Category Archives: Goals

3 Things To Do Before You Have Kids

01/21/2019 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

Having children is obviously enough one of the biggest changes you can ever make in life, and it is something that you absolutely want to be as prepared for as possible. The truth is that most people find that they don’t feel that prepared, and that is something which is likely to be frustrating a lot of the time. Part of the reason for not feeling prepared enough is that it so hard to know what you should be doing to try and ready yourself for such a huge and dramatic change in your life. For that reason, we are going to take a look at some of the things that you might want to think about doing before you ever have kids. As long as you have considered the following, having children will be considerably easier for a number of reasons.

have kids, tips, advice, family, starting a family — **Credit**

Travel The World

While you might still be able to take the occasional holiday when you have children growing up with you, the truth is that you won’t be able to do any crazy excursions or long haul travelling until they have flown the nest. For that reason, you should think about trying to travel the world, so that you can make sure that you have seen as much of it as you possibly can before you have children. This will of course take time, but it is worth it, and you will feel that you are much more ready to have children as well, especially with all of the experience that such an experience will grant you. Travelling is not just good for you, but good for your children in the long term as well, so it’s definitely something to consider.

Stop Smoking

If you smoke, even just occasionally, you will want to think about stopping it before you bring children into the world, for the simple reason that that is not the kind of example you probably want to set them. If you are finding it hard to stop smoking, as most people do, then you can think about using e juice samples or electronic cigarettes for a while first to help wean you off the nicotine, until such time as you can give it up altogether. This will help you be healthy and to set the best possible example to your kids, so it is absolutely worth thinking about as best as you can for that reason.

Advance Your Career

Whatever it is you do, it is likely that it will be somewhat interrupted by having children, no matter which parent you are or how much you don’t want this to happen. You should therefore think about advancing your career as best as you can, so that you are going to be able to cause it the least damage possible when you have to step away for a while. Then, going back into it will be considerably easier, and you will essentially have managed the best of both worlds.

Goals, Going Strong, Life

Squat Every Day is Done + What’s Next

11/03/2015 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

Back in Mid-September, I wrote how I had started Cory Gregory’s Squat Every Day Program. As you might gather based off the name, it’s where you squat….every day.

We’re not talking body-weight squats either, it was all about heavy barbell work where you hit a max single for most days. Of course, there were some days I strayed from the routine like when I was in Raleigh, NC at the National At-Home Dads Convention where I used the heaviest dumbbells in the hotel gym for split squats, goblet squats and sumo squats. I also performed several sets of heavy triples, used the common 5×5 approach, or even bottom position squats on saw horses some days.

Deviations aside, I still got under the barbell (besides the 3 days of dumbbells) to do heavy squats for 50 consecutive days. I planned to stop at 30 days, but then kept on finding myself starting each workout by doing squats. I’d say this is the last day, but then do the same thing again the following day. Finally, I hit 50 days and the physical and mental aspects simply caught up with me; I was done.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I have increased my front squat by 25 pounds and back squat by 15 pounds. For someone who has been lifting for several years, that’s pretty good gains, especially since I still suck at increasing my food intake to make even better gains.

Sunday, November 1st marked my 50th and last consecutive day of squatting, and out of all of the many variations I performed, the squats with a 10 second (yes, 10 full seconds in the bottom part of a heavy squat!) was by far the most difficult both physically and mentally. Doing front-to-back squats (perform a front squat, rack the weight, and then go right into a back squat which makes one rep) is a close second.

No, I don’t expect anyone else to really care about how many days I’ve squatted, but I’m proud of myself for sticking to it and have a new place for squats in my heart. It feels weird to not go right to the squat rack in my garage, but I won’t lie, it’s a little nice too. Actually, I’m taking it somewhat easy this week, but think I’ll commit to a video-based program utilizing dumbbells.

I’ve done it before, and plan on incorporating barbell work in the program because, well, I just love the barbell. I mentioned my injured shoulder about a month and a half ago, and I finally went to a chiropractor who confirmed it’s a strained rotator cuff. He said I can still lift, just focus on light weights and high reps. This is one reason I’m choosing the workout video that use dumbbells to lift in the 8 – 12 rep range.

At least I can still do heavy squats! Hopefully I’m as disciplined about going easy on my shoulder as I am about always exercising (too much if you ask most people) and I’ll make a full recovery.

Sorry for absence of cute toddler pics and blabbing on about my current squatting achievement and new routine. Speaking of our cute little girl, she’s the other reason I’m leaning more towards a workout routine to do inside. Now that it’ll be getting colder and she’s a ~~little~~ lot more vocal about what she likes and dislikes, I expect being inside and not in a cold garage would suit her preferences.

So that’s where I stand in the exercise world for the most part. Still on that quest to gain strength, just taking a new, hopefully smarter, approach.

Have you ever followed a workout video program?

Did you like or despise it?

Care to share details? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on different programs.

Goals, Going Strong, Life, Parenting

Our Baby Won the Overall 5k!

