Kim Alexis

I have learned to be molded by God into the person He wants. I want to help and encourage others to be the best they can be.

I was muscular - I was never overweight. But tell a girl that she has to lose 15 pounds when she's not fat, and that has destroyed a lot of who I am over the years, even still. In my mind I'm thinking, 'I'm always too heavy. I should be a skinny thing.'

I look at being older and gaining wisdom. I've learned to stay fit and healthy. I accept my body, my life, and my circumstances.

I had to learn what made Kim happy. I learned you have to take care of the spark in your eyes.

I used to waterski on the Niagara River.

I want people to know that blood tests alone won't always detect thyroid disease. My blood panels were normal. I think a lot more people have this disease than are diagnosed.

I really discovered I had thyroid disease by accident. My son was having some health concerns, and as I filled out his patient history I noticed I had a lot of similar symptoms. I mentioned it to the doctor, and he ran blood work and finally an ultrasound of my thyroid.

Romance is possible between two people at any age! I love feeling young and acting young as I age.

I daily disconnect and read a good book or listen to a good sermon or call a friend or my mom and talk on the phone with my feet up. I also take baths with bath salts that I make myself.

I feel an important part of beauty is not only what you do on the outside but also what you put into the inside. Good fresh food with many vegetables along with love and caring for others. I spend way more time serving others than I do on my beauty routine daily.

I gave birth to my first son in April 1986. I thought it would be a good goal to get back in shape after having a baby if I ran the New York City Marathon. I ran in it November 1986. I had just shot the 'Sports Illustrated' swimsuit issue, so I was in great shape.

I ran my first marathon in Florida in 1985. I had never run more than nine miles.

When I was 20, my husband at the time looked at me said, 'You're fat; go run.' There weren't a lot of tools at the end of the '70s to lose weight. It took me a while to realize what kind of exercise would make me happy and I would look forward to doing. And running became it.

Running just makes me happy. I love the freedom of running. I ran until I was seven and a half months pregnant with each of my babies. When I gave birth to my first son, my doctor said I couldn't run for six weeks. I was sneaking back out after eight days.

I would rather exercise than read a newspaper.

I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus until I met my nanny, who helped me through a failing marriage and raising my two boys in a New York City apartment. She showed me by example what it was like to be able to talk to Jesus and bring all my cares and worries to Him. That was in 1990.

I know that I have raised my sons to be big, strong, independent men who love God, themselves and care for others. I have to learn to let them have space and learn without me.

The biggest change for me as a mom was realizing I needed to put someone else before me. Now the hardest part about the empty nest is learning to put myself first.

I'm conservative. I was raised conservative, and that's the way I will vote.

Modeling is a lonely business.

I'm happy going home early and working out and just being a mother and being a wife.

A supermodel needed to be able to be on 'Sports Illustrated,' to be able to walk runways, to be able to do beauty ads, to be on covers. And the girls now can no longer be on covers and be in the ads because your actresses have taken over all the jobs. I don't know what happened, but we want our jobs back.

I never let myself get desperate.

Modeling is a lonely business... You don't speak. You don't really portray anything but an image... the business is so superfluous about dealing with the outside, it messes with your mind.

You have to be a model and multifaceted, but there's not a lot of ways for a model to be multifaceted because the actresses took all the covers.