Why super-fit super gran Jane is simply not the retiring type
Jane Peggs isn't the normal type of fitness instructor you would expect to find down the gym.
At 67 years old, this grandmother of 10 definitely inspires a few double takes when she walks into her classes at Escape in Skipton.
"People see this little grey-haired granny and think I must be in the wrong place, but once I get on my bike I could be an 18-year-old, and they suddenly have a lot of respect for me," says Jane.
Jane teaches RPM, a type of spinning class on exercise bikes from New Zealand now being taught world-wide. In fact Jane is the oldest person in the world teaching RPM.
What makes Jane even more remarkable is that up until the age of 50 she'd hardly set foot in a gym and was overweight.
"I had a really busy lifestyle, bringing up four children, I had a responsible job in the food industry and I ballooned to 15 and a half stone; I am only 5ft 2ins tall – I looked like a blob."
Jane had to have a hysterectomy and when she returned to work was made redundant.
"It was the best thing that ever happened to me although it didn't feel like
it at the time."
It meant Jane could take a fresh look at her life. She'd been told by doctors she needed to lose weight and she took her new-found free time to change the way she lived.
"I was helping my husband Gordon in the family business and started the Rosemary Conley weight loss programme. I didn't call it a diet as that immediately makes you want things you can't have, it was a change
of lifestyle."
This change of lifestyle meant Jane lost five stone, but she knew to lose more she needed to get fit and, at the age of 52, joined a local aerobics class.
"The lady taking the classes said I was good at it and so I decided to go on a course to learn how to teach step classes," she says.
"I then started going to Escape and started doing RPM myself and thought it was marvellous. Amanda, the owner of the gym, suggested I try to teach it."
So at the age of 60 Jane learnt how to teach RPM.
"It is very cardiovascular," she explained. "It's hard work but really good fun. I am a bit of a performer and people really seem to enjoy it."
RPM is an indoor cycling workout where you ride to the rhythm of powerful music. Invented by New Zealander Les Mills, the instructors take riders on different terrain from hills, flats, mountain peaks, time trials, and interval training.
Every three months, Les Mills releases a new RPM class with fresh choreography and music.
"A lot of people of my age seem to give up, but just because we are old doesn't mean we can't do things. I am the luckiest woman in the world. I spend my time doing what I love and getting paid for it. What more could you want?"
Jane's family are fully in support of her love of the gym, although Jane admits at one time she did have to slow down.
"I was becoming a bit obsessed. I lost too much weight and was exercising too much. It is important for people not to over-do it."
At just under nine stone, Jane feels she is about right, although she says she will never be entirely happy with the way she looks.
But her grandchildren use granny as a role model.
"They are very proud; my eldest granddaughter says she wants to be as fit as granny."
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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