PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\u00a0<\/p>\nAccording to Aging Untold, Williams was born in 1938 and grew up in Berlin, Germany. She survived World War II, but her parents didn’t.<\/p>\n
Williams later married and moved to the United States, where she raised her children. It was a German Olympian who eventually inspired her to pursue an active lifestyle.<\/p>\n
The 86-year-old said that she hasn\u2019t stopped exercising since the professional athlete encouraged her to \u201cput one foot in front of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to exercise. I have to keep the cardio up. I have a congenital heart defect,\u201d Williams told Aging Untold. \u201cI was a preemie.”<\/p>\n
![\"Woman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/df3367487377857b8f785a729dd833dd.jpeg\"\/)
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Woman swimming (stock image)
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When asked about her advice for others who have ailments that limit their ability to exercise, Williams said, \u201cMind over matter. It could be worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen too much destruction,\u201d she continued. \u201cI have seen too much misery. Don\u2019t say, ‘Ugh, what\u2019s going to happen?\u2019 Get up and say, \u2018Thank you, dear God.\u2019 Every day, thank God for the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams also implores others who are unhappy with their physique to \u201cdo something about it” through exercise.<\/p>\n
The elderly woman joked to Aging Untold that she \u201clooks like a prune,\u201d despite her exercise routine keeping her body in a good place.<\/p>\n
Read the original article on People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ecris WilliamsCredit: Aging Untold\/YouTube NEED TO KNOW An elderly woman was inspired to launch an active lifestyle by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[110414,170639,170638,6647,102,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-479957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-active-lifestyle","tag-aging-untold","tag-ecris-williams","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ecris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e45ac9765b7e1a767ff3207fd707c5a8.jpeg\"\/)
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