06/09/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Yep, Avery and I won the entire 5k! Technically, since she was in front of me as we crossed the finish line in our first race together last Saturday, June 7th, she was the winner.

This picture confirms I was just the weird shirtless guy behind his speedy, first place princess. And check out the gap; no one in sight. After seeing the race results posted, we had a very comfortable lead of around 5 minutes!

Honestly, though, it was a very small race and I don’t think anyone else took it very seriously. My thoughts were confirmed after the race director and photographer yelled my name and asked me to run back across the finish line so they could get a picture. Yep, not kidding. Glad my lovely wife was there to take pictures!

Our day started before sunrise, but we were still very late to get on the road. The race said it started at 7:30am and we left our house at around, ohhhh, 7am. Did I mention it was about 22 miles from our home? Yeah, go us.

Going Mom, diligently drove us to the location we input on our GPS, but only one problem, the race wasn’t there! Thankfully, my mom just had the same thing happen to her and her boyfriend Paul, and they found the actual race location.

It wasn’t too much extra driving, but since the surrounding area has a history of being the bad part of town, we weren’t trying to take the full tour. The park where the race was held used to be run down and only a popular place for the homeless to hang out. But recently, it was cleaned up and is now an inviting family-friendly park with trails. The surrounding area is still less than stellar and not a place we’d go to ~~often~~ ever again.

Back to the story, we made it to the race with a few minutes to spare thanks to a faulty microphone delaying the pre-race warm-up. My mom picked up my bib which I hurriedly pinned on my shorts and situated Avery in our B.O.B. stroller.

She had her game face on and was ready to roll! Traditionally, I made quick use of the port-a-potty since I always have to use it right before a race starts, then we got in line waiting for the signal to start.

Another key indicator of the size of this race was the start was sounded off by someone saying “Ready…..go” in a low tone and without a microphone. For any decent sized race, it would’ve been hard to hear, but for this one, we heard just fine.

I’m not one to push myself up to the front of the line in races, so I just tried to find a good spot in the middle where the stroller would fit. After we crossed the start line, I began weaving around the other runners/walkers and within 2 minutes we were only behind one person.

I kept sight of the other runner, but once we hit a slight incline, he started pulling away. Meanwhile, behind me, there was emptiness, so Avery and I only had to focus on the one guy in front.

Surprisingly, when we made it to the turn around point, he stopped and just waved us on saying to turn around and just go back the way we came. Ha, he was part of the event acting as the race leader, not a participant! At that point it was just a competition with myself to see how fast Avery and I could run a 5k.

I’m happy with the sub-20 minute time as I was just hoping to get under 22 minutes. Immediately after finishing, I set out to complete my last set of 30 burpees before turning 30.

As Avery and I were basking in the glory of triumph (or maybe that was just the sun), Kelley captured our victorious moment.

As you can tell, Avery was overly ecstatic about the whole ordeal…..

Everyone at the event was warm and inviting and it was obvious the majority of the folks were all from the same church. Their church put the race together and the proceeds went towards the fight against family obesity.

This is what motivated me to sign up for the run, and I am happy we did since I obviously have strong feelings towards living a healthy life! I love being able to show our girl how to live a happy, healthy lifestyle!

We made sure to hang around for our 1st place overall medal, and thought I’d get a second medal for my age group too. By the way, another sign that a race is small is when their age group awards go from 0-6, 7-12, 13-17, and then 18-64. But, when they made it to the 18-64 awards, I was never mentioned.

Not that it was a huge deal, but I would like to get a medal if I am supposed to. Greedy? Maybe, but it’s only because I earned it fair and square. Anyway, we accepted our single medal and left to have coffee and breakfast. As we were driving with my mom and Paul in front of us, I looked at my bib and quickly realized why my name was never called for the 18-64 awards….

Notice the age of “0” and Gender of “F”? When I filled out the online registration form, there was another form for children 6 and under. I didn’t understand why since they are free, but I filled out Avery’s information just to be safe. Well, somehow they lost her name and my real information, and kept my name and her information.

I’d say that takes the father-daughter race up a notch, and someone, somewhere, might be thinking “Holy crap, that’s a fast 0 year old!!”

Such an eventful day at was only 10 in the morning! We spent the remainder of the day with my mom and Paul to celebrate my birthday since we wouldn’t see them the next day on my actual birthday.

After leaving the race, we headed to a restaurant called Brewed that serves excellent coffee from local roasters who source their beans through Fair Trade. We enjoyed ourselves there before heading out to sight see a little and then go to a local craft brewery, Martin House Brewery.

Yeah, we’re starting Avery early with the beer scene, but I don’t think she was too aware of what was going on anyway.

The entire day was great and spent in good company, but I’ll tell you about it in another post. For now, this 30 year old dad is tired and needs to rest his aging body.

Ever catch a typo or information error on something about you when it’s too late?

Do you enjoy craft beer?

Any local breweries near where you live?