WNBA Star Candace Parker took time out of her very busy day-to-day life to relax with wife Anna Petrakova. Parker, 37, shared pictures of herself wearing an orange swimsuit as she and Petrakova enjoyed a dip in a beautiful pool, against a stunning sunset background. "I don't care if we on the run….. baby long as I'm next to you…And if loving you is a crime…Tell me why do I bring out the best in you," she captioned the sweet post. Parker is a businesswoman and a parent on top of being a star athlete—here's how she makes it all work.
Parker's daily routine is built around training. "I start my day with a light breakfast and then head to shootaround," she says. "Then I eat a solid lunch and take a nap – which is important to my routine. Following my nap, I shower and then grab a Muscle Milk as I head to the game. Right after the game, I drink another Muscle Milk. Protein is essential post-workout and game. It's packed full of protein and the nutrients that I need to recover and push through to the next workout or game. Muscle Milk's vanilla and strawberry protein shakes are my favorites – I always have those on hand."
Parker's advice to anyone starting a healthy lifestyle is to make small lifestyle adjustments. "I would say that the first step is to just get up and move," she says. "Even for just ten minutes, find something that makes your heart rate elevated and that feels good for you. At the beginning of the New Year, we often make these aggressive workout regimens, and it's hard to stick to something if you're going from zero to 100. Carve out ten minutes a day to move your body – that can even be a walk around your neighborhood. Those ten minutes can turn into 20 minutes and then into 30 minutes."
Parker sets a good example for her daughter on what a healthy lifestyle looks like. "It's so important for me, not just as a professional athlete, but as a mom, to show my daughter a healthy way of life," she says. "Yes, it is eating, it is taking care of yourself in that way, but it's also having an active lifestyle. And a lot of people because they don't know how or they don't know what to do, they don't do it. And so, obviously girls in sports and activity and movement are things that I'm super passionate about."
Parker's diet is protein-packed and mostly healthy. "I usually eat four meals a day, especially on game days," she says. "I stick to whole grains, and don't eat red meat more than once or twice a week. (I stick to chicken, fish—stuff like that.) I used to have a huge sweet tooth, but now instead of Oreos I'll have grapes, instead of a huge sundae I'll have granola."
Parker has struggled with embracing simplicity. "I think simplicity has always been difficult for me," she says. "I think physically because you know, I've been versatile and have played multiple positions. I think simplicity was always, you know, me dribbling and me doing this and whatever. And now I've just learned that simplicity is key, doing things with the least amount of motion is going to benefit me greatly. So I think that is the biggest thing to me is just yes, I can dribble and do that, but it's more beneficial for me to be able to do it with less motion. So I think that's been my off-season mantra has been 'simplicity is key.'"
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