chris lee

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Hosting Fun

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I missed a post yesterday so catching up.

The Need for Speed

internet-explorer-voodooI’ve been hosting my sites and buying my domains from GoDaddy for years now. I think the value when purchasing domains from GoDaddy is pretty hard to beat. I have a good number of friends who are anti-GoDaddy but I also have a number of friends that work there. I’ve gone back & forth regarding switching everything but never pulled the trigger.

I think the biggest reason that I haven’t moved anything away from them en masse is that it’s nice having everything together. I have a bunch of domains, a bunch of sites and a bunch of databases.

Lately, my host has been just too dang slow. I have 2 hosting accounts with them and one was on their old, old, old infrastructure. I upgraded that yesterday so I’m at least on their newer server architecture.

But things are still slow. So I’m in the process of moving chris.ly from GoDaddy to WP Engine in search of speed.

Yesterday

So with the move to GoDaddy’s newer servers, I had to spend a good amount of time adjusting configuration on my sites. New IP addresses, new MySQL server addresses. That’s part of the reason why I missed posting yesterday.

As far as the move itself, there are a number of things that I need to troubleshoot. I’ve got my files and my database over to WP Engine but everything isn’t appearing correctly yet. WP Engine doesn’t allow certain plugins so I had to remove some of them. And with the move, not all of the files came over with the FTPing. So I’m still working on that. Still on GoDaddy for now.

Why Use What?

I originally moved to host at GoDaddy when I saw their DNS management capabilities. Prior to that, I hosted at Aplus.net, 1and1.com, LunarPages.com and I think something else even. Can’t remember. During that time, I had to submit requests for DNS changes to the host itself. I migrated over to GoDaddy when I saw you could manage your DNS yourself. I still really like that feature.

Well I’ve heard good things about WP Engine and I had a free account so I’m giving that a try. With the site I’ve migrated so far, I’m not seeing blazing speed but we’ll see if I can improve it.

The services other than WP Engine that I also need to explore further are Namecheap, Host Gator, Synthesis and Pagely. Namecheap is another domain registrar with great pricing. Host Gator is supposed to be a very good low cost host. Synthesis is a premium hosting company by the folks I love over at Studiopress and Copyblogger. Pagely is another great managed host but it’s more for folks that don’t need as much access as I like (FTP, database, etc.).

So we’ll see how WP Engine goes and I’ll let you know!

Image credit: Internet Explorer Voodoo by BlubrNL on flickr

100-Up

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Walter_georgeSo I’m a huge, huge fan of Born to Run. It is one of my favorite books ever. I really enjoyed the subject (barefoot/minimalist running), it had thoroughly engaging stories, I learned a ton and I enjoyed the science he presented. I’d recommend it without hesitation.

Since then, I’ve read a bunch more books on minimalist running (Tread Lightly, Running with the Kenyans, Running Technique, Anatomy for Runners, etc.) and I really believe in the philosophy.

Something New

I happened to come by a great article in The New York Times by McDougall (the author of Born to Run) yesterday called The Once and Future Way to Run.

It was on “barefoot running”, mentioned of lots of the guys doing great stuff in this area too (Peter Larsen, Mark Cucuzzella, Daniel Lieberman) and is an interesting read.

The main thrust of this article is that McDougall found a very old, very simple technique to help train proper running form. It is called the 100-Up.

100-Up

One of the things in the article that I almost missed was a video demonstration of the technique. You might miss it but you can a video of McDougall demonstrating the 100-Up himself at the top of the post.

You can see another view here:

Basically it is a very simple technique that W.S. George came up with in 1874.

When he came up with it, he was a 16-year-old chemist’s apprentice in England and could train only during his lunch hour. By Year 2 of his experiment, he was the fastest amateur miler in England. By Year 5, he held world records in everything from the half-mile to 10 miles.

In George’s words: “By its constant practice and regular use alone, I have myself established many records on the running path and won more amateur track-championships than any other individual.” And it was safe, George said: the 100-Up is “incapable of harm when practiced discreetly.”

