The 21 Day Blast Plan: Lose weight, lose inches, gain strength and reboot your body

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Text Copyright © Annie Deadman 2018

Annie Deadman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN 978-0-00-825925-9

eBook ISBN: 978-0-00-825926-6

Photography: Andrew Burton

Food styling: Emily Jonzen

Prop styling: Olivia Wardle

Design & Art Direction: Hart Studio

Editorial Director: Rachel Kenny

Project Editor: Sarah Hammond

Creative Director: Louise McGrory

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

I’d like to dedicate this book to all the brilliant

people around the world who have Blast-ed

their way to a better understanding of nutrition,

a fervent love of squats and a body they’re proud of

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Hello

Introduction

How to Get the Most Out of This Book

PART 1

FOOD & OUR BODIES:

The background to Blast fat loss

Chapter 1: A Closer Look at Food Groups

Chapter 2: Using Food to Help Us Lose Fat

Chapter 3: Threats to Gut Harmony . . . and therefore to successful fat loss

Chapter 4: The Part Hormones Play in Fat Loss

PART 2

THE BLAST EATING PLAN & RECIPES:

The food, the rules, the tools

Chapter 5: The Blast Plan Food Guidelines (or . . . what to eat and when)

Chapter 6: Facing Change & Monitoring Your Progress

Chapter 7: Strategies for Success

Chapter 8: The Blast Recipes

Breakfasts & Brunches

Grain-Free Granola

Broccoli and Salmon Frittata

Cauliflower Hash Browns

Tofu Mushroom Scramble

The Blast Smoothie

Mexican Bean Breakfast Bowl

Nut and Berry Breakfast Jar

Smoked Haddock Omelette

Breakfast One-Liners

Sweet Potato Rosti

Buckwheat-Berry Breakfast Muffins

Kedgeree

Buckwheat Galettