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Mark Curphey - SecurityBuddha.com

4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Week Two Summary

Posted: January 25th, 2011, 7:56pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

I am going o move to weekly summaries of my 4HB experiment. This post is the first of those covering the first two weeks. Daily posts felt like a food diary and despite my intent to do a weekly video diary I have just not been able to get organized.

Overall the first two weeks have been surprisingly easy. I went from 223lbs to 215lbs so a drop of 8lbs in body weight. The most noticeable thing for me was actually surprising. I typically get very light headed if I haven’t eaten and have noticed that following the diet seems to normalize the food cravings and mood swings. Equally dramatic was the protein I was able to consume on the diet. While training for the last marathon the major dietary issue I had was the sheer amount of calories I needed to consume in order to meet my daily protein targets. I was taking protein bars and protein shakes but all provides around 20g of protein for around 200 calories. On the 4HB diet I can typically consume 1600 calories a day and get 180g’s of protein. It will of course be very interesting to see how the diet stacks up for me when I start running again; next week!

There are certainly a set of habits that it is worth breaking. For me not drinking enough water is one that I am working hard on but still not as effective as I know I should be. Reverting to drinking lots of tea (and yes with milk for a double whammy has been my downfall). I need to re-red the book as the fluctuations in my weight after the binge day seem to be excessive. I seem to remember a suggested normalization mid-week but this has been Thursday or Friday for me. I think I took the binge day too seriously. This week I plan to closely target a specific amount of food and watch the effects. I have also found it very tough to keep the amount of calories constant during the week. This is partly due to work (food choice and quality at Microsoft is really not great at all) and partly due to bad planning on my part. In the first week I took lunch to work. I need to start doing this again.

I will draft another summary on Sunday and then each Sunday moving on until I get to the magic 200lbs (23lb target loss) or resign !
5 Basic Things Any Blogger Should Know About SEO

Posted: January 24th, 2011, 6:17pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Before you read this post you should know that at some point someone will say “All well and good but you don’t practice what you preach!”. I know. This blog is currently hosted on WordPress and I am using an SEO plugin which covers the basics but is far from ideal. I plan to move this blog to a custom written blog engine at some point and so investing time in tweaking this blog is not a priority. What I have learn’t about SEO is driving features of the custom written blog (discussions) engine in development right now. Now with that out of the way…….

If you are like me you will have heard the term Search Engine Optimization or SEO and associated it with the sleazy side of internet spam and messages like “Be Number 1 on Google Guaranteed, Click Here Now”. I knew that a large portion of any blog traffic is driven from search but I had decided in my mind that it was something I didn’t need to deal with. I know realize that was a big mistake! The epiphany came when I first started looking into SEO casually and had a discussion with my friend JD Meir over lunch. JD runs a very popular blog called Sources of Insight (hosted on WordPress) yet had some basics missing. When he fixed the issues he saw a significant jump in his traffic. Just last week I was exchanging email with a friend who is the CSO of a top company and told he he only gets just 50 page views a day on his blog. I have spoken to many people about SEO and it is suprising how little people know so here are the 5 top things that I think all bloggers should know about search engine optimization and therefore optimize users finding your content and driving up your traffic. It is certainly not exhaustive and certainly not an original list. If you want to “Pass Straight to Go” I suggest buying the Art of SEO by O’Reilly. Awesome series of books

My top 5 are:

1. Register with Google and Bing Webmaster tools

2. Generate a sitemap.xml

3. Understand Keywords

4. Install Analytics

5. Run Free SEO Analysis Tools
Register with Google and Bing Webmaster Tools
Google and Bing (which now including the Yahoo search traffic) account for the vast majority of internet search traffic (somewhere in the ballpark of 85%) and so making sure that those search engines can find your content is absolutely critical. Both sites have tools for webmasters that allow you to register your site and ensure that the search bots can crawl it. They then provide suggestions for basic optimization and allow you to monitor any issues the search engines maybe having. They also allow you to view the keywords they see on your site and queries that users searched for which they then referred to your site. I’ll focus on the Google webmaster tools here but the Bing experience is pretty similar.

