WASHINGTON -- A fitness website has named Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski one of the "top 10 fittest senators," noting her active lifestyle and interest in healthy foods.
The list, posted this month by the website Health Fitness Revolution, isn't exactly scientific but a breakdown based on "interviews, Internet, library, industry literature" and the health and fitness knowledge of the site's founder, Samir Becic.
Murkowski and other senators on the list "deserve recognition because they are great ambassadors for a healthy lifestyle and they lead by example," Becic wrote.
Alaska's senior senator made the list based on photos she has posted online "of cooking and freshly picked vegetables," dedication to the health benefits of seafood, and her active family lifestyle, which includes hiking and skiing. The senator is often quick to note that her husband, Verne Martell, is the chef in the relationship.
The list also noted Murkowki's testimony that she walks to and from work every day and generally takes the stairs to her seventh-floor office in the Hart Senate Office Building.
Murkowski's affection for those stairs is well-known among Washington, D.C., reporters and staff aiming to keep up with her quick pace. Murkowski also prefers to use a standing desk in her Capitol Hill office.
Murkowski joins Sens. Bill Nelson (D-Florida), a teetotaler who regularly passes the astronaut physical in Houston; John Thune (R-South Dakota), a runner repeatedly named the fastest man in Congress; Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania); Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), who is active in pushing for healthy food options in schools and for the poor; Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), who, like Murkowski, is into hunting, hiking, and office stair-climbing; Tim Kaine (D-Virginia); Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon); Rand Paul (R-Kentucky; and Marco Rubio (R-Florida).