If you do a bit of Googling, you’ll see a number of articles mentioning this technique and there are even a couple sites devoted to it (HundredUp.com and 100up.info).

What Is It?

As far as what the 100-Up is, the easiest way to understand is to take a look at the video. I’ll give you a couple of points here if you’re not convinced to watch it yet.

  • You take your shoes off and do it barefoot.
  • Feet under hips under shoulders.
  • There are two pieces to the exercise – the minor and the major
  • The Minor basically involves pulling your knee up until even with your hip and your thigh is parallel with the ground while at the same time, pulling the elbow of the arm on the same side back about as far as it goes. Then you switch sides.
  • The Major is the same thing but instead of two separate movements, you switch from side to side at the same time, springin from foot to foot. It basically mirrors running.
  • Some of the points that this is supposed to train are:
    • Upright posture
    • Forefoot/midfoot landing
  • It’s critical to use good form while doing this. It’s a bit tough in the beginning but gets easier.

If you haven’t yet, I’d urge you to take a look at the video. It’s very short and the exercise is very simple but I think it has a lot of merit.

Good running!

Ketosis Try 2

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So I started down this path last Friday but I think ended up having too many carbs that night and falling out of ketosis.

Acetone Breath

acetone-2Saturday I was bad and took in an excessive amount of carbs but I’ve been pretty good since and can tell ketosis is starting up again. The earliest indicator for me is the change in my breath. As we get into ketosis, one of the ketones that we produce is acetone and the body cannot use it as it does the others. It ends up being excreted as waste mostly through the urine and the breath.

Definitely yesterday & maybe a bit before, I can tell the change in my breath. I’m not sure how to best describe it. I think I feel a difference in the density of it? It feels heavier or denser.

Still feeling the difference in my breath today and this evening I started dragging again. Haven’t felt as low energy as last Friday yet but it feels like it’s coming. No strong muscle or joint aches yet either though I feel something going on in my left trapezius muscle.

Why So Long?

I’m actually surprised it took as long to get back here as it has. I’ve been pretty strict & figured I’d drop right back into ketosis but that wasn’t the case.

My weight loss had also stalled. Originally I dropped from about 203.8 all the way down to 196.0 in the first week. The last 3 days I’ve been right at 197.6.

How Will It Be and How Long Will It Last?

Earlier today I’d actually been feeling pretty great. Not hungry. Alert. Full of energy. And today I definitely didn’t have any excess carbs.

Started with my bulletproof coffee, had a mini egg omlette mid-morning with bacon, mushrooms, spinach, goat cheddar and green onions and then had curry seasoned chicken and vegetables cooked in coconut oil. Tonight we had shrimp in coconut curry with vegetables. Had a number of pork rinds today and some Red Bull Zero.

I’m definitely dragging though. Since I dropped back out of ketosis less than 1 day in, I’m still not sure exactly what I’m in for and how long it will take to pass through.

I guess I will just have to let you know as it happens!

Image credit: tada! by dchou0123 on flickr

Is Diet Soda The Devil

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diet-sodaSo I’m struggling with the consumption of diet soda.

I know there are a zillion reasons not to drink it.

Yes I Know It’s Bad

  • It’s supposed to be bad for your kidneys.
  • It’s linked to a higher risk of metabolic syndrome, the group of symptoms including belly fat and high cholesterol that puts you at risk for heart disease.
  • It supposedly doesn’t help you lose weight. Artificial sweeteners can disrupt the body’s ability to regulate calorie intake based on the sweetness of foods. Because the body is being tricked into thinking it’s eating sugar, we crave more.
  • Cocktails made with diet soda get you drunker, faster. Sugar-free mixers allow liquor to enter your bloodstream much quicker than those with sugar.
  • Diet sodas contain mold inhibitors (not found in most regular sodas). These are things like sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate. Some studies say that these chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it–they knock it out altogether. They have also been linked to hives, asthma, and other allergic conditions.
  • Diet sodas are very acidic with a pH of 3.2. While sodas may be diet, they are still very acidic and can readily dissolve enamel. Soda drinkers had far greater decay, more missing teeth, and more fillings.
  • All soda cans are coated with the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A (BPA), which has been linked to everything from heart disease to obesity to reproductive problems.

