I would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter! I know I’m a little early, but so was our celebration. I was lucky enough to make it home for the annual easter egg hunt. Fortunately for me the hunt was moved from it’s normal time on Sunday morning to Friday morning to accommodate my busy schedule this weekend.


When I tell some people that we still do an Easter egg hunt every year they laugh and tell me I’m too old. It’s not until after I experience it again that I realize how wrong they are. There’s nothing quite like waking up to Easter eggs all over the house and racing against the rest of your family to see who can collect the most. Normally it’s just the brothers since I’m pretty sure the Easter Bunny leaves Mom and Dad a map of where they are hidden.

Being a marketing major I tend to spend a lot of my time analyzing commercials and other forms of advertisements whether it be for class or just because I can’t watch one without running through the check-list that is now embedded in my mind. I’ve likely studied over a hundred great ads for class but thought I’d share my favourite two.


This first one is about a year or so old now, but it will never be forgotten in my mind. DQ did in fact do something different here.





My second favourite ad was from Sprint. Although I tend to favour Virgin’s marketing strategy more than Sprint’s, I must hand it to them – this is funny.

It’s been about four years that I’ve been meaning to do something with this site – according to the whois for adambate.net (Creation Date: 29-may-2005), although I’m pretty sure I even let that expire once or twice before reregistering. Needless to say I’m excited to get this site online.

Please bare with me as I change around the site, if it goes down or you aren’t able to access certain pages it’s not the end of the world, I will fix it. It’s been a long time since I’ve actively blogged so try not to pick on me too much. So as I stretch out the blogging muscles over the next few days, sit tight and get prepared for what’s to come.

If you know me well, you’ve likely heard that after a couple week of research on many diets and work out programs that I’ve just started day one of 28 of a new slow carb diet, paired with a high intensity training program, inspired by many other people who’ve done a similar experiment.

After much contemplation over goals for the four weeks, ie. muscle gain vs weight loss, I’ve decided that it will be more of a weight loss than a muscle gain experiment. This is mainly due to the fact that I am not used to eating a lot, and will likely be unable to take in enough calories to sustain it. That, and I’m roughly 25 lbs over my typical “in shape” weight. My goal for the 28 days is to drop 15 lbs of body fat – unfortunately I wasn’t able to get in to measure my body fat % before I began, so I’ll be winging it, but I did remember to snap a few pictures.

The Diet:

I will be following a slow carb diet. Four meals a day comprised of vegetables, high protein meat source, and lentils. I’ve tested this diet out at the first of the month and made several notes so I knew what I was getting myself into. Note: I’m not counting calories, I will eat as much or as little as I want from the three categories for each meal.

Guidelines:

1. No white carbs, except for after a workout. These basically include anything that is or could be white. Potato, bread, rice, etc.

2. Don’t drink calories, only water, and lots of it – Yes, I even have to give up beer.

3. Routine, routine, routine. Although there is some variation in meat choice and legume choice, I will mainly be eating the same meal over and over again, and eating as much or as little of it as I like.

4. Take a day off – Saturday is going to be my day. During this day I can eat anything I want and can give in to any of the cravings I’m having during the week. Not only does this day ensure that the rest of the days will be successful, it makes sure that my metabolic rate doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction and will actually help burn fat.

The Workout:

Only 2 days per week of weight training, which is good for me since although I’ve always loved being active, hitting the weight room was always a chore for me.

I’ll be following a high intensity training program that is a full body work out twice a week with roughly 7 exercises. Each exercise is one set to failure with a 5/5 cadence (ie. 5 seconds up and 5 seconds down).

In addition to the weight training I’ll be continuing and adding to my swimming and basketball I’ve been doing, as well as adding at least 15 minutes of yoga every day.

Why am I blogging about this?

So many “diets” and changes that people try last a few days and get tossed aside. I thought that if I tell as many people about this as possible, I will be much more likely to see it through to the end. I will also post weekly updates with my thoughts, challenges, and tips throughout the 28 days, and will save my results for the end.

If you are currently doing the same thing please comment and let me know how it is going – I enjoy reading about people who are or have already changed their lifestyle with a diet like this.

EDIT: Seems I’ve come down with quite a bad flu so will be waiting until I conquer the flu before conquering the diet.