...And with an infectious smile that begs you to say, "just tell me what to do, ma'am!"

She didn't even start training until the age of 65—25 years ago—and became a personal fitness instructor at 87. Hahahaha, how joyous to get to laugh while at the same time, realizing that no matter how good at life you get, there'll always be someone to shame you—well, perhaps except for her. She's potentially the most quintessentially shameless human on the planet.

Born January 15, 1931. That would have made her 10 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and touched off a war with the United States. Funny enough, by the time I left Japan in 1989 after 5 years, She was 58—7 years away from her husband's idle comment about her weight creep that began this mission accomplished.

It’s still dark when 90-year-old Mika Takishima gets up at 3:00 am for the first of her two daily workouts. Every day it’s not raining, she walks 4-km, followed by a 3-km jog, and finally walks backwards for 1-km. In the afternoon she’s in the gym for 2-hours, stretching and lifting weights. In order to concentrate on the exercises, she does not listen to music while she trains—hardcore!...