You will first need to go to Google and sign in at [www.google.com] with your Google ID. Once you are in you will need to add your site and do some basic configuration. When you add your site you will first need to prove that you own the site. There are several options such as adding a verification code into some HTML but the easiest way in my opinion is to add a DNS TXT record to your domain. You copy the verification code from the webmaster tool and create a DNS TXT record at your DNS provider. You then go back to the webmaster tools and verify the domain. Google queries the DNS, checks the verification code and voila ! After a few more clicks you are now registered and can poke around on the site and see how Google see’s your site . It is all very self-explanatory. Don’t worry if at first Google doesn’t appear to know much about you. Registering is the first step in letting then know you exist. You need to systematically go through each suggestion, fix issues and then let the crawlers update their indexes and reflect the updates in the results. It can take several weeks even after making changes to see results.
Generate a sitemap.xml
One of the items the site master tools will check is for the presence of a sitemap.xml file. This is a file that is added to your site and acts as the primary front-door for the search engine crawler. You can find out more in this Wikipedia article. Having a sitemap.xml is essential. Given that your site content will change you really need your site to be abel to update the sitemap.xml file as new content is published. If you are using wordpress there are several tools that will do this for you. Some simply allow you to generate a file and manually re-submit it to the search engines. I use the Yoast WordPress plugin today.
Understand Keywords
Search engine keywords are essential to understand two fundamental things. The first is the keywords that the search engine sees on your site. Think of it as the content that the search engine sees as available to match to potential users. The second (and often over looked) is the keywords that users are searching for. Google allows you to look at keywords and view the amount of times users were looking for content that matched with those words. As an added bonus they conveniently provide a nice interface to compare the supply of keywords and the demand to advertise against them and the amount of people searching against them. This allows you to look for areas with your target topics where users are crying out for content and where little is available today. You can also predict the amount of traffic this would generate if you were able to fill that gap in the market. A useful tool is the Google Adwords tool. Sophisticated SEO software often uses the Google Data API’s to get similar data programmatically.
Install Analytics
Whats that phrase “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it?”. While webmaster tools will provide basic data about queries and keywords the more sophisticated analytics tools will allow you to capture rich data. You can even instrument scenarios such as a user moving through a registration wizard to find out where they drop off or so A/B variant testing to compare experiences or articles. I am using the Google analytics. Similar to the webmaster tools you will need to register your site and prove ownership, after which you will be given a piece of JavaScript that you call from every page on your site. I use a nice free iPhone app called Analytics Agent Lite to track my stats on my phone.
Run Free SEO Analysis Tools
Finally there are a number of things you will want to configure ranging from ensuring you have meta-content tags, individual page titles, encoding to ensuring you use H1, H2 etc HTML elements. A really simple free tool that I have found is WooRank. Just type in your domain and let it generate a report. Simple, quick and free.

So there it is, 5 Basic Things Any Blogger Should Know About SEO and that could have dramatic effects on your traffic. If this has been useful and you get results please let me know in the comments!
Heroku Vulnerability Security Notice

Posted: January 21st, 2011, 11:46am CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Summary
=======
On January 16th, 2011 at 10PM PST Heroku was notified of a
security vulnerability by David E. Chen, a long-time customer.
We deployed a fix to our production environment the following
day, January 17th, 2011 at 2pm PST.

We have done extensive analysis and have no reason to suspect
this vulnerability was exploited. However, we believe it is
important to let the community know about the situation and what
we are doing to prevent similar issues in the future. As a
precaution, we are working with add-on providers to change all
credentials. We also recommend that users should change any
manually set credentials in their apps as well.

Details on Vulnerability
========================
The vulnerability was a window through which an unauthorized
user could potentially gain read-only access to an app’s deployed
code and configuration variables.

We confirmed the vulnerability, determining that it was
introduced on December 28th. The underlying bug was fixed on
Monday January 17th, the day after we learned about it. It is no
longer possible to exploit this vulnerability. We do not believe
that any customer data was accessed or changed. We have
thoroughly audited our logs for that period and have found no
evidence that anyone exploited this vulnerability.

Consistent with best practices for security incidents, to
minimize the risk of a 0-day exploit, we waited 5 days to notify
the community and work with our add-on providers on a
precautionary mitigation plan.

Precautionary Actions
=====================
We believe it is important to take all prudent steps to ensure
the safety of apps. Heroku uses environment variables to provide
configuration information to apps. These variables often include
things like database passwords, API tokens, and credentials that
are used to access add-ons or other third-party services.
Although there is no evidence that these were compromised, we are
taking additional steps to protect users.

Actions Heroku Is Taking
————————

Our add-on partners have been notified of the problem and advised
to update the credentials for all Heroku apps. You can track the
status of credential changes for all add-on providers
at http://status.heroku.com/20110116-credentials. We expect all
add-on credentials to be updated within the next week.
We have already started rolling credentials for all Heroku hosted
PostgreSQL databases and expect to complete the update
this weekend.

The process of updating credentials will require restarting all
apps. While we do not expect any apps will have issues with the
update, if you do run into any issues please open an urgent
support ticket at <http://support.heroku.com>.

Actions App Developers Must Take
——————————–

Some apps may make use of hard-coded credentials in either their
source code or manually set configuration variables. As a
precautionary measure, we recommend that you update these
credentials.

Some examples of hard-coded credentials may include:

* Amazon RDS credentials - http://docs.heroku.com/amazon_rds#changing-your-credential
* Amazon S3 credentials - http://docs.heroku.com/s3#updating-your-s3-credentials
* Heroku username and password, often used by automatic scaling plugins. Visit <https://api.heroku.com/account> to change your password.

We have enabled advanced releases (http://docs.heroku.com/releases)
on all apps for free for the next 2 weeks, providing rollback
capabilities and a log of changes made to your app. To use,
update to the latest gem (`sudo gem update heroku`) and run
`heroku releases`.

If you need help or have further questions about the incident,
contact us at <http://support.heroku.com/>

Preventative Changes
====================

We are making several changes to our process and technology
architecture in an effort to prevent this type of security
regression in the future. First, we have introduced automated
regression testing to specifically check for permission issues.
Second, we have expanded our security audit review process for
all changes on the platform. Third, we are increasing the
frequency of both internal and external security reviews to help
ensure that we are continually following the industry best
practices. Finally, we are testing a new environment for
isolating customer processes from one another that will provide
a second layer of protection beyond filesystem permissions.

