Before I became a mom, I had time to make steel cut oats, scram­bled egg whites & fresh berries for break­fast every morning.

Enter Noah…and good-bye extra time in the morning!

I’ve had to get cre­ative with quick break­fasts since James and I are now using Shake­ol­ogy to replace din­ner or lunch.

Obvi­ously, I still love oatmeal…but it’s not a com­plete meal since it’s lower in pro­tein. This recipe gives oat­meal a pro­tein punch (aka proat­meal) with the use of muf­fin tins for por­tion size and con­ve­nience. Enjoy!

You will need:

1 cup Egg Whites
1 egg
1 1/2 cups old fash­ioned oats
1/8 cup ste­via
1/2 cup 1% cot­tage cheese
1/2 cup unsweet­ened apple­sauce
2 scoops vanilla whey pro­tein pow­der (This is the one I use — it’s best for bak­ing!)
1 tsp bak­ing pow­der
1 tsp cin­na­mon
1 tsp vanilla

Instruc­tions:

Pre­heat oven to 350.

Place all ingre­di­ents in blender, and blend until smooth.

Spray muf­fin tin with non-stick cook­ing spray.

Fill muf­fin tins.

Bake for 25 min­utes or until golden brown around the edges.

For an extra break­fast treat, slice muf­fin in half, toast in toaster oven & spread with 1 TBSP nat­ural peanut butter.

“Thou­sands of girls that think beauty is an outer issue, and really it’s a heart issue.” — Kylie Bisutti

I seri­ously stood up and began clap­ping when I heard the for­mer Vic­to­ria Secret model say the above quote on Good Morn­ing Amer­ica this week.

If you haven’t heard the news, 21-year-old Kylie quit one of the top pay­ing mod­el­ing gigs in the world because she felt increas­ingly con­victed about how her body is for her hus­band, and lin­gerie mod­el­ing wasn’t hon­or­ing the com­mit­ment she made to him.

But more impor­tantly, she knew her career wasn’t hon­or­ing the Lord. So she quit.

She could have taken the easy way out. She could have said she wanted to focus more on act­ing, or they were think­ing of start­ing a family…but she took the harder option:

The truth.

Kylie con­fessed her con­vic­tions, admit­ted where she felt she had failed, and at the same time, caused every other lin­gerie model to at least con­sider their own moral dilemma.

She has no inten­tions to quit mod­el­ing. But she will only be tak­ing whole­some jobs from now on.

Now, most of us will prob­a­bly never have to make the deci­sion Kylie did. But we all have to make the choice to choose modesty.

I haven’t done mod­esty per­fectly. I remem­ber one dress in par­tic­u­lar that I wore to watch the 2005 Miss Ten­nessee pageant. (Mind you, I com­peted in 2004 and had every inten­tion of com­ing back to com­pete in 2006.)

I knew I wasn’t going to be on the stage in the cen­ter of atten­tion, but I also wanted to make the pageant direc­tors want me to come back to com­pete again. I needed a way to stand out…while sit­ting in the audience.

Enter: shock­ing dress. It was far too short, too low cut, and hugged my body way too close.

But I wore it anyway.

It worked. I turned heads every place I went that night.

But I hated every sec­ond of it.

I felt so uncom­fort­able. Not only was I cold, but I hated the way I was being looked up and down. I felt cheap. I felt used.

But most of all…I felt like a total hypocrite.

I talked like I was God’s lit­tle princess…but I looked far from right­eous roy­alty that night.

Mov­ing for­ward, I made the deci­sion that “mod­est is hottest.” Not only does cov­er­ing myself up pro­tect me from ever hav­ing to go through the same emo­tions I had that one night, it pro­tects the males around me too.

For those of you who aren’t mar­ried yet, if you think like I used to, you may think, “Well, I don’t have a hus­band yet, so my body still belongs to me.”

Wrong.

Our bod­ies belong to God first.

“Do you not know that your bod­ies are tem­ples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. There­fore honor God with your bod­ies.” — 1 Corinthi­ans 6:19–20

Look­ing out for our husband’s good begins at birth, not when we meet him.

