ITV This Morning coach reveals five-minute exercise that helped her shed weight on HRT

Female jogger wearing knitted hat doing warm up workout outdoor on a winter morning.
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When one fifty-something influencer set up a camera to film herself jumping into the Cornish sea, she did not recognise the person looking back into the camera — so she decided to make a drastic change.

However, she discovered one exercise trick, favoured by boxers, did wonders to help her transform her body and mind in just five minutes. For Gail McNeill, founder of Fifty Sister, all she needed was to start skipping.

Speaking to Davina McCall on her Begin Again podcast, NcNeill said she originally ordered a skipping rope online and told her followers she would do 3,000 jumps. However, after the first twenty she felt she had already achieved a full body workout and everything was “aching and creaking”.

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Talking about her entire workout routine she said, “I tell myself it's 15 minutes but it's normally about 25.”

She said she was motivated to start exercising again because she wanted to be mentally mobile, as well as physically mobile. She said: “I don’t want my son to be wheeling me around.”

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Skipping — or as McNeill calls it, “speed rope” — makes up five minutes of her 25-minute workout routine. She said: “I do five minutes weighted speed rope - and I mean really fast, then i do kettle bell for five minutes - then I repeat it and do another five minutes weighted speed rope.”

She said the weighted skipping rope is “how you tone your arms.” She also has a Muay Thai skipping rope which is “a killer but gives a full upper body workout.” For this rope — used to train in the martial arts, which wraps around your wrists — she does three sets of three minutes.

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She added: “Skipping changes your whole body and changes your mood - I didn't need to watch anything or learn anything.” Skipping has long been cited as a super efficient activity to boost cardiovascular health, whilst improving balance, strength and even posture.

As McNeill noted, it can also have excellent mental health benefit as you are required to concentrate on your motor skills. It has even been linked with reducing anxiety.