86-year-old rejects gym but loses almost 9st walking inside tiny flat

An 86-year-old pensioner has proved you don’t need a gym to get fit and has shed eight and a half stone by walking around her tiny one-bedroom flat.

Jessica Slaughter had been too afraid of falling and hurting herself to exercise away from home outdoors or at her local gym but was sick of being obese.

And so, she began pacing up and down her small apartment for 25 minutes every morning to lose weight.

She had been obese since she was a child and was bullied for it.

In her 70s, she was diagnosed with high blood sugar levels with a high risk of developing full-blown diabetes.

The grandmother had tried home fitness equipment and luxury health spas but they didn't work for her.

“I was always the fattest kid in the class” she said.

“I just made a decision. I’m just going to walk a certain amount of time every day", she told a TV crew from KSDK.

The pensioner started talking daily walks inside her home and became a vegan.

After her granddaughter suggested she track her steps electronically using a Fitbit, she began making daily laps around her flat.

"I started seeing the results of it, so I just continued to do it.”

In her sparkly purple slippers, each morning she clocks up on average 3,000 steps by walking repeatedly from her living room to her kitchen.

She decided to cut meat, dairy, and alcohol from her diet and dropped more than a few dress sizes from a 24 (UK size) to a size 8 (UK). The woman from St Louis, Missouri in the US is also no longer ‘pre-diabetic’.

She now hopes her habit will inspire other older people to take action to get fit in their homes.

She says everyone should think about what they eat and how much they move.

And she has this advice for those aged 80 and over: “I chose losing weight over staying fat.

"I just didn’t want to just die like that.

“Just because we’ve gotten a certain age, we don’t have to stop living."