“She brings him [her hus­band] good, not harm, all the days of her life.” — Proverbs 31:12

I’ll con­clude with a plea to the young girls who may stum­ble upon this article:

Please remem­ber Kyle’s words that true beauty comes from the heart. God cre­ated you to be so spe­cial. You are the only you He put on this Earth. Please don’t make the mis­take I did and sell your­self short by try­ing to look like some­thing He didn’t cre­ate you to be.

Dress in such a way that when you meet your hus­band, he falls in love with your heart first. The kind of man you want to marry will be so thank­ful that you pro­tect his mind from wan­der­ing where it shouldn’t. And he will be even more thank­ful that you aren’t dis­play­ing your­self for every other man to see.

Mod­est IS hottest.

Meet Jackie

But peo­ple who meet her to today call her Dr. Vidosh.

Jackie, who is a 1st year OBGYN res­i­dent doc­tor, not only helps other peo­ple get healthy. But over the last few years, she has trans­formed her own health using Shake­ol­ogy, healthy eat­ing habits, and exercise.

Dur­ing her third year of med­ical school, Jackie not only devel­oped a pas­sion for women’s health, but real­ized that if she didn’t actively make the time for her own health, she wouldn’t be able to ade­quately pro­vide health for oth­ers. Even with her crazy med­ical school sched­ule, she began pri­or­i­tiz­ing find­ing time to exer­cise and eat healthy food.

When Jackie asked me for a work­out that would improve her speed, with­out hes­i­ta­tion, I rec­om­mended Insan­ity.

“Insan­ity totally trans­formed my body,” Jackie says. “I went from a size 6 to a size 2, and def­i­nitely increased my lean mus­cle tone and speed.”

Insan­ity quickly led to Shake­ol­ogy.

“Shake­ol­ogy was appeal­ing because it was quick and easy to fix, and it’s also easy to carry in a sports bot­tle while I’m in the hos­pi­tal. I have since been using Shake­ol­ogy for the last 2 years. It is great because it is one of the few lower calo­rie meals or snacks that keeps me the fullest. I will have it either as a post-workout snack, or break­fast because of how long it keeps me full. I also love it because I can use it in a vari­ety of ways, includ­ing to make my own
pro­tein bars, or mixed with oat­meal as a pro­tein boost.”

More Q & A with Jackie

What is your favorite Shake­ol­ogy recipe?

A choco­late, peanut but­ter, banana smoothie. I freeze a banana overnight, then add 1 scoop choco­late Shakel­ogy, 1 TBSP PB2, 5–6 ice­cubes, 1/2 cup soy milk, and 1/2 cup water and blend it in the blender. So good!

As a doc­tor, why would you rec­om­mend some­one take Shakeology?

The nutri­ents! It has lower sug­ars con­tent than a lot of other pro­tein pow­ders, as well as lower calo­ries, and it doesn’t sac­ri­fice taste for performance.

What advice would you give to a busy per­son who needs to start work­ing out?

I am a sched­uler. I have to write down exactly what I want to accom­plish in a day for it to get done. I write my work­out down and treat it like an appoint­ment I need to keep. As far as chang­ing your eat­ing habits, I have found that the meal plans layed out in each of the work­out plans I have tried are very easy to fol­low and give a good idea of foods to choose
from. Also, when I ini­tially started out, I would shop with a copy of Mitch’s lad­der, just in case I for­got what was “good.”

Get­ting my work­out in can be a chal­lenge, as time is my biggest lux­ury. That being said, it is a pri­or­ity of mine. Cur­rently, I am work­ing nights at the hos­pi­tal. If I can’t get a full work­out in, I at least make it a point to run up the stairs every time I need to take them and don’t use the ele­va­tor. We have yoga mats, weights, and a pull-up bar, so in the very least I can find 5 min­utes to do crunches, push-ups, and pull-ups. At other times, when my sched­ule is more “nor­mal” I work out right after work. If I sit down, I’m toast, so I will often times bring my work­out clothes to change into at work after a shift so that I am moti­vated to do the work­out, even after a long day.