Reporting Security Issues
=========================

We want to thank David E. Chen for his contribution to our
community by helping us to identify this issue and working with
us to resolve it. Heroku is committed to continued improvements
to our trust and transparency. Any individuals who believe
they’ve identified a security issue within Heroku should contact
us at security@heroku.com

Sincerely
- Heroku Security Team

================================
This email was sent to mark@curphey.com.
If you do not wish to receive service notices you can unsubscribe:
http://lists.heroku.com/t/r/u/ydtlujy/tkolylyh/
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 16

Posted: January 19th, 2011, 11:20pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Notes: Tried a protein shake when I woke up this morning and worked well. Trying consciously to shift the balance of the calorie intake to earlier in the day. Weighed in at 216.6 lb this morning so close to pre-binge weight but it’s Weds! Planning to binge less this weekend (1.5 normal calories as opposed to over 2 x).

Breakfast : 2 scoops of protein shake mix (Whole Foods Soy Protein) mixed with water , scrambled eggs and bacon – 751 calories

Lunch : Beef – 350 calories

Afternoon snack : Shrimp, tomatoes, salsa and teaspoon of almond butter – 280 calories

Dinner : 2 egg omelet, eggology, large helping of chopped bell peppers and ham – 390 calories
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 15

Posted: January 19th, 2011, 1:12am CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Notes : Late for work so skipped normal breakfast and substituted for an Odwalla protein monster. Thanks to comments in the blog (Hoff) who suggested a 30g protein shake and then mid-morning snack. Plan to try that. Spoon of peanut butter tonight and checked ingredients. Despite organic labeling it had sugar. Need to get some almond butter from whole foods which is nothing but almonds! Another low calorie day, need to meal plan better.

Weights : 218 lbs

Breakfast : Odwalla protein shake – 400 calories

Lunch : prime rib and green beans – 494 calories

Dinner : beef salad – 474 calories

Evening snack : teaspoon of peanut butter – 100 calories
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 14

Posted: January 18th, 2011, 8:09pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Notes : Weighed in at 218.6 lbs and felt very guilty at gain after binge day. Very low calorie day (around 1200). Need to get a consistent calorific input during week so need to do some better meal planning. Need to figure out how to make breakfast the big mea of the day but do it so I can have something when I wake up and something else mid-morning when I get to work. Any ideas? Fallen back into the habit of a few cups of tea each day with milk. Need to stop that and need to focus on more water. Took a Camelbak water bottle to work which worked well.

Weights : 218.6 lbs

Breakfast : ham and eggs – 362 calories

Lunch : Mixed salad, shrimp and cottage cheese – 343 calories

Dinner : Shrimp and avacado salad – 400 calories
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 13

Posted: January 18th, 2011, 8:02pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Fell off the wagon in the afternoon (but not that badly). Wen’t out for lunch and tempted by cupcakes which led to a bottle of wine in the afternoon which led to ……

Weight : 220 lbs

Breakfast : ham and eggs – 362

Lunch : Beef and shrimp (Boom Noodle, Capitol Hill) – 480 calories

Afternoon snack : Coconut Bunny cupcake from Cupcake Royake – 500 calories

Bottle of Syrah – 750 calories
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 12 (Binge Day)

Posted: January 18th, 2011, 7:51pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Weighed in at 215.5 lbs. That was a loss of 7.5 lbs in the first two weeks (which included my birthday). Good progress. Feeling good and getting into a rhythm. Less concerned about shorter term gains and more concerned about making it sustainable plan that I can stick to for a while. Had a running lesson in the morning.

Weight : 215.5 lbs

Breakfast : 2 bowls of cornflakes with whole milk,

Morning snack : chocolate croissant

Lunch : 2 whole foods burgers with rolls

Dinner : Pizza + ice cream

Evening snack : Bottle of pinot noir and a few vodka and oranges

Lost track of time (and calories), woke up with a hangover! Probably gorged on other things in the evening
Rock, Paper Scissors – Early Thoughts on Game Theory and Community

Posted: January 17th, 2011, 2:56am CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]
“Game theory” is one of those phrases that I have heard many times in my life but never understood what it was. Most British computer science courses have an elective and I am sure most mathematics undergraduate degrees include it in the curriculum but I did my Masters degree in a mathematics department and my undergrad degree in an engineering department so missed out. It’s never too late to learn so a few weeks ago I got a book called Rock Paper Scissors with the intent of trying to understand if there was a correlation between game theory and how humans behave in social networks and online communities. I think I am onto something and while it’s early stages of really understanding the topic I suspect game theory could be used to explain and understand many patterns of why people do what they do and how to effectively structure incentive and plan for conflict. More importantly it may offer a very real blue-print for effectively motivating and rewarding online communities to work better together.

The first chapter of the book discusses the “Tragedy of the Commons” and what is often known as “The Prisoners Dilemma”. This simple theory is having such a profound effect on my thinking that I wanted to share it incase anyone else was in my shoes and interested in game theory and online community. John Nash was portrayed in the Hollywood film A Beautiful Mind as a paranoid schizophrenic and shared the Nobel prize in 1994. One of his greatest achievements was the Nash Equilibrium.

Assuming we don’t want to go into the math above (I don’t and probably can’t) the theory has been turned into numerous scenario based examples to help mere mortals understand it. One such example is called the Prisoners Dilemma and of course there are many variations on the story but imagine this.

