at my age and so fit.”

For breakfast she would usually have one egg with two egg whites, half-a-cup of oatmeal and half-a-cup of blueberries.

For lunch she eats chicken with one cup of Brussel sprouts and sometimes half a sweet potato.

Dinner usually consists of fish or pork chops and green beans and she snacks on almonds or cashews and dark chocolate.

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