What work­out are you doing now?

Since doing Insan­ity, I have com­pleted Tur­boFire and now, I’m cur­rently using P90X2. I’ve enjoyed them all! I love them because most of the work­outs can be done in a hotel room (Trust me, I’ve done it!), and you get results. They give you all the nec­es­sary tools for suc­cess. You just have to push play!

Any last advice for us, Dr. Vidosh?

You are worth the invest­ment into your health. It can seem daunt­ing, expen­sive, and maybe even a lit­tle over­whelm­ing at first, but tak­ing the time and effort to take care of your­self is absolutely worth it. Your energy will be higher, your endurance longer, and your abil­i­ties to prob­lem solve will get bet­ter as your body gets into bet­ter shape.

We are a tri­une being — body, soul, and spirit. None of them func­tion as well unless they are all healthy and “worked out” on a reg­u­lar basis. What are you wait­ing for?!

Jackie, enjoy­ing her active lifestyle in God’s beau­ti­ful cre­ation, thanks to her ded­i­ca­tion to her fit­ness & proper nutrition

For info about any of the prod­ucts men­tioned in this arti­cle, con­tact me & I’ll help you find the right pro­gram for you.

If you look think kale is only a garnish…

You are miss­ing out.

Kale chips are my favorite way to get the crunch of a chip while only get­ting the calo­ries of a vegetable.

Added bonus: They are super sim­ple to make!

You will need:

1 bunch kale
1 TBSP extra vir­gin olive oil
1 tsp sea salt

Instruc­tions:

Pre­heat an oven to 350 degrees.

Line a non insu­lated cookie sheet with parch­ment paper.

With a knife or kitchen shears care­fully remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite size pieces.

Wash and thor­oughly dry kale with a salad spinner.

Driz­zle kale with olive oil and sprin­kle with sea salt.

Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.

You know those peo­ple that seem to be able to do more with 24 hours than the aver­age per­son can do in a week?

Last year, I was deter­mined to become one of them.

Now, I’m not get­ting fit­ted for my Super Woman cape yet or any­thing, but here are three prin­ci­ples that helped me make 2011 my most pro­duc­tive year yet.

Orga­nize.

If you don’t have a daily to-do list, that’s the first place to start. John Maxwell says a bud­get allows you to tell your money where to go instead of won­der­ing where it went. In the same way, a to-do list allows you to plan out what you will accom­plish instead of won­der­ing where your day went.

But I’m not just talk­ing about any old to-do list. I learned how to plan my day from one of my men­tors, Cha­lene John­son. If you’re look­ing to get orga­nized and make 2012 your most pro­duc­tive year yet, you’ve got to get your hands on a copy of her book PUSH. Do your­self this $15 favor, and you’ll never look back.

Focus.

The object of being pro­duc­tive include fill­ing your plan­ner from dawn to dusk to see how many things you can do. The pur­pose is to help you fill your plan­ner with the things that count — tasks that push you toward what you want to accomplish.

Begin with know­ing your Top 3 pri­or­i­ties in life. Your cal­en­dar should reflect these priorities.

Dis­claimer: For me…this next part was the hard­est part for me to real­ize. But once I put it into prac­tice, I was amazed how much it changed my life.

Many times, focus means know­ing when to say no…and actu­ally doing it. If you are asked to do some­thing and it doesn’t match your Top 3 pri­or­i­ties, your answer should be no 99% of the time.

John Maxwell puts in this way: “Some­times, you have to say no to good things to say yes to the best things.”

So pro­tect your pri­or­i­ties and your pro­duc­tiv­ity by say­ing no to the right things and truly allow­ing your­self to focus on your main tasks at hand.

Account­abil­ity.

Don’t hide what you want to accom­plish. Share it with oth­ers so they can share your excitement!

I have account­abil­ity part­ners in every area of my life that mat­ters to me: my walk with Christ, my mar­riage, my par­ent­ing, my per­sonal health & fit­ness, and my business.

