Tag Archives: advice

My Top Healthy Summer Resources for the Family

06/20/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Father’s Day marks the official first day of summer this year. I don’t know about you, but we’re already feeling the heat in Texas and could go for some of that rain we had a few weeks ago.

With summer, comes heat, and a lot of it! Heat can be dangerous to all of us, but detrimental to our little ones. But that doesn’t mean they need to stay indoors sitting in the A/C all through the season. As long as we keep it smart, everyone can have a wonderful, healthy time under the sun.

I’ve gathered a few sites I find interesting and helpful with tips on how to stay safe and healthy this summer and wanted to share them with you. Most of these are geared towards the family, but I added a few not specifically meant for families that are packed with helpful nutrition and activity tips everyone can use.

First off, make sure you know what you’re rubbing all over your family’s skin. Our skin is highly porous and absorbs a lot of what you put on it, and many sunscreens do more harm than good with the amount of toxic chemicals they contain. This may seem like a minute detail to a full grown adult, but for a tiny baby or toddler, everything is much more concentrated and can post a serious threat. Read my post on sunscreen safety here. P.S. I also apologize to my wife in the post since I used to waive off the dangers of sunscreen myself.

15 Nutrition Tips For A Healthy Summer – Just a nice quick list to refer to for ways to eat smart but not be bored with a chicken and broccoli type meal. Which, by the way, I actually think is pretty good!

Keep Your Kids Happy and Healthy: Summer Tips For Parents – Hey, even the government has useful advice for a change! Make sure to check out the links provided in each tip for even more healthy ideas.

8 Summer Steps For Healthy Living – Some seemingly obvious tips from WebMD, but handy if you’re having a brain fog moment.

The Best Healthy Pantry Foods – This is a great list from Ben Greenfield and we have most of these in our pantry. Great to have year round!

Easy Meals For Busy Athletes – Another Ben Greenfield info bomb. Obviously, you don’t have to be an athlete to enjoy the benefits of these fast and healthy meals.

5 Fun Home Activities To Do With Your Kids – I love this list from The Good Dad Project! Some good ideas for indoor activities to help beat the heat and have fun as a family!

Keep The Kids Active All Summer Long – This list from Macaroni Kid is sure to have at least one or two ideas you haven’t considered for fun and productive activities your kids will learn from.

I like this list from the Macaroni Kid – Family Fitness site providing several simple foundations to keep your family fit and healthy all year. Print it and stick it on the fridge so it’s always fresh on your mind.

Hope you’re able to find some good tips and implement them in your home this summer. Please, just keep safe and well hydrated while having fun in the sun!

Hi there, I'm just keeping hydrated! — Hi there, I’m just keeping hydrated!

Do you have any plans for hanging out with the kids this summer?

Are you getting away and having someone else watch the kids?

Any tips you have for a safe, healthy summer that you’d like to share?

Going Healthy, Life

The Most Effective Pill for Fat Loss Is….

03/09/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

….. a hard one to swallow. Figuratively, of course, because THERE IS NO PILL, just a healthier lifestyle! Sorry for being so rash, but the whole idea surrounding fat loss pills is ridiculous.

It makes me mad how businesses exploit the general population’s “need” to lose weight without working for it. Keeping active and eating a diet filled with fresh, whole foods will benefit you better than any pill ever will.

Fast food made up a huge part of my diet and exercise was never consistent all the way up to my first year in college. But then I learned what it meant to be healthy by *gasp* reading about healthy food and exercise and putting things to practice. As a result, I felt the positive changes both physically and mentally, and never want to go back to my old ways.

Gone are the days of eating something handed to me that I ordered through a speaker and even giving thought the laundry list of ingredients you’d never find in a typical kitchen to make the same food. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have something delicious and quick to make…..

No time for healthy is no excuse when you can make this protein cinnamon bread in the microwave!

There are many people not even trying or wanting to learn proper diet and exercise or keep consistent with anything. Nope, instead they come running with cash/credit in hand when a new pill or something else claiming itself as “easy” or “fast” comes along for fat loss/health.

Countless times I have tried to offer advice to those who say they want to change, and, countless times my advice has been waived off as meaningless. Or, they’ll say it’s just too hard because they could never give up “enter crappy food here” or consistently “enter form of exercise here.”

Now I just try to keep quite when these topics come up unless I am specifically asked for advice. Even then, it seems like if the advice is too hard or not what they want to hear, it gets ignored. Hence the popularity of fat loss pills (aka caffeine pills with added BS).

I understand people are busy, but the health of you and your family should not be taken lightly. Am I alone in this thought process? It’s easy to laugh things off as you hold your 5th donut in your hand and say “I shouldn’t eat this, but….” as you then proceed to eat it before going back to sit down for several hours.

This might seem like I’m a heartless guy, but I’m far from. I am truly passionate about having a higher quality of life from good food and exercise, and want to pass it on to all that I can. If not for adults, at least for all of the children growing up not knowing anything different.

Our kids, the tiny versions of us, depend on us to provide. Their growing bodies are taking whatever is put into their system and using it to build everything from the hair on their head to their entire organ system. Not to mention the all important immune system. The higher quality food the body receives, the better it can build itself. Think of the Three Little Pigs, do you want to have a body built of straw and always get knocked over (i.e. sick and weak), or would you rather be strong as a house built with bricks and resistant to many common ailments?