Two thieves are arrested. They are both carrying concealed weapons, a crime which caries a sentence of at least 2 years. There is no solid evidence but they also just committed a burglary where the mandatory sentence for an armed burglary is 10 years. There are several options how the scenario might play out;
- If they both keep their mouths shut they will both get 2 years each or a total of 4 years of punishment.
- If they both confess they will both reduced sentences of 4 years or a total of 8 years.
- If one is convinced to ‘grass’ on the other and in doing so plead guilty to the armed robbery he might a reduced sentence of 4 years and the other the maximum sentence of 10 years (14 years total).
- If they are both found guilty without confessing they will get 10 years each or a total of 20 years of punishment.
As you can see it is in both of their interests to keep their mouths firmly shut (morals aside). You can read more about how these scenarios can be depicted in matrix tables and the variations in the book and on Wikipedia.

The interesting thing here from a social science perspective is that the optimum solution for both prisoners relies on two fundamental things. Both parties must agree the strategy (keep their mouths shut in this case) and both parties must execute that strategy. As soon as either party deviates form the strategy both parties will suffer. How bad either party suffers depends on the deviation.

This not only sets a great framework to explain why people should co-operate but sets the basis for how to create online schemes where working together is rewarding and working against each other punishes the community. As I mention this is early days for me but I plan to capture my learnings in the community wiki I am building and look at how game theory may explain why some communities thrive and others die. I suspect there are core patterns in the way community members are recognized and rewarded that are key to the success or failure of groups.
Barefoot Running – 3 Things I Learnt at My First Born To Run Clinic

Posted: January 15th, 2011, 10:26pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Today I took my first barefoot running lesson at Born To Run. Born To Run is a new barefoot / minimalist running shop set up around the principles of the barefoot running movement and the Born To Run book (Barefoot Ted, one of the characters in the book is involved in the shop). I am lucky enough to live near their first shop and over the holidays noticed they are running barefoot running clinics so I signed up. For $50 an hour you get 1:1 tuition on barefoot running form and how to effectively and efficiently run barefooted. Despite some scheduling hiccups today it was a great intro. and I plan to make it a monthly event to work on my running form. This is what I learned today:

1. Lean

2. Lift Your Knees (Don’t Jump)

3. Relax the Ankles

Lean – By leaning forward you use gravity to go forward. If you think about it imagine running downhill. When you want to slow down you lean backwards and if you want to go fast you lean further forwards. The same works when level. We practiced slowly falling towards a wall to get the feeling and then using the same technique to lean forward when running.

Lift Your Knees – Try running on the spot. Chances are you will do what I did, which is to jump from foot to foot. When you do this you are bouncing your entire body weight on each stride. Needless to say this is very inefficient. I pranced around the shop like a show pony just lifting my knees and walking to get used to it. I was asked to pretend I had rods through my ankles and I had to lift my legs to make sure I didn’t trip. This was surprisingly effective.

Relax Your Ankles – A relaxed leg leads to your foot landing correctly. I had previously been focusing on landing on my forefoot. Dan the instructor explained that he doesn’t teach fore-foot striking, instead focusing on people having relaxed ankles and forefoot striking naturally.

We went outdoors for a quick trot and put it all together. I can honestly say that in an hour I have not learned as much about running as I have in days of reading. It explained why I have been getting very sore calves (I prance on my feet) and why my achilles has been inflamming.

Next lesson in two weeks.

NB : It turns out I can bring others to the lessons for no cost. Let me know if you are in Seattle and want to join!

- Mark Curphey
Why Run Barefoot ? – My Story

Posted: January 15th, 2011, 5:56pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

This is the story about how I came to embrace bare-foot running and what I have learned along the way so far.

I have been jogging on and off for the last two years but never considered myself a runner. Last March I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina speaking at a conference. I was traveling with two girls from work who were both training for a marathon. One of them had lost a friend the previous year to Lukemia and was running with Team in Training raising money for Lukemia research. I went out for some glorious runs with them in the sunshine around Buenos Aires and it’s wonderful parks. One evening over beer in Argentina I decided to do the marathon as well and joined them on the Spring Team in Training (TNT) Season for the Seattle Rock’N'Roll marathon. Thanks to generous friends and Microsoft’s gift matching I quickly raised over $3,000 dollars and settled in to focus on the training. TNT make it easy with a planned training schedule and group runs. I started running in the morning before work during the week and attending the longer group runs at the weekend. Despite the cold Seattle weather training was enjoyable and I found myself really enjoying the running. I found running to be a combination of a mental and physical challenge and I found that I had a very high tolerance for mental pain that I could translate to physical endurance. I felt great, weight came off, I felt alert and happy and generally more inclined to eat well. I hated running as a child and have nasty memories of dreading cross-country at school in the cold British winters but here in my middle-age I had discovered a sport that offered the mental challenge and physical rewards I was looking for. After my first half-marathon distance I got a mini-boost of confidence and eased into the longer distances until one Saturday on an 18 mile training run disaster struck. I felt a pain in the shin of my left leg after around 15 miles, dismissed it as a “twinge” and ran back. Over the weekend the pain increased to a point where I struggled to walk. Ibuprofen and constant ice packs were having little effect and so on the Monday I visited a physical therapists and was immediately referred to the hospital for an MRI. While on the table getting the MRI the problem became obvious. An area on my leg was lighting up like a match on the screen. I had picked up a stress fracture.

