WNBA star Candace Parker is all about the “slim thick” body, and weights are her method of achieving it. Parker, 37, shared a video of herself wearing black shorts with a matching tank top, lifting a heavy barbell at the gym. She made it look easy—it’s definitely not! “Slim Thick🤪💪🏽,” she captioned the post. “Those who put in the hard work will see the best results,” an admiring fan commented. Here’s how Parker takes care of her health and happiness and lives her best life.
Parker likes to ease into her day. “I don’t like to wake up and immediately start,” she told Fast Company. “I need a second. So I set my alarm for earlier so that I can lie in bed and just breathe. I’ll have my coffee in the morning, and then I’ll usually work out, then eat breakfast. I’m very big on the reward of things. I schedule everything. The pandemic helped me understand how important it is to schedule time for yourself and for your family.”
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Parker makes workout contracts with herself after learning the trick from the late Kobe Bryant. “The hardest thing for me is working out on Mondays,” she told Fast Company. “I take a 6 a.m. flight to Atlanta for my broadcast job, and when I land, before I go to the studio, I always get on the elliptical or the treadmill, or I’ll lift. And that’s hard. One of my mentors, Kobe Bryant, always used to make contracts with himself because, you know, it sounds great the night before, and then the morning rolls around and you hit snooze.”
Parker’s drink of choice is Casa Azul tequila or a good California red. “I love a big, bold Cab,” she told NY Mag. “I’ve kind of gotten more into Burgundies lately. Nothing beats a good bottle of red wine with my steak off the grill. I actually had that last night! My wife and I just went to Santa Barbara, and we learned that Crown Point is trying to be the first hundred-point Cab in Santa Barbara. I like being early on stuff, so I don’t really go with the big vineyards that have more overproduced wine. I kind of go more low-key — not VIP — but exclusive type of stuff.”
Parker is a big fan of the Starbucks holiday drinks. “I get excited about Christmas, but really I get excited about the Christmas drinks at Starbucks,” she told NY Mag. “The gingerbread latte is my go-to, and then I feel just so empty after the holidays are over because I don’t know what my drink at Starbucks will be after that. And then I have to go through this process of trying to find my drink again, and then wait for the fall basically. My go-to order is a (hot) venti oat-milk latte with one pump of pumpkin-spice syrup. I will drink hot coffee when it’s 95 degrees outside. I cannot drink iced coffee.”
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Parker tries not to watch TV right before bed, preferring books. “I’m an avid reader, and my favorite book is Chop Wood, Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf,” she told Chicago Magazine. “He talks about focusing on the preparation and relinquishing the results. And I’m one of those people who, if I had a chance to be the hero and take the last shot but an 80 percent chance of missing it, I would take the shot. So I’m choosing to come home to Chicago regardless of what the outcome is. I want to end my career where I started it, and whatever happens in between is out of my control.”