I’m no expert, but I feel I have experienced enough on my own journey to have something to offer. I’ll probably keep trying since it’s forever programmed in my head to care. Who knows, maybe I’ll help someone get and stay on track one day!

Actually, I’m helping two lovely ladies keep healthy and look great every day.

These two are the ones I care most about (okay, my mom/G-Ma too!!), and being able to make all of our meals gives me confidence we’re all a happy, healthy family with bodies built from brick! It’s never gourmet cooking, but it doesn’t lack flavor either.

Going Mom and I are happy we are starting Avery off knowing fresh, whole foods and cooking at home is the norm. So many families depend on take out or going to a restaurant for most of their meals, which typically means not having the best choices when it comes to wholesome food.

I get it’s hard to keep kids (especially picky eaters) happy and fed, but the drive-thru is never the answer; same goes for most quick pre-made food options out there. Please, if not for yourself, do it for the kids!

Skip the boxed crackers and make these goat cheese salsa crackers instead!

And of course these protein brownies are healthy in disguise. No box needed here!

Making snacks like the two above is not that hard, and they still taste great. Plus, it’s something you could make as a family and appreciate your creations more than if you just bought some packaged snack food with questionable ingredients.

I could go on and on, and I probably will again, but for now, I’m giving it a rest. If you think you could use a change from your current lifestyle, here’s “food” for thought, try getting in the kitchen and making more of your own meals. Better food and moving more each day are simple ways to get your fat loss (and long-term health and happiness) and save your money on those fancy caffeine pills. Plus, that’s what coffee is for!

Do you or have you fallen victim to fat loss pill marketing?

What issues do you have with choosing better options for a healthier lifestyle?

Do you hate me after reading this? 🙂

Food, Life

Polyculture vs. Monoculture: How Is Your Food Grown?

01/06/2015 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

I used to think I was in the clear by sticking with whole fruits and vegetables instead of processed food, and felt I was providing my family with the best nutrition as a result. But, as it turns out, how produce is grown is something we should be weary of as well.

The great debate over GMO vs Non-GMO has its place here, but what I’m referring to is monoculture vs polyculture agriculture (that’s a lot of cultures!). This is something I never considered in the past, and only felt it necessary to buy organic for the common “dirty dozen” produce. But, after reading a post by Darya on the Summer Tomato blog on why she doesn’t eat bananas, I had to know more.

In her article, Darya leaves bananas off of her plate because they are something not standard here in the U.S. and she strives to source food locally by frequenting farmer’s markets. She goes into detail on how bananas arrive in our stores, and here’s a quote from the blog:

“Virtually all of the bananas sold in the US are grown in Latin Amercia by a handful of countries including Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica. In these places bananas are grown year round, are harvested while unripe, then shipped in special refrigerated compartments until they reach their destination weeks later. The fruit is then exposed to ethylene gas which causes it to ripen and turn their characteristic yellow (not their natural color when tree-ripened).”

As I found, after doing some digging on Google (Diggling?…. Gogging?), most of the produce we see in stores is grown in monocultures (growing one single species of crop in a wide area) which leaves the entire crop susceptible to disease. This could seriously affect a crop’s yield for a particular year since the disease can kill the entire crop in the area. Think of the Great Irish Potato Famine where the entire potato crop was wiped out and many people died because of their vast dependence on this one crop.

For polycultures, multiple crops are grown within the same area to mimic the natural ecosystem. A good example of polycultures are the heirloom produce items like tomatoes. The funky colors and shapes are a result of different tomato species. The advantages for polycultural over monocultural farming via Wikipedia are:

The diversity of crops avoids the susceptibility of monocultures to disease. For example, a study in China reported in Nature showed that planting several varieties of rice in the same field increased yields by 89%, largely because of a dramatic (94%) decrease in the incidence of disease, which made pesticides redundant.

The greater variety of crops provides habitat for more species, increasing local biodiversity. This is one example of reconciliation ecology, or accommodating biodiversity within human landscapes. It is also a function of a biological pest control program..

Both polyculture and monoculture can provide huge crop yields. Polyculture provides resistance to disease which aids in the decrease of pesticide use, production of diverse foods, stronger crops. Also, the variety of crops increases local biodiversity which improves pollination and more nutrients in the soil. Monoculture practices are very efficient and can bring higher crop yields as there is no competition from other rival species.

To me, polyculture farming is the best way to produce crops as it more closely resembles how plants grow in the natural world without farming.

Will this influx of new information make me swear off the aforementioned bananas and all other monocultural produce? Probably not, but now I’ll be more mindful of the items at the store and look for ways to buy more heirloom or polyculture fruits and veggies. I enjoy bananas (see my blog from the past for proof) and other produce too much to cut them out completely, but my consumption has dropped and even if not on the the EWA’s Dirty Dozen list, I choose organic for more reasons than just pesticide exposure.

No matter what this or that study shows on the safety of some of these foods grown under less-than-ideal conditions, I choose to make what I feel is a healthier choice for our small family, and Going Mom and Avery seem happy with my choices; here they are glowing radiantly helped, somewhat, by a non-gmo diet I’m sure!