What followed was what I suspect is the typical way doctors treat this kind of injury. I was prescribed a leg brace, crutches and strong anti-inflamatory drugs and told in no uncertain terms that I would not be running a marathon anytime soon. I was referred to a series of physical therapy three times a week and referred to a podiatrist for a gate analysis. The physical therapy consisted of a set of exercises to improve mobility and flexibility along with a set of yoga poses to improve core strength. I bought ankle weights to work at home, although frankly didn’t use them much. After a month or so the podiatrist put me on a treadmill and had me run while they took a high speed video and looked at how my feet hit the ground. My feet were put in a machine that took a 3D mould with a laser and I was prescribed custom orthotics to go inside my running shoes. I was told to go and get specific balance shoes to compensate for my pronation (bow legs to the average person). The orthotics were horrific, they looked like the sort of thing old people wear and I became very skeptical that they were the answer. A week before seeing the podiatrist and at this point missing running I picked up a book called Born to Run (Amazon link here). Both to Run is the story of a journalist who stumbled across a tribe called the Tarahumarha in Mexico’s Copper Canyons that were ultra-distance runners. They would cover hundreds of miles in nothing more than thin soled sandals often home-made from car tires at incredible speeds and on a very limited diet. The book follows the story of the search for a fabled American who had gone to the Copper Canyons and was now living and running among the Taraumahra and how he realized a crazy idea to pit the worlds best endurance runners again the tribe. The book is a wonderful read for it’s story but contained a powerful message that most of running injuries in the modern world have happened since the birth of soft spongy running shoes in the 70′s and 80′s. People have been running barefoot for thousands of years chasing down animals on foot for food and that there was living proof in Mexico of all of this in the form of the Tarahumara.

I was immediately drawn to the mantra of the book. It just made sense. I had never even thought about my running form, the type of shoes I was wearing or my bio-mechanics so I started researching the web and the more I read the more it made sense. A distractor for me had been the rise of Vibram Five Finger shoes (which ironically I now wear). Many geeks could be seen wearing them in normal life and they certainly aren’t flattering (especially on over-weight hairy geeks!) but I read Born to Run twice and decided to give it a go. After a struggle to by a pair of the new (at the time) running Five Fingers called Bikila’s due to over-demand I spent a few weeks running 30 minute circuits around the grass sports field at work in my lunch hour. I got some crazy looks from people playing football and frisbee but soon got comfortable and found myself steadily able to run barefooted with no pain. The feeling of running with no cushioning is strange at first but rapidly becomes natural. Over the course of the late summer I got my Five Fingers, built up my distance and decided to enter the November Seattle marathon. A serious of unfortunate work pressures kicked in and for whatever reason I could never seem to pull together a reasonable training schedule. Four weeks from the marathon I was running just a few miles a week and so I decided to drop the the half-marathon as a pre-caution. I new that I wasn’t even prepared for this but with a strong mental capacity I figured that I could go out and run and deal with some stiffness after the event. Foolishly I decided to go out two Saturdays before the event and run 12 miles. It was a very cold day and wet on the ground, so I put on my Saucony Kinvara’s. Kinvara’s are a minimalist running shoe but still look and feel like a traditional shoe. It was simply too cold for FiveFingers and I wanted to run (I have since bought Injinji socks and am planning to try some TerraPlana Evo’s soon). I had a great run around Lake Union, my heart rate was actually dropping after 2 hours and I felt great, but as I turned into my road at home I felt my achilles tightening. The inevitable had happened. Low distances and then just going out and running a half marathon and I had picked up another injury! The November marathon came and went and work got in the way of a new training schedule but it’s the new year and I am more determined than ever to not only complete an official marathon this year but tackle an ultra marathon. I am also hoping to get some trips to run in cool places like the rim of the Grand Canyon or maybe some deserts. The Pacific NorthWest has some great trail running as well on my door step.

The evidence for me has been compelling and I can’t see myself ever going back to running shoes at this point. I have been injury free while running bare-foot but each time I put on running shoes I get some sort of injury. Why would I do that to myself? And that right there is why I run barefooted. This morning I had a bare-foot running lesson at Born To Run. When I got home my seven year daughter was laughing hysterically; “Why does a 42 year old man need to learn to run?”. It’s simple. I know that running barefoot seems to allow me to run injury free. I know the evidence and history supports that evidence all boils down to a key factor being running form. It’s running form that helps you avoid injuries, run longer, faster and use less energy. I am now looking to find out how to optimize my form to improve my running and remain injury free as I do it.

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 11

Posted: January 14th, 2011, 10:34pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Notes : Just one day to binge day. The binge list has grown to include chocolate croissants, a burger and fries, bagels and Kerrygold butter, cornflakes, pizza and cookies. Well see! Down to 216 lbs a weigh in this morning so 1lb away from my target for the week. I have a running lesson (bare foot running coach helping me with my running form) tomorrow morning so can’t go to crazy for breakfast.

