Fit grandma, 55, reveals exercise tips that keep her young and earned her following
A Melbourne grandmother has shared her tips to staying young, revealing she’s even been mistaken for her 20-year-old daughter.
When Sharon Orval’s daughter posted a bikini photo of the pair on her Instagram, she had no idea of the reaction it would cause.
Wearing matching string swimmers that showed off their toned figures, Hannah, 20, and Sharon, 55, looked more like sisters than mother and daughter.
“Yeah, this is my mum,” Hannah captioned the snap – causing hundreds of excited comments.
“Mum? Are you sure? It looks like you spelt sister wrong,” one commenter wrote.
“The genes in your family,” another added.
But the Melbourne grandmother took the adoring attention in her stride.
“I just think people are just kind … clearly I don’t look like her sister but it’s nice of them to say something nice,” Sharon told news.com.au.
But it’s not just that one snap that people are impressed by – Sharon’s 50,000 Instagram followers are in awe of her impressive fitness skills.
“You are an inspiration to all mature women out there,” one wrote on a bikini snap recently.
“You don’t look 55, more like 20,” another added.
Another wrote: “What an incredible achievement, you are my inspo.”
If Sharon looks familiar, that’s because she is married to Mark Orval, aka YouTube sensation Angry Dad.
The Orval family became celebrities in 2015 after sons Mitchell and Dylan Orval began filming themselves pranking their dad.
They put the videos online and amassed a combined 1.4 million followers.
Sharon, a former personal trainer, began gaining followers on Instagram as the family’s profile grew but soon noticed people were more interested in her fitness regimen.
Today, she dispenses “Shazzas Tips” through her social media accounts.
“I just sort of accidentally fell into giving people tips and then people would ask for more,” she said.
“Before I knew it I was pretty much giving away the free tips which I had learnt over the years that helped me and helped the other people that I was training as well.”
Sharon was a police officer before giving up work to have children. Returning to the workforce, she followed her passion for fitness and became a personal trainer and class instructor for 15 years.
While now retired, Sharon is still passionate about fitness and goes to the gym five to six days a week.
“I go in there, I do as much as I can, I keep it moving,” she said. “I try and get my cardio out of it as well.
“I like to train hard for at least an hour, and I like to train with weights, that’s something I’ve found that I enjoy.”
When it comes to what she eats, Sharon keeps things simple by steering clear of processed foods during the week – but she likes to treat herself on the weekend.
“I don’t believe in any diets. I cannot deal with fad diets. There’s always a new one coming up every second month,” she said.
“I’ve literally always gone by the very old school food triangle and just always had that idea of a little bit of everything and not too much of anything.
“Know what’s good for you … sometimes eating a lot of bread doesn’t work for certain people, it doesn’t work a lot of me. I try and keep that kind of carbs to a minimum.”
As well as eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly, Sharon credits her youthful looks to looking after her skin through facials and laser treatments.
“I’ve never had any surgeries or anything like that. I’m always happy to give anything else a try. There’s so many wonderful things that basically help all your natural collagen,” she said.
She does get Botox occasionally but keeps the injections to a minimum for a more natural look.
“I have had Botox, it doesn’t really work great on me. I don’t really know why. I’ve been told because I exercise so much my body metabolises it very quickly,” Sharon said. “I’ll do a little bit here and there, a little bit around the creases, my eyes, maybe a little bit on the throat.
“But I don’t like that really smooth forehead look, it’s not something I like. I don’t like not being able to make an expression, and I don’t my eyelids droopy or anything like that.”
While Sharon’s posts overwhelmingly receive positive comments from her followers, she does have to deal with the occasional troll.
“What I’ve seen other people go through I probably haven’t had a lot of it, but there’s always the odd person,” she said.
“I posted one bikini shot when we were in Hawaii and it was a male – well, it was a male profile, it was made up (so) it could have be anybody – and he posted the vomit face emoji. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s kind’.”
Sharon doesn’t engage with any negative comments and instead blocks and delete them.
“When people do that I don’t even like to give them five seconds of anything. I don’t answer them, I never let their comments stay,” she said.
“I delete them and then I block them. To me it’s like if you can’t say anything nice I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to see it.”