Ellen Ector, a 69-year-old mom of five and a grandmother of four, is a health inspiration to thousands of people everywhere.
After 20 years as a social worker, she decided to quit her job and pursue fitness training in 2009. “I said, ‘Either you’re gonna do this fitness thing or you’ll be working for someone else for the rest of your life,’”
"I had five children and I was overweight. I took a pic of myself and I looked horrible. I had all gut and butt," says Ellen. "But after five children what do you expect?"
So she decided to do something about it. She changed her eating habits, started to exercise and the weight started to come off. She started feeling more energetic too.
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"The reason why we took this bold move was because the fitness industry had completely forgotten about African-American women," explain Ector. "You don't see our faces on the fitness DVD's, you don't see our faces on the magazine covers, so we wanted to come out with something for us, for real women."
Ector says, "we have no fitness models in our DVD's, just real women who want to lose weight."
All of the exercises can be done with little to no equipment, an intentional decision by the mom-daughter team. Ector says, “Your body is a machine.”
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How Did She Get Involved in Fitness?
The fitness guru was especially interested in targeting black women after her mother died of uterine cancer at age 63. So for her to be 69 and healthy is a major milestone that she wants all women to accomplish: health and long life.
Ector also says that the way she fashioned her workout program gets women out of the main excuses for not working out: price and availability. This program makes it affordable for women who may not have the means to invest in a gym membership or buy workout machinery for their homes.
African-American women observe a lower rate of uterine and other gynecologic cancers as compared to Caucasian women, but die from the disease at almost twice the rate as Caucasian women.
In fact, African American women have lower 5-year survival rates and die from the disease more than any other race.
Ector co-owns Gymnetics Fitness and gymJUICE in Atlanta, GA, and has released a fitness DVD series, Black Girls Workout Too!, with her daughter Lana.
They even have a new DVD called Ector-Cize that really gets your body moving.
Ellen also organizes walks for adults with diabetes and trains kids in track, field, and cross-country running — basically, she wants to help people from all walks of life learn to take care of their bodies.
"We've had kids come up to us telling us that we've helped their mom lose weight and we love that. It's amazing.
But we still try to stay humble because we have so much more work to do out there."
Ellen also organizes walks for adults with diabetes and trains kids in track, field, and cross-country running — basically, she wants to help people from all walks of life learn to take care of their bodies. If you're ever in Georgia, you might run into the grandmother-turned-trainer at her Atlanta gym or cold-pressed juice company . . . or you can simply follow her impressive fitness journey on Instagram. In the meantime, get inspired by Ellen's incredible physical shape, and remember that anyone — no matter their age — can lead a healthy life!
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