Weight : 216 lbs

Breakfast : Ham and eggs – 262 calories

Lunch : Beef and Shrimp bowl (Baja Fresh) – 450 calories

Afternoon : Wheat beer (office event) – 320 calories

Dinner : Ham salad – 150 calories

Evening snack : Tbl spoon of peanut butter and coconut water drink – 240 calories

This is the weight loss and calories graph so far.

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 10

Posted: January 13th, 2011, 10:15pm CST by Mark Curphey

Tags: [edit]

Notes : Big weight loss today. Almost certainly due to low calorie yesterday. Stuck in a few meetings and fired up DailyBurn and interesting to see the graphs of weight loss. Decided to plat out the calories against the weight loss as well as protein, carbs and fat. Will be interesting to see if the delay in loss etc. Getting a little obsessed by measurement and thinking about measuring water intake using a flow-meter and measuring that. Another low calorie day but finished with a steak and wine so can’t be bad. Encouraged by comments in blog. Keep ‘em coming. Been thinking about ways to make breakfast the biggest meal and dinner the smallest (blog comment) and bought some binge food while shopping (Pepperidge Farm cookies and cornflakes). Plan to binge on pizza (Tutta Bella) and chocolate croissants this weekend.

Weight : 216.6 lbs

Breakfast : Omelet made with 3 organic eggs, eggology egg whites and ham – 361 calories

Lunch : mixed salad with shrimp and edamame – 280 calories

Dinner – Organic New York Strip Steak (which I way over-cooked!) and 2 big glasses of Pinot Noir – 821 calories

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 9

Posted: January 13th, 2011, 10:05pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : Very low calorie day but awesome dinner. Shrimp with garlic, ginger, coriander and chili mixed with edamame in a pan (dash of olive oil). Touch of honey and bam! May have over done the chili but ……Can’t seem to get into the habit of video diary and definitely not drinking enough water. I need to take a water bottle to work.

Weight : 219.4 lbs

Breakfast : Ham and eggs – 453 calories

Lunch : mixed salad with shrimp and tofu – 277 calories

Dinner : Shrimp, ginger, garlic, chili, coriander, onion and edamame – 394 calories

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 8

Posted: January 11th, 2011, 10:50pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : Felt pretty good all day. Not hungry at all but then hardly surprising after gorging at my birthday dinner on a steak the size of my face. Had shrimp, edamame and tomatoes for dinner tonight which was superb and very low calories, high protein (see photo below). May become a staple. I just love edamame beans. Tim Ferris has been tweeting some photo blogs today from others with impressive results here and here. Made me more determined to kick it up a notch! Setting myself a mental goal to be 215 lb by next binge day (Saturday). That will be an 8lb loss in two weeks. Crazy snow in Seattle tonight so that will mess up any running.

Weight: 221 lbs at 6:30 am

Breakfast : 5 slices of organic ham – 200 calories

Lunch : 5 slices of organic ham and raw spinach – 236 calories

Dinner : Shrimp, edamame, tomatoes and salsa – 550 calories

Evening snack : Hefeweizen beer – 159 calories

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 7

Posted: January 11th, 2011, 12:43am CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : Birthday today and dinner with Mrs. C at Metropolitan Grill so didn’t stick to diet in the evening. Heck, it’s my birthday! Got a copy of Final Cut Express so should be able to edit the video blog content better.

Weight : 219.8 lbs

Breakfast : Organic eggs and organic ham

Lunch : Odwalla Protein Monster and tablespoon of Hummus

Dinner : Massive rib-eye steak, fries and creme brulee, washed down with half a bottle of pinot noir. Gave up counting calories (but was worth it, at least worth it tonight)!

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 6

Posted: January 10th, 2011, 8:49pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : After binge day I was not particularly hungry but probably went under on calories. Short run in the morning. Nothing else of interest. Birthday tomorrow so I suspect the diet will get broken. Not found time to edit up the video diaries yet.

Weight : 220.8 lbs

Breakfast : Organic bacon & 2 eggs – 356 calories

Lunch : Bison Steak and peas – 376 calories

Afternoon : Sliced roast beef – 369 calories

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 5 (Binge Day)

Posted: January 8th, 2011, 10:51pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Hooray for binge day! Waking up to cornflakes and milk was a real treat (but check out the calories when had with whole milk) !

Weight : 218.4 at 7am (thats 4.6 lbs lost in the first 5 days)

Breakfast : two bowls of cornflakes and milk – 670 calories

Morning snack : croissant – 320 calories

Lunch : Baguette (Macrina bakery) and Kerrygold butter, 2/3 of a Trader Joes 3 cheese pizza washed down with two Haywire Hefeweizen beers. – 1077 calories for lunch and 336 for the beer

Dinner – Homemade pizza by Hana (aged nine) and Ben and Jerrys Creme Brulee ice cream - 858 calories

After Dinner : bottle of Inkerry Shiraz and Hefeweizen – 818 calories

That’s 4064 calories for the day !!!

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 4

Posted: January 8th, 2011, 6:40pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : Voice much better today. No more weight loss and ended up taking strong pain-killers last night for the back pain. Really really looking forward to the binge day tomorrow. Top of my list are chocolate croissants and cornflakes with milk. Amazing how many calories in those Odwalla protein drinks!