But Is It Worse?

I know what I’ve read seems to indicate that carbs are the biggest dietary problem we have. If drinking diet soda, helps keep the carb count down, could it still be beneficial even with all its baggage?

When I’m doing this low carb thing, my body does seem to want some sweet at times. It’s tough to fight. At first thought, diet soda seems to be a good tool to kill this.

In the beginning, I was avoiding all sweets completely. No diet anything. No sweet anything. My thought was that avoiding it completely would help me put the cravings behind.

Now I’m not sure if that worked.

I know when I was working a near all-nighter that I was exhausted & needed something. Felt like I might need something sweet. I swung by Circle K and Red Bull zero and diet Mountain Dew came to my aid along with some beef jerky and pork rinds.

Net Effect

Since then, I’ve been drinking some at times.

It hasn’t been too bad. I’m not doing the soda fests that I would fall into at times. Just a bit here & there.

A 16 oz. bottle of diet Mountain Dew lasted me a few days. I’m thinking that 1/3 of a bottle here & there or even less has seemed to temporarily tame the sugar monster?

I’ve currently got a 2 liter of the cheapest diet soda that looked decent (Fanta Zero) in the fridge. Seem to be able to drink it sparingly. We’ll see how that goes. My thought is that it might last me a week. A swig here & a swig there might kill the sugar craving and not have me spiral out of control.

Conversely, what about the argument that because the body is being tricked into thinking it’s eating sugar, we keep craving it.

Will it just keep the sweet tooth active & tempt me to sway more?

I hear some folks saying that if you stay off it for long enough, you lose the craving.

That might just be the thing I have to test…

Image credit: Diet Soda by Roadsidepictures on flickr

Betrayed By Chinese Food

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I fell off the wagon hard last night.

hatAnd it was the damn Chinese food that led to it. (I’m 1/2 Chinese so I think I can say that.)

I’d Already Lost My Streak

So I definitely fell out of ketosis from what I ate last night. I think I’d actually fallen out the day before from unintentional restaurant food (killer low carb-ish fare from Bink’s) as I felt better yesterday morning from the start. At first I thought I might have  already made it through the ketosis blues but I wasn’t that lucky.

Now, I did start the day strict. I had my bulletproof coffee. I had 3 eggs with some salami. No real carbs of substance. And then we went out to take the 9 year old to a birthday party that ended up being in east Mesa. That ended up being part of the problem. We stopped by the house of some friends that lived out there, went for a hike and ended up going from 12:30 pm until 5:30 pm without food. I had run out of pork rinds the day before so nothing to turn to.

Too Long No Food

cantoneseThen when we were looking for a place to eat, there wasn’t much around. We settled on a Chinese restaurant against my better judgement. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find anything that fit the program. Did a quick Google for low-carb Chinese food & got back a few suggestions. I knew pretty much anything we got was going to have some sugar and probably cornstarch.

We ended ordering walnut shrimp (for a couple of the kids), fried rice, beef with vegetables and chicken with black bean sauce. I stuck with the beef and chicken dishes. They weren’t bad (very, very Americanized Chinese food) but I could taste some of the sugar and the big problem was that there wasn’t enough fat. I was still hungry later.

Fighting hunger and trying to lay off the carbs is not a challenge I want to take on regularly. Carbs are hard enough on their own.

We grabbed a protein style burger from In-N-Out on the way home but I was still up working for hours. Heather fell asleep on the couch so I felt no public shame.

Complete Melt Down

With how hungry I still felt and my lack of diligence avoiding carbs, I just broke.

