"Age is nothing but a number" Meet the 76 years old woman with Packs and muscles (photos)

 She rises at 2.30am every morning to prepare her morning egg whites.

Just over an hour later, she puts on her head lamp and heads out for her ten-mile run, accompanied by her husband. By 8am she is in the gym, and works out for just under two hours.

This sounds like the mad morning routine concocted by a 22-year-old fitness fanatic, but it is everyday life for Ernestine Shepherd, 77 – one of the world’s oldest female bodybuilders. 

The man who runs by her side is her husband of more than 55 years, Collin, 83.

She follows a rigorous daily routine, which involves drinking several bottles of egg white per day as part of her 1,700 calories a day diet of eggs, chicken, vegetables and pulses.

Living by her mantra; ‘Dedication, Determination, Discipline to Get Fit’, she works as a personal trainer at a local gym, inspiring senior citizens – her oldest disciple is 89 – to get healthy and exercise.

Mrs Shepherd, from Randallstown near Baltimore, Maryland, first got into bodybuilding aged 56, thanks to her sister and best friend Velvet, who thought the pair needed to get healthy. 

Back then Mrs Shepherd was a ‘sedentary, well-padded school secretary and slug', she says. 

It became their goal to get into the Guinness World Book of Records as the oldest bodybuilding sisters. 

But before their dream came true, Velvet passed away after suffering a brain aneurysm in 1992.

Mrs Shepherd was hit hard by her sister’s death, and found herself struggling to keep going.

‘After my sister died, I ended up with high blood pressure, panic attacks, high cholesterol, you name it, I had it,’ Mrs Shepherd recently told TIME magazine.

She describes how the support of her family and her religion helped her get motivated to start running again, and that training took away all the aches and pain and lifted the veil of depression.

‘I take no high blood pressure medication, no panic attack medication, have no acid reflux. By going out running, the depression and anxiety just left me.’

Today, her classes are mostly senior women, but Mrs Shepherd has found she now also has older men joining in her classes.

‘I started my class with ten people. Now some mornings people can't get in the room.

‘Not everyone wants to be body builder - just find what you like to do.’

She contacted former Mr Universe Yohnnie Shambourger, and asked him to help her become a professional bodybuilder. And he did.

In March of 2010, Mrs Shepherd was awarded the title of World’s Oldest Performing Female BodyBuilder by Guinness World Records. And although she no longer holds the title, she is may gain it back one day, as she has no plans of stopping.

An age-related problem with her oesophagus means she has to avoid acidic foods and gluten, so her guilty pleasures have nothing to do with food.

‘You know what I like?,’ she told TIME.

‘I like wearing skimpy clothes. Oh, yes I do.’