My account­abil­ity part­ners know my goals in these areas, and they can ask me tough ques­tions when­ever they want. I’ve given them that right.

I don’t know sta­tis­tics on this, but in my per­sonal expe­ri­ence, account­abil­ity at least dou­bles my chance of suc­cess. That’s why I’ve incor­po­rated it into as many areas of my life as I can.

What’s your best pro­duc­tiv­ity tip?

Con­grats goes to.…

Ali­son Stow!

Ali­son, please con­tact me with your address so I can get your fit­book in the mail to you.

For those of you who didn’t win, these make per­fect stock­ing stuffers…just sayin.

And remem­ber, the b #thank­ful cam­paign goes through Thanks­giv­ing, so keep tweet­ing and post­ing what you love about your body.

We are so blessed by our amaz­ing Creator!

What a dif­fer­ence 8 months makes.

Noah was born at 4 lbs 5 oz. Today, on World Pre­ma­tu­rity Day, and the day he turns 8 months old, he is push­ing 21 lbs.

James and I are so grateful.

Did you know…?

In the United States, 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely.

World­wide, 13 mil­lion babies are born too soon each year.

I was essen­tially clue­less about pre­emies before I had one myself. I had no idea pre­ma­tu­rity affected so many families.

Thank­fully, there are orga­ni­za­tion like March of Dimes and Hand to Hold who put together cam­paigns like this to raise awareness.

I’ll be wear­ing pur­ple today for my lit­tle boy and pre­emies every­where, and I’d love for you to join me.

Also, if you’d like to make a con­tri­bu­tion to help pre­ma­ture fam­i­lies, 25% of the pro­ceeds of your jew­elry pur­chase will go to help Hand to Hold, one of my favorite organizations.

Hand to Hold pro­vides snacks and encour­age­ment to par­ents who are in the NICU, along with sup­port groups, edu­ca­tion and even matches fam­i­lies who have walked the NICU road with cur­rent NICU par­ents. Hand to Hold was a real bless­ing to us while we were in the NICU with Noah. James and I look for­ward to bless­ing other fam­i­lies through this organization.

So do some Christ­mas shop­ping or buy your­self some­thing pretty, and know that you are bless­ing fam­i­lies with pre­ma­ture babies.

Who will you wear pur­ple for today?

I make it no secret that Shake­ol­ogy is my favorite prod­uct. (Don’t know what Shake­ol­ogy is? Click here for info!)

Want to win some?

Trust me…you do!

Here are the give­away details:

1. Go through the archived recipes on my site & find one you want to prepare.

2. Get the ingre­di­ents, have some fun in the kitchen, and take a pic­ture of your healthy creation.

3. Share the pic­ture on social media with a link back to the recipe you chose.

You will get 1 entry for every social media venue you share your pic­ture on…so be cre­ative! (Face­book, Twit­ter, Insta­gram, Pin­ter­est, your per­sonal blog, etc.)

4. Use the Con­tact Form & list your links/usernames so your entries can be verified.

Other details:

I will use random.org to gen­er­ate a win­ner. Win­ner will be announced Fri­day morn­ing, Sep­tem­ber 9.

Entries MUST be com­plete by 5pm CST on Thurs­day, Sep­tem­ber 8.

MULTIPLE win­ners will be chosen…the more peo­ple who enter, the more win­ners there will be!

Win­ners will receive two sam­ples of each fla­vor of Shake­ol­ogy in addi­tion to a shaker cup and & my per­sonal favorite recipe cards.

You’ve got some extra time on Labor Day…so have some fun cook­ing! (There are plenty of kid-friendly recipes too, so you can involve your whole fam­ily in the process!)

I’ll be mail­ing pack­ages to some of you soon. Be sure to check back Fri­day to see if you’re a winner!

Thanks to Alec Baldwin’s per­for­mance in Glen­garry Glen Ross, every per­son who’s ever worked in sales knows the ABC’s of Business:

“Always Be Closing.”

I would be far fetched to say clos­ing isn’t a part of sales. How­ever, I believe it’s fool­ish to say it’s as foun­da­tional as the ABC’s for a last­ing sales career.

