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!

Food, Life, Parenting

Going Dad’s Sunday Food Log

01/12/2015 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

Do you keep a daily food log? I used to a few years ago, but it’s not easy to track food when you actually prepare your own meals. Kind of sad how so many online food logs are geared more towards those fast food and other quick service restaurants or packaged food.

You can create your own custom food items all you want, but that takes a lot of time that most of us don’t have. Plus, chances are, if you’re making all of your own meals from fresh, whole foods, you probably don’t need to keep a strict food log as you’re obviously conscious what and how much you’re putting in your body.

It took me a while to stop tracking, but found that once I finally came to this realization, I had gained 30 to 45 extra minutes back to my days! More time to eat and NOT track, yay!!!

Going Mom, my amazing wife, gave me several hours of freedom on Sunday as she stayed home with Avery. I had done the same for her the day before, Saturday, and as it’s something we both could use every now and then.

Of course, we both just used the time to get a few things done around town. I had a leak in my tire that I brought to Costco to have repaired for free (ahhh, member perks), and used the waiting time by working on the computer at a nearby Starbucks. Like any normal at-home parent would do during their free time, I had to Tweet to the world….

Currently at @Starbucks having #coffee since my awesome wife let me out of the house alone! Thanks, WIFE! #SAHD #TemporaryFreedom

— R.C. Liley (@going_dad) January 11, 2015

By “work”, I mean messing around with the blog settings and getting distracted as the Dallas Cowboys went from winning to losing the game against the Green Bay Packers. I’m not a huge fan of watching other guys play sports when I’d rather be active myself, but I still root for the home team, and it was a disappointment to see us lose.

I got over it fast, though, and continued on my black coffee binge at Starbucks. You get free refills with their gold card, which I have, and made sure to take advantage of. I brought two of my own bottles that I filled up, had 5 grande refills while there, and brought another full grande back home.

One purchased Americano with nothing added, 8 free grande refills, and 50 trips to the bathroom in only a matter of 2.5 hours had me shaking like a Polaroid picture! Thank you, Andre 3000, for the great analogy. #winning

I’m used to consuming a massive amount of caffeine via coffee and green tea, but even this was a lot for me in a day! Since I refuse to eat the store bought offerings at most places and forgot to bring my own food, I basically fasted most of the day.

Will I do it again? Most likely. What can I say, I love coffee! Plus, although I am done with food logging, I figured I might as well log Sunday’s “food” intake because that’s easy…

Yep, that coffee buzz lasted most of the day and had me crashing pretty hard late into the night. Hopefully Monday is off to a good start, because I don’t exactly feel like coffee at this point. Tuesday will be a different story.

Do you overdo it on coffee sometimes? All the time?

How do you like your (if you have it) coffee?

Do you prefer another form of caffeine or abstain from it all together?

Life, Parenting

The Pooping Chair

01/10/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Admit it, we all have a favorite time, place, position, and/or style when it comes to pooping. If poop talk makes you squeamish, 1 – you must not have kids or they are so grown you don’t have to clean up after them anymore, and 2 – it’s completely natural and we all do it!

Yes it stinks, and yes, cleaning it is NEVER fun, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun-ny! True?

Going Mom and I have yet to start potty training Avery (we should really get on that!), but we are picking up on her very non-subtle pooping queues. Red face, grunting, brief moment of silence after making a lot of noise, and sitting at your feet are all very strong indicators.

For Christmas, Kelley and I decided to limit the toys we got her since she has plenty and we knew family would most likely take care of that, which they did! So, we bought her a mini-armchair with her name embroidered in pink.

She took to it immediately and let us know with her giant grin!

And I’m not 100% sure, but I think that very same day is when she decided her new chair would be a perfect home base when the time came for a good poo. I’m even convinced we captured her as this thought went across her mind..

pooping, potty training — Yep, this will be the perfect chair for pooping in my diaper.

Fast forward to present day, and she’s been going to her chair almost every day to do the deed.

It gets quiet, sometimes I hear a stressful grunt while in the kitchen, and next thing I know…

baby poop, pooping, dirty diaper — Done. Clean me!

Sometimes she doesn’t quite make it to the chair, but she gets close. I think this embarrasses her though…

I tried to make it, but it wouldn't stop! — I tried to make it, but it wouldn’t stop!

And so, this is our first big indicator for when we do start potty training. If she goes to the chair and she gets quiet, it’ll be time to bring her to the pot!

Does your kid have a favorite spot to go poop in the house?

Any other visual/audio cues that they are “making mess” in their diaper……or worse……undies?

Please share all the gruesome details in the comments. Hold nothing back, it takes a lot to gross me out! 🙂

Going Reviews

Babywearing With Boba

01/09/2015 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

Babywearing is and always will be one of the best ways to simultaneously bond with your child and also take care of things around the house or running errands. I’ve published many posts declaring my love and support of babywearing and even had an article published on Huffington Post explaining “Why I Wear My Baby”.

I’m so convinced about the benefits of babywearing, I even created workout routines for babywearing parents! And who wouldn’t mow the lawn with their napping baby? Plus, as a dad wearing his baby in public, there’s plenty of laughs to be had each time I need to use the public restroom, here’s 10 I listed.

But enough plugging of past posts, I wanted to quickly share our exciting, kind of late, news. Thanks to Boba providing their 4G Carrier for me to give to Going Mom as a Christmas present, my wife now has her very own baby carrier!

Over the months since we had Avery, I was fortunate to have great companies like Ergo and Onya Baby send me their carriers for review. I am still using them both to this day and love them, but Kelley never had one fitted just for herself and I was always overprotective of the ones we had. Yeah, I’m mean, sorry, dear. 🙂

We are grateful to Boba for sending their organic Verde design carrier and Kelley has already made use of it on several walks.

I had to at least try the Boba before calling it off limits to myself, and used the front and back carry positions. I’ve been mostly carrying Avery on my back in the Onya, so it was different wearing her on the front for a long walk. Different in a good way though, I got to see Avery’s sweet face instead of wondering what she was doing on my back.

That said, I still enjoy the back carry position. The Boba has soft but durable straps that I make it comfortable for carrying your baby for an extended amount of time, and it fit okay when I had it on. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend a Boba to any current or expecting parent, but would say I still like wearing Avery on my back with the Onya better.

For front carrying, the Boba wins my vote over Onya, but I would choose the Ergo Ventus that I reviewed over the two. Granted, I only used the Boba a few times, and Going Mom will be sharing her review with a guest post after extended use. After wearing Avery in her new Boba Carrier on a long, cold walk, I’d say they both kept each other warm and snug….