Canadian Joan MacDonald is one of many « fitness influencers » on Instagram. Finally, it has some peculiarities. First, she is 75 years old and above all she started fitness late: before her 70and birthday, she had never touched a dumbbell in her life. Her atypical profile fascinates the social network, where she has 1.5 million subscribers. Portrait.
Joan MacDonald, a 75-year-old Canadian, is far from being a granny like the others. She masters social networks like no other, does fitness galore, shares her favorite bodybuilding exercises and poses in a bikini on Instagram. Concretely, she has been a “fitness influencer” for four years. And it did not escape thousands of Internet users. They are 1.5 million to follow his publications on Instagram.
Like all influencers, Joan MacDonald shares numerous videos of muscle-building exercises almost daily on her trainwithjoan Instagram account, as can be seen in a video posted on Wednesday April 20, 2022. In it, she explains the correct way to do exercises. deadlifts (deadlifts) of a weight bar, without injury.
In other publications, the septuagenarian gives advice to her subscribers to adopt a healthy diet.
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The recipe for success ? A late metamorphosis
And that’s not all. Joan also willingly confides in her posts, on his metamorphosis. Indeed, barely five years ago, at the turn of his 70and birthday, she did not sport the same physique or the same lifestyle. She did not practice any sport and accumulated health problems: « Cholesterol, obesity, hypertension, kidney failure and general exhaustion or even difficulty climbing stairs » were part of her daily life before she decided to take charge and get into fitness, as she explained in February 2022 to the American television channel ABC News . It is also in this drastic transformation, late in life, that lies the real key to its success on Instagram.
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A sudden realization
If Joan took up sport at the age of 71, it was after a sudden realization. « His doctor, who has been prescribing him a cocktail of drugs for several years, raises the possibility of doubling the doses, while his hypertension has worsened », Explain ABC News. But she refuses to go through it and instead decides to shake up her way of life.
It was with the help of her daughter, a sports coach, that Joan MacDonald then began a 360 degree turn. She joins her for a month in Mexico, a country where she runs a gym with her husband. Joan then practices there, every day, push-ups, sit-ups and stretches, and she also changes her diet. From the first month, she lost a little more than 4 kg, strengthened her muscles and managed to reduce her medication intake.
And above all, good habits are established. Back home, the fitness beginner does not give up and perfects herself. She goes five times a week to the gym, so she loses a total of almost 30 kg and greatly improves her state of health. Indeed, after four years of sports practice, she no longer needs certain medications: those against high blood pressure, cholesterol and gastric reflux.
Alongside his sports sessions and his dietary efforts, his daughter encourages him to create an Instagram account to document his progress and exchange with other people. Joan MacDonald follows his advice, then takes to the game. And it works, many Internet users are passionate about his sports activities.
Faced with this success, the septuagenarian even created a website and a mobile application to disseminate her advice on a larger scale.