All posts by R.C. Liley

I'm an ex-mutual fund accountant who left the cubicle world to be a stay-at-home dad to my beautiful little girl, Avery, who entered our life on 11/15/13 and handsome little boy, Wes, who joined our family on 11/19/17. Also happily married to my wife, Kelley, as of 8/17/07. Sorry ladies... :) Fitness and nutrition is of the utmost importance in our family and we strive to reflect this in our daily life. I always prepare our meals at home and only go out if it's a special occasion, and even then I tend to not get much. Food should be fun and a joy to eat, not something quickly consumed from a fast food chain or scarf down before the next meeting. I have come from strictly logging high miles to train for the next marathon to keeping exercise varied and focusing more on strength. I still enjoy going for a run when I can, but nothing crazy, and I prefer hill sprints while pushing my daughter, Avery in the stroller. She loves it and I get a great workout! I want to show the world how to appreciate their body and feed it real, wholesome food while moving more throughout the day. In doing so, everyone would be healthier, happier, and we'd all live in a better place as a result. I blog mainly about my life as a stay-at-home dad and frequently include reviews, participate in campaigns, and share my thoughts on fitness and nutrition. If you ever have any questions or thoughts to share, please reach out as I'm always open to listening or helping others however possible. That is, when I have free time since Avery is and my wife are the number one priorities!

Indoor Rowing With a Toddler & Cold Brew Coffee

Is there something you’ve wanted for years but haven’t been able to get it for some reason? Okay, fine, there’s probably more than just something and more like a lot of things. But for me, one of them was an ergometer so I could enjoy indoor rowing at home.

After many many years of blah-blahing to Going Mom about how I want one, I finally earned enough points on my Amazon card to pull the trigger; or should it be rigger? 🙂 Just a little rowing joke for you, you’re welcome. And of course I had to share my purchase on Facebook, but only because Amazon asked me to after I hit “submit payment”.

Rower Purchase Shared on FB

It finally came this past Tuesday and I quickly worked on putting it together. With my favorite little helper, of course.

Helping Daddy Put Together Rower

Think something’s too easy for you? Throw in a toddler or two and that should solve your issue; instant increase in difficulty! But we love them! Avery was super interested in everything I had out and thought everything was up for grabs.

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What if I push this button?

 

Thankfully Kelley was able to keep Avery at bay long enough for me to have it assembled and ready to test before it was too late. I skipped the usual walk (it was freakin’ cold outside anyway), and opted to do a 5k row which took just under 20 minutes. Ahhh, I love it!

But there is one thing that’s an issue…..Avery. She’ll walk right into my arms as they’re pulling back which results in me knocking her over. Poor girl, she just laughs and thinks I’m playing with her. It’s sad, really.

Again, thanks to my wife holding Avery back as best as she could, the first row went mostly okay. But the next day, when Kelley was at work, I wanted to try for another 5k. After Avery finished….umm, whatever she was doing with it…..

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I’m gonna have to work with her on how to properly use equipment.

Anyway, I finally got to it with Avery circling me like a shark and I was a surfer with an open wound. Then she went in for the kill and put her hand on the railing as I was pushing back, and oops! Avery’s shark fin hand got hit by the rolling seat.

The good thing is that I slowed down just before since she moved behind me, but the bad this is that I hurt her precious little hand and she was screaming to let me know. I held her, for a while, but the screaming ensued. I was finally able to set her down and finish my workout (the hand incident happened only 2 minutes into it) and she kept her distance the remainder of the time.

I’d like to think she now knows better, but something tells me she’s still too intrigued by the machine to keep away. You could call it a hunch, but she makes it apparent as well. Especially when I said “raise your hand if you still want to get close to the rower” and she responded with….

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Yeah, so there’s that.

My foot is still not healed from when I fractured it this summer since I started running on it before it was fully recovered. Call me stubborn, call me dumb, call me whatever, but I’m hoping this rower will keep me from running while still giving me that tired, sweaty workout I seem to crave. Time will tell, and then I’ll tell you here.

In the meantime, I have this beautiful French Press full of black gold (not oil, coffee!!!) in our fridge right now in an attempt at my first homemade cold brew coffee.

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I’m letting it steep for 24 hours and then I’ll press and strain the highly concentrated coffee into another glass. I’m sure I’ll try some before diluting. You know, just to “test” it at full strength. Then I’ll dilute in a 2:1 coffee to water ratio.

Maybe some Pyure Sweet Stevia or SweetLeaf English Toffee Liquid Stevia for something extra fancy and tasty, but otherwise, I’ll enjoy it cold and black. I’ll let you know how it goes soon. Maybe it’ll fuel another 5k row, or even 10k if Avery keeps her little hands off the rail!

Have you ever used an indoor rower (i.e. ergometer)?

Ever make your own cold brew or try some already made before?

WIAW #1 – Do All Parents Eat Food Off the Floor?

Before “Going Dad”, I had a healthy food blog called Just Add Cayenne. You can find a link to it at the top with it’s own tab. One of my favorite things to do on the blog was to participate in What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW); a link-up party hosted by Jenn from the blog Peas and Crayons. Note: There is no link party this week, but it will continue next week. Check out Jenn’s post explaining why here.

