Danica Patrick, fitness model

Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with a woman who keeps herself in shape making a career as a fitness model and lifestyle guru. But i...

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Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with a woman who keeps herself in shape making a career as a fitness model and lifestyle guru. But it's a bit of a fall from grace from someone who was supposedly going to beat all the boys on the racetrack.

It's been a popular thought for some time that Patrick eventually would make the transition to a lifestyle career, maybe becoming some version of a Rachael Ray type. This much is true: Patrick appears capable of doing pretty much anything. She can whip up a five-course gourmet meal, pair wines, paint, and dress for either black tie events or black dirt at the race track.

Is carving out a space in the lucrative health and fitness business where she ultimately wants to be?

"Sure," she said after a long pause. "If I'm going to do all this and write a cookbook and a fitness program, I'll take this as far as I can to motivate people to be successful. The program works. I know it works."

After giving up dairy and gluten a few years ago, she really noticed the difference. She no longer would slog through a crummy afternoon and thought, "Man, today is just not my day."

"I just don't have those," she said. "The only thing that knocks me out now, sometimes, is allergies. But I don't get tired. I don't get full when I eat — and I eat all the time, too."

She is a firm believer in meal preparation, and almost always carries a cooler with healthy eating options. At Thanksgiving, she served a grain-free, dairy-free stuffing, and a cold salad of shaved brussels sprouts, toasted butternut squash and a homemade dressing.

Hey, at least she avoided becoming a victim of Hultgreen-Curie Syndrome.