Over the final couple early morning hours, I ate the following:

  • About 30 Chocolate chips – 10 g
  • Single serving bag of pretzels – 35 g
  • 2 1/2 pieces of shortbread – around 45 g?
  • 16 Peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets – 26 g

That was at least 116 g of carbs just in late night snack. Not good.

Not much else to do but get back on the horse the next morning.

Back at it but I was up 1.6 lbs from the previous 2 days when I weighed myself this morning. Like water my system was holding on to with the carb repletion.

 

Image credit: Twofer… by BBluesman on flickr
Image credit: Day 314/365 – Politically Incorrect by Great Beyond on flickr

The Ketosis Blues

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Not exactly sure what is happening but I feel pretty good today.

Yesterday was another story. I was about 7 days into the no/low carb regimen and I was feeling TERRIBLE.

Feeling Like Hell

acetoneI was super low energy pretty much all day. Felt kind of wobbly. Didn’t feel super sharp mentally and then in the evening, my joints (particularly my shoulder) started ache bad.

I’d read a bit and knew to expect a period of adjustment when I started to get into ketosis. It wasn’t supposed to be pleasant. It would last a few days to week where I’d feel tired and sluggish. Maybe I’d get irritable, weak, and moody. It could come with headaches, cramps, joint pain and I could experience “brain fog”.

As far as what atually happens in ketosis, ketones are molecules generated during fat metabolism. Some are used for energy. But there is one type of ketone molecule, called acetone, that cannot be used and is excreted as waste, mostly in the urine and breath. They say the breath and urine will smell like fruit where some people get a metallic taste in their mouth.

Well, starting yesterday, I definitely had something going on with my breath. Didn’t get a specific smell but the consistency of my breath felt different. Felt like the composition of what I exhaled had changed significantly. Acetone probably fits the bill.

I was also pretty sure I was there as the day previous, I went on a bike ride and absolutely hit the wall. I wasn’t riding hard at all as I knew not to do that but about 2/3rds of the ride, I just bonked. I was out of gas. I’m pretty certain that I had used up my glycogen stores and that’s why I felt the way I did.

So I was in ketosis. But why did I feel ok today? Joint pain was gone. Didn’t feel as tired. Was my physiology so incredible that I went through the discomfort stage in 1 day?

Nice!

I was done with the ketogenic blues!

Ah I Blew It…

Thought back on it more & realized it probably much more likely that I’d had too many carbs yesterday. At lunch, I ate a double double protein style from In-N-Out. As I looked at nutritional info, I saw numbers ranging from 11g carbs to 41g carbs. Yeowch. And I noticed that the lower carb readings came where people had substituted mayo, ketchup, mustard for the spread. I didn’t realize I was supposed to do that.

And then for dinner, we had to pick up the 9 year old and figured to grab a super quick bite and food for her. We stopped at Bink’s for possilby the quickest meal we’d ever eaten. Tried to order as low carb as possible (and did a decent job) but I think there were a few things there that might have contributed to the carb count.

binks-bbq-octobusWe started with a kale salad with curried couscous, almonds, dried cherries, pickled onion, red wine. I avoided the dried cherries but missed that there was couscous in it. Wasn’t a ton but had to have gotten a little. Also did a little gem salad with dried tomato, cucumber, charred red onion and buttermilk vinaigrette. Thought I was pretty safe there but who knows. We also had mussles in a wonderful curry coconut broth. We both passed on the amazing scallion focaccia that accompanied it but I did have a taste (though I didn’t swallow). We also had some amazing sand dabs with brown buttter and almonds. That seemed safe. But my guess at what could have been the carb culprit was the BBQ octopus with black eyed peas, bacon, i’itoi onion, aioli. It was phenomenal but it was barbecued with sauce. There was a definitely hint of sweetness to it. It was freaking amazing so I ate my half. That could have been the kicker.

So I think I dropped out of ketosis. That’s got to be the explanation I can also tell that my breath is pretty much back to normal too.

So back to the super strict following and back to drain those glycogen stores and back to the ketosis blues all over.

We’ll see how long they really last when I get through it for real.

I’ll let you know!

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