Peo­ple are much more likely to go buy a prod­uct because of a rec­om­men­da­tion from a friend than they are to fall into the per­fectly scripted pur­chas­ing trap of a pushy salesman.

As a sales pro­fes­sional, this should teach us: Shar­ing is more valu­able than selling.

So move over “Always Be Clos­ing.” There are new ABCs of Busi­ness in town!

Authen­tic­ity

I can’t help but think about Flow from the Pro­gres­sive com­mer­cials. Have you ever been around a sales­per­son like that? Every one of their prod­ucts is not only won­der­ful, but life chang­ing! There aren’t enough hours in the day for them to pos­si­bly use each of them, yet they claim they do.

Peo­ple can see through that, so be real. If you use some­thing a few times a week, don’t over­sell that you couldn’t get through a day with­out it. If there’s a gen­uine crit­i­cism that you have, be honest.

For exam­ple, I love 2 fla­vors of the P90X Peak Per­for­mance bars sold by my com­pany, Beach­body. (Wilberry Yogurt & Choco­late Peanut But­ter — yum!) How­ever, the Choco­late Fudge is WAY too much choco­late for me and as for the Choco­late Mocha, the only place I want cof­fee is in my coffee.

Does that mean they are bad prod­ucts? Of course not. But they’re not my per­sonal favorite, so I would never falsely gush to any­one that they are.

Would any­one ever find out that I don’t per­son­ally like those fla­vors? Maybe not. But maybe they would. And if they did, my long-term cred­i­bil­ity with them would be shot.

Belief

Do you gen­uinely love the prod­ucts or ser­vices you sell?

When you love what you sell, your job becomes as nat­ural as rec­om­mend­ing a movie you liked to a friend or tak­ing a fam­ily mem­ber to a new restau­rant you dis­cov­ered. you stop sell­ing and you start shar­ing. Your job becomes a nat­ural exten­sion of who you are.

So guess what that means? If you love the prod­ucts and ser­vices you sell, you’ll love your job.

That’s right. No more work­ing for the week­end. In fact, you may even find your­self “work­ing” when you’re not tech­ni­cally on the clock.

Aside from any­thing to do with finances, the real ben­e­fit of belief is the increased qual­ity of life you’ll have by lov­ing where you spend 40+ hours per week.

Per­sonal expe­ri­ence trumps the best sales pitch you’ve ever made. Real pas­sion for what you do can­not be ignored. When you’ve got belief in what you do, the only lim­i­ta­tions you’ll have are the ones you put on yourself.

Con­sis­tency

Con­sis­tency is two-fold:

In Prod­uct

Con­trary to the thought that the more prod­ucts you sell, the more money you’ll make, the oppo­site is true. The more prod­ucts you sell, the less spe­cial­ized your area of exper­tise becomes. Peo­ple would rather pur­chase from an expert or a jack of all trades than a mas­ter of none.

By Exam­ple

A friend of mine always says, “Never trust an over­weight per­sonal trainer or a skinny chef.” While that state­ment may not be 100% true, the prin­ci­ple of con­sis­tency is.

If you are a makeup artist and your makeup is taste­fully done, you’ll always have more clients than some­one who doesn’t pay atten­tion to their own appearance.

If you’re a per­sonal styl­ist who shows up to appoint­ment with a busi­ness exec­u­tive in sweat pants and a t-shirt, I wouldn’t bet on keep­ing that client.

You are a walk­ing bill­board for your busi­ness. Rep­re­sent your prod­uct well.

If you’re led in busi­ness by authen­tic­ity, belief & con­sis­tency, clos­ing will take care of itself.

Con­grats to KARA COLLEY for win­ning a copy of Renee Swope’s new book! Kara, please use the con­tact form to send me your address, and I will get your book in the mail to you.

For those of you who didn’t win, I still have a pretty fab­u­lous con­so­la­tion prize…

You can read the whole first chap­ter for FREE! Down­load it here.

Thanks for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the con­test. Stick around — more give­aways com­ing soon!