It’s been a couple years since I joined in, but I’ve missed it and figured I’d try to start back up again. I love food, healthy food, and I enjoy sharing and talking about it with others who have an appreciation for it too. So thank you, Jenn, for still going strong on these link ups, glad to see you’ve kept these going!

The theme for my first WIAW post on Going Dad is something I’ve found myself doing a lot of lately, eating food off the floor. And not just food I dropped, but food my daughter, Avery, drops. Sometimes from her mouth, sometimes just her hands, but I can’t stand to see it go to waste. Hey, if it’s healthy and something you took the time to cook, it’s hard! I know there are other parents out there like this….right?

This is partly my fault for trying to feed her while she’s roaming around my feet in the kitchen (yes, like a cat) and not putting her in the high chair. So I break pieces of my homemade bread like Coconut Carrot Bread and feed it to her. Again, yes, just like a kitty, which I pretend she is as a way to get her to eat.

But sometimes kitties drop their food, and me not wanting to toss it in the trash, I quickly eat it myself before taking time to have a second thought. I have my limits, like if it’s practically fully chewed and regurgitated, but otherwise, I’m a victim of second-hand snacking from my baby.

Now, let’s move on to my eats for the week.

what I ate wednesday, WIAW

A little pre-workout snack of homemade pumpkin bread with a nice layer of NuttZo in the middle.

I downed a green protein smoothie after the workout and played with Avery while cooking lunch. I made a big bowl of edamame spaghetti with my homemade fermented beets and wild salmon. Avery ate from what I had, and I made sure she was in the high chair for this one!

Not long after, it was naptime, so I brought Avery to her room to sleep. Like usual, she fought it, but finally gave in after kicking the crap out of crib. Crazy kid!! Then I snacked on some chocolate chia oatmeal NuttZo balls while checking e-mail.

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As expected, naptime was short, and Avery was up and ready to wreak havoc play all over the house. When my wife, Going Mom, came home from work, more playing ensued and I prepared dinner. Chicken and black bean stew turned out better than I expected, and Avery and Kelley both enjoyed.

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The mushrooms were all for me, Kelley’s not a fan and had tortilla strips instead. Fine with me, I’m not one to share my mushrooms!

After dinner, we went through Avery’s bedtime routine and put her down for the night. For my nightly snack, I enjoyed a steamed kobocha squash with lots of plain Greek yogurt and, you guessed it, a couple spoonfuls of NuttZo.

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I may or may not have gone back for seconds. Okay, thirds.

Brilliant blog posts on HonestMum.com

A Broken Umbrella + Our First Family Movie Experience

Guess we can’t have wonderful Texas weather all the time! Winter reared its ugly head in our direction on Sunday with a big temperature drop, high wind, and pouring rain. Perfect time for a family movie!

Sunday started off like usual with me making a big bowl of blueberries with a little oatmeal and NuttZo (order yours and save 15% with code liley15)mixed in for Kelley and Avery.

In return, Kelley makes the coffee which is perfectly fair to me. I go through coffee like it’s water. Besides the fact that it pretty much is water…..

After my lovely girls ate and I downed a couple cups of coffee along with a big scoop of NuttZo, I was determined to go for a walk. I have a “need” to get out at least a little every day, but the weather was not too inviting.

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I was cold just looking outside, and watching the rain come down harder as the wind blew the trees was all but motivating! But, my determination stupidity stubbornness held strong and I dressed appropriately for a stroll outside.

Shorts with my ProCompression marathon socks, a 20 pound weight vest held together with safety pins (not kidding, they stick me all the time), and gloves with a headband….because it’s cold. For some odd reason, Going Mom and Avery didn’t want to come along. I’m sure just because of the weather and not because of my attire.

Off I went with an umbrella and my cell phone playing a Ben Greenfield podcast in hopes it would help take my mind off the cold wind and rain in my face. It didn’t. The stupid wind only got worse and ended up breaking my umbrella which made for an even colder (and wetter) walk.

Broken umbrella

Glad the girls were smart and stayed warm and dry inside! After drying off and thawing out, we were ready to pick a movie to watch with Avery. This would be our first time trying to watch a full movie with her, and thanks to one of our neighbors for letting us borrow their giant case of animated hits, we had a great selection to choose from. We settled in our front playroom and got into position.

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The movie of choice of Puss in Boots since we didn’t want anything too great for the first attempt. This proved to be a smart choice; Avery was all over the place doing everything but watching the movie.

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Yeah, eating wooden cars is more entertaining, apparently. We tried sitting her in her personalized chair, better know as the “Pooping Chair” in hopes that would keep her still.

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It worked! For a minute. We turn away and look back to see her somewhere else; again, not watching the movie.

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We finished the movie, but I couldn’t tell you much about it. At least she wasn’t too crazy, and maybe next time she’ll be more into it. Maybe the fact that it was right before nap time helped not a bit too!

The DVD collection we’re borrowing has Frozen, and from what I hear, kids seem to like it just a little. 🙂 Think a 15 month old is ready to watch, or should we stick with something like Curious George for now?

The Dad Network

How did your first movie watching experience go with your kids?

What was the movie of choice?