Weight : 219.6

Breakfast : Organic ham and 2 poached eggs – 384 calories

Lunch : Large mixed salad with cottage cheese, chicken and ham – 427 calories

Afternoon snack : Odwalla protein monster – 400 calories

Dinner : grilled chicken breast with a black bean salad (organic black beans, tomatoes, coriander, white wine vinegar and sweet corn) – 519 calories

Evening : Handful of pistachio nuts and 2 glasses of Shiraz – 250 calories

- Mark Curphey
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 3

Posted: January 6th, 2011, 10:51pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes: Woke up with cold and having lost voice. Worked from home all day. Felt very weak. Nagging dull ache around kidneys all day. Could be from sleeping funny (have Tempurpedic mattress) but suspicious given crazy amount of protein. Working from home was much easier to eat well (stagger food).

Weight: 219.4

Breakfast: Cold beef and raw carrots - 192 calories

Lunch: Grilled chicken breast, home made guacamole (one avocado, garlic glove, fresh coriander), black beans and organic salsa – 760 calories

Dinner: Organic ham and 2 poached eggs – 302 calories

Two glasses of Stump Jumper Shiraz- 244 calories
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 2

Posted: January 5th, 2011, 9:24pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : Much better day today. Breakfast was very good and dinner just superb (see below). Went to Trader Joes at lunchtime and bought some organic pastrami and a veggie drink. Veggie drink tasted like liquid celery (not nice). Had a mild head-ache all day so convinced it’s caffeine withdrawal. Stopped on way home and picked up organic salsa (with nothing bad in it), avocados and coriander. Made home made guacamole which was awesome but was half the calorific value of the meal! Didn’t drink as much water during the day as I probably should have. Need to bring a water bottle to work. Video diary becoming more natural and easy to do. Need to think about editing them in a video blog this weekend.

Weight : 219.4 lbs

Breakfast : 4 slices of black forest ham (organic, nitrate free) with three fried eggs – 510 calories

Lunch : Pastrami and Veggie drink – 380 calories

Dinner : Grilled chicken breast, home made guacamole, black beans and salsa - 1005

Snacks : Carrots

[tonights dinner]
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 1

Posted: January 4th, 2011, 10:47pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Notes : Tough day today. Learning a lot of hard lessons about choosing the right food. I made the same mistake again about far too long between lunch and dinner. I don’t get home until around 8pm which is an 8 hour gap between lunch and dinner. I wen’t way under on calories. Way under! Going to step up to 4 meals a day from tomorrow. Found myself thinking about various foods and struggling to figure out if they are OK. Shrimp ? Heinz Baked Beans ? I think I will go out later and get some cold meat (ham and pastrami) to have with fried eggs for breakfast. Need carrots as as snack. Did my first video blog entry today and happy with it.

Weight – 220.6 lbs (6:45am)

Breakfast - 2 organic eggs (boiled and cold) and a bowlful of raw spinach (horrid) – 152 calories

Lunch – Baked tofu and raw spinach – 212 calories

Dinner : 3 fried eggs, two teaspoons of edamame hummus, bison steak and half pound of peas - 812 calories

[tonights dinner]
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day 0

Posted: January 3rd, 2011, 11:16pm CST by Mark Curphey

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Today is the first day of my 4HB “recomposition” experiment. During the week I will just make rough notes and record data like this post.

Notes : Very tired all morning but probably due to late night last night. Toughest thing today has been not drinking tea. I would normally have 3 cups in the morning and 4 or five in the evening with 3 cups of coffee during the day. Just stuck to water which was tough. Need to look for a sustainable alternative. Looked up online and one coffee seems OK so had a double espresso in Bauhaus but I need a sustainable hot drink. Green tea ? Made the mistake of meeting friend at coffee shop this afternoon 2pm and not getting home until gone 8pm so was very hungry. Need to prepare better. Baking some tofu in the oven which I can take to work tomorrow with salad leaves. Need to find a list of what food is and what isn’t OK. Used garlic in dinner tonight. Anyone have such a list? Total calories so far (it’s 9pm now) is around 1,250 (way low) so will try and find a snack in a while. Didn’t do any video today. Found it weird (pretentious) trying to talk into a laptop, especially in a coffee shop. Will do some video diary tomorrow. [10 pm added baked tofu snack and handful of pistachio nuts]

Weight – 223 lbs (7:30am)

Breakfast - 2 organic eggs, some eggology egg whites and a cup of edamame beans (soy beans). Note bad but a bit bland. 333 calories

Lunch – 6 oz (approx.) beef, large helping of mixed frozen organic vegetables. 445 calories

Dinner : 8 oz (approx.) beef, asparagus, fresh garlic and basil. 480 calories.

Evening snack : Baked tofu and hand-full of pistachio nuts.

I opted not to take pictures of my body as recommended by Tom Ferriss. TMI!
4HB Experiment 1 “Recomposition” – Day Minus 1

Posted: January 2nd, 2011, 11:38pm CST by Mark Curphey

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My Four Hour Body (4HB) experiment gets underway tomorrow. Experiment One is the Slow Carb diet and I just got supplies for the first week from Whole Foods and Trader Joes (supplies later).

These are the things I plan to measure. The more data the better. I am not going to get hung up on daily fluctuations but use the overall data to track trends and results.

