Easy Peanut Butter and Banana Clusters
Apple, Cardamom and Ginger Muffins
Snack and Gap Filler One-Liners
Getting fit, firm & strong . . . and maybe a bit sweaty
Chapter 9: An Understanding of Exercise
The Exercises – How To Do Them
Chapter 10: Frequently Asked Questions
Chapter 11: Day-by-Day Motivation
Chapter 12: Adapting Blast to Everyday Life
My name is Annie Deadman and I’m the extremely proud creator of The 21 Day Blast plan, a three-week healthy-eating and fitness programme that, in a nutshell, kicks your sweet tooth into touch, calms your gut and leaves you with less fat and firmer muscles.
Just so you know, I’m not some fake who went ‘on a diet’ once, found it worked and decided to flog it the masses. I have for the last fifteen years or so been running Annie Deadman Training, which provides fitness-training sessions, personal training and Pilates courses to the local community in southwest London.
I am in my fifties, have two gorgeous daughters in their twenties, a team of bossy instructors and a studio where people come and go all day long, for personal training sessions.
As a child, I was chubby. As a teenager, chubby turned into overweight with a dash of geeky and shy – the future in terms of mixing with the opposite sex wasn’t looking bright. So I ditched the short skirts, flexed what little muscle I had and threw myself into schoolwork. PE, it turned out, wasn’t one of my favourites and I, like most of the other self-conscious girls, skived off as often as I could.
At university, everyone around me seemed to be on a diet of fags . . . or just on a diet. Inevitably I joined in. I turned to starvation as a means of losing weight and life became all bran flakes and cottage cheese. I was hungry all the time and I never once thought about my health or, heaven forbid, about exercise. I emerged from university, found a job in London and yo-yo dieted my way through the next five years.
It was only when I got married and had my first child at the age of thirty-two that things changed again. High interest rates, two recessions and a colossal mortgage meant my husband and I worked long and different hours and hardly ever ate together. As if the whole full-time working-mother thing wasn’t enough, I was also facing something very like single parenthood and it started to leave its mark on my body. What had been an average OK-ish figure was now punctuated by wodges of unbecoming fat. My self-esteem plummeted at the same rate as my waistline expanded. I was in my early thirties but I felt dumpy and frumpy. Something had to be done.
After a particularly sticky weight-related conversation with my GP one day, I gave myself a talking-to and decided that I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to do some exercise. As an exercise virgin, the obvious first step was running. So off I went . . . not very far. Or very fast! But it was hideous. I got hot and it hurt and I felt uncomfortable. My second bite of the exercise cherry was more successful when I joined a local conditioning class and I started to use my muscles in a controlled way. It was actually rather pleasant, which meant I stuck to it, and very soon I started to see results. I firmed up and gained strength, and in the process, doubled my energy levels. Getting into shape didn’t mean running endless miles. I was so happy to find that out.
This investment of effort also meant I started to be much more interested in eating good, nutritious meals. Less picking, more planning. Less beige, more green. Less emphasis on the pick-me-up chocolate and wine, more focus on cooking quick but healthy meals. I felt different, better.
My interest in health and body nourishment gathered pace and I enrolled on a part-time nutrition course at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. I devoured books on gut health and weight loss and started to realise that this was more than just a mild interest: I wanted desperately to share it with others.
A downsize house move meant I could swap to part-time work and so I started to study in my spare time to become a personal trainer. I turned the dilapidated old garage into a studio and bribed the children to help me deliver leaflets door to door. This heralded the start of Annie Deadman Training. I wanted to encourage and motivate. My passion to help others find their groove and my ‘tell it how it is’ approach meant that word got out and soon my days were filled with clients. I was helping men and women to feel better (inside and out), to get stronger and to embrace their lives with refreshed confidence. A steady expansion in the next few years meant I took on a small team of trainers and I was able to offer a whole range of group fitness-training sessions to the local community
I learnt so much (and continue to) from all my clients about their day-to-day issues, their food intolerances, their lack of time. There was a pattern emerging: men and women struggling to keep in shape (as well as hold on to some modicum of self-esteem) while managing a family and work, dishing up healthy meals and trying occasionally to come up for air. Bad habits had become entrenched and they just couldn’t shake them off.
Personal training is, in the grand scheme of things, expensive and I wanted to find a way of helping people get into shape without having to join a gym or feeling constrained financially. I wanted to give them access to something that could help them break habits but not the bank. A short-term plan for fat loss and fitness with long-term results that was sustainable alongside the responsibilities of work and family.
I wanted to educate, motivate and entertain.
So the 21 Day Blast was born, an online fat-loss plan available to everyone around the world, offering an eating plan, recipes and workouts. Very soon after, Blast received some fantastic coverage in the national press and – bang! – overnight a wonderful Blast community was created.
Now I’m bringing the Blast plan to you within the covers of this book, so that you too can benefit from all that Blast offers, for 21 days and beyond. You’re in for such a fun time. Let’s get stuck in.
