Billie Jean King has tips for making life a Grand Slam.
Although the 81-year-old retired from tennis in 1983, she is still serving up moxie in all aspects of her life more than 40 years later, and recently shared tips for how she has continued to keep it that way.
For starters, King follows doctor’s orders when it comes to the most basic health tips, ensuring she gets “eight hours of sleep no matter where in the world we are,” she told Today in an interview published Aug. 26, and exercise in, of course, the form of tennis, “ideally two or three times a week.”
As she put it, “For older adults I think it really helps with balance.”
When it comes to her diet, King’s only hard and fast rule is avoiding red meat when she can, but it’s most important to her to keep a healthy relationship with food.
Aside from the basics, the 39-time Grand Slam winner also keeps her mind healthy with a few tried and true tips.
“I meet people everywhere, and I think those connections are really important,” she added. “I wish young people would get off their phones and engage in conversations.”
One place she’s currently meeting new people? School. After dropping out in 1964 to pursue her tennis career, the legend returned to university to finish her degree at California State University, Los Angeles.
“I always wanted to go back and get my degree,” she explained “I hate not finishing!”
In addition to keeping her mentally sharp and social, she found that attending school again also fulfills another one of her ways of staying healthy: living a purpose-driven life.
“Learning from history is so important,” she added. “History repeats itself, and some of these fights are cyclical.”
For King, one of her purposes has always been fighting for women’s rights—especially when it comes to sports.
“We have a long way to go,” she noted. “I just want freedom for everybody to pursue their dreams.”
For more sage words on aging from the stars, keep reading…
(E! and Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)
Heidi Klum
“I don’t think of getting older as looking better or worse; it’s just different. You change, and that’s okay. Life is about change,” she told Self.
Cameron Diaz
“There’s no such thing as anti-aging. We’re all aging, period. Women take it as something personal that they are getting older. They think that they failed somehow by not staying 25. This is crazy to me because my belief is that it’s a privilege to get older—not everybody gets to get older,” she told Access Hollywood.
Kate Beckinsale
“Historically when women have made strides of some type, culturally things rise up to oppress them. Right now I feel like we’ve made a lot of strides, but nobody’s allowed to age or look pregnant. I feel all of that stuff has gotten worse. It’s a brilliant way to keep people enslaved, by having them horrified by themselves. Well I refuse to feel shame about being human,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
Jennifer Lopez
“When I turned 40, I was like, huh. I accept myself more now. It was much more comforting,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.
Cindy Crawford
“I’m actually happier with my body now… because the body I have now is the body I’ve worked for. I have a better relationship with it. From a purely aesthetic point of view, my body was better when I was 22, 23. But I didn’t enjoy it. I was too busy comparing it to everyone else’s,” she told Popsugar.
Drew Barrymore
“Gravity and wrinkles are fine with me. They’re a small price to pay for the new wisdom inside my head and my heart. If my breasts fall down to the floor and everything starts to sag, becoming hideous and gross, I won’t worry,” as she told Bustle.
Madonna
“F–k you. I’m 50. That’s what I’m going to say when I turn 50. Sorry,” as she told Popsugar.
Diane Keaton
“Here is my biggest takeaway after 60 years on the planet: There is great value in being fearless. For too much of my life, I was too afraid, too frightened by it all. That fear is one of my biggest regrets,” as the told PopSugar.
Helen Mirren
“When you’re 16, you think 28 is so old! And then you get to 28 and it’s fabulous. You think, then, what about 42? Ugh! And then 42 is great. As you reach each age, you gain the understanding you need to deal with it and enjoy it,” she told Bustle.
Jennifer Garner
Celine Dion
“There’s no such thing is aging, but maturing and knowledge. It’s beautiful, I call that beauty,” she told Ok! Magazine.
Penelope Cruz
Kate Winslet
“I’m baffled that anyone might not think women get more beautiful as they get older. Confidence comes with age, and looking beautiful comes from the confidence someone has in themselves,” she told Net-a-Porter Magazine.
Oprah Winfrey
“People who lie about their age are denying the truth and contributing to a sickness pervading our society—the sickness of wanting to be what you’re not…. I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life,” she wrote in O Magazine.
Diane Von Furstenberg
“Aging is out of your control. How you handle it, though, is in your hands…. In my older face, I see my life. Every wrinkle, every smile line, every age spot. There is a saying that with age, you look outside what you are inside. If you are someone who never smiles, your face gets saggy. If you’re a person who smiles a lot, you will have more smile lines. Your wrinkles reflect the roads you have taken; they form the map of your life. My face reflects the wind and sun and rain and dust from the trips I’ve taken. My face carries all my memories. Why should I erase them?” she told Vogue.
Reese Witherspoon
“But I think as a woman, you get older, you feel more confident in your sexuality. You’re not as intimidated by it, not as embarrassed by it. Sexuality and femininity is an accumulation of age and wisdom and comfort in your own skin,” she told Glamour.