1. Weight – In pounds using my Tanita scales

2. Body Fat – Using Slim Guide Skin Fold calipers (just ordered on Amazon)

3. Calories (Intake) – Using DailyBurn

4. Calories (Outtake) – Garmin 405 CX for runs

5. Cholesterol Levels – Dr. blood tests

6. Other blood composition such as vitamin D3 (I live in Seattle!) via the Dr’s blood tests

7. Resting Heart Rate – Garmin Forerunner 405 CX

8. Distance – Garmin Forerunner 405 CX (although this will be VERY low mileage in the first diet month as I nurse back an achilles injury)

I may add more vitals as I go along and learn more.

I will start measuring in the morning (or later in the week when things like the calipers arrive).

One interesting calculation to consider is the Basel Metabolic Rate (BMR), the amount of calories your body needs just to function (if you stayed in bed all day). I just used the Discovery Chanel online BMR calculator and it came in at 2,130 calories. Much like the comments from Chad Fowler in the 4HB if I make the big assumption that 4,000 calories is approx. 1lb of body weight and I run for 30 mins 4 times a week (I just looked at my Garmin Connect account and a 30 min run is around 400 calories) then I should be able to notch up a decent loss (not taking into account any of the principles of the slow carb diet)

Weekly BMR = 2,130 x 7 = 14,910

Weekly Calorie Intake (assuming 1,750 a day) = 7 x 1,750 = 12,250

Weekly Calorie Burn from Running = 4 x 400 = 1,200

Net Effect (Before taking into account normal daily activity) is a reduction of 12,250 (14,910 + 1,200) = 3,860. That’s pretty close to 1lb a week. It’s clear where the big gains will come. Food not exercise. I just checked and my last 10 mile run burnt up less than 3,000 calories. Don’t get me wrong 4 of those a week would be awesome (although I know I eat to compensate) but I won’t be at that level of fitness until the summer.

Even before the mass assumptions the calculations above will be nothing more than of passing interest given the nature of the 4HB slow carb diet. The weekly day of binging for example to raise your metabolism etc. don’t lend itself to conventional diet tracking.

The Food ?

I just spent $15.61 in Trader Joes on frozen vegetables and $79.50 in Whole Foods on frozen vegetables, meat, eggs, tinned beans (black, pinto and red) and supplements. We have an organic vegetable box delivered each week from New Root Organics so this is really just to stock the freezer with vegetables for easy consumption. All frozen vegetables were organic. I got frozen chicken breasts, fresh steak and frozen bison. For supplements I got some Magnesium and Potassium. I already take Calcium (after fractured leg last year) and Vitamin D3 (I live in Seattle and we don’t get enough sun for the body to manufacture the right amount). I have an array of other supplements I was taking while training such as Flax Seed oil and St. Johns Wort which I will probably continue until they run out and re-evaluate.

The Video Diary

Looks like I have recruited at least one guinea pig (I mean volunteer) to join me, Andrew Becherer. I am waiting to hear from one other. Anyone else is welcome to join and share the results. The plan is for us to maintain video diaries and edit them into a weekly documentary style video blog. The more the merrier, especially the more people from diverse backgrounds and locations!
Guide to Building Online Communities (Wiki)

Posted: January 2nd, 2011, 1:28am CST by Mark Curphey

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I have started drafting a “Guide to Building Online Communities” (provisional title) using a wiki. The work will be published for free under a Creative Commons license as part of a community I plan to launch in a few weeks. This initial draft is really to provide something for the community to “hack on”.

If you have experience in creating, participating or running online communities and have some words of wisdom to share then please get in touch (blog comments or email).

The provisional Table of Contents can be found here.
My 4-Hour-Body Video Experiment

Posted: January 2nd, 2011, 1:15am CST by Mark Curphey

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I got a copy of the 4 Hour Body for Christmas. If you haven’t heard it’s an unconventional guide to health and fitness. The author Tim Ferriss has gone out of his way to experiment on himself without pre-conceived notions of what works and what doesn’t, and then captured his findings (and those of his army of disciples) in the book. It’s riveting reading and gave me an idea for something I have been thinking about for a while.

Last year I took up distance running and got hooked. Hooked that was until I picked up a stress fracture while training for my first marathon. After physical therapy and a three month recovery I then got injured a second time with an achilles issue. After the first injury and a bunch of research that lead me to the great book Born to Run, I became sold on the merits of barefoot running. The stress fracture was almost certainly caused by “heel striking” and the achilles injury happened when I put shoes on for the first time in the fall and went for a 10 miler around Lake Union in Seattle.

The 4-Hour Body has three really interesting sections that have caught my attention. The first is loosing weight. Since I stopped running I have put on 15 lbs and was (at least) 10lbs overweight anyways. The second is reversing permanent injuries (obvious reasons above) and the third is endurance running. They have a training schedule to go from 5K’s to 50K’s in 12 weeks using 400M circuits among other things.

For a while I have wanted to have an excuse to experiment with video so I have an idea. I am going to start the 4-Hour-Body diet on Monday and video my progress in a weekly video blog. The book claims typical results of loosing 20 lbs in 30 days, it’s a little wacky with a repetitive diet of meat and vegetables (more next week) and a weekly binge day where you are encouraged to eat massive amounts of anything you crave to boost your metabolism.

Let’s see if it works! If anyone is interested in joining me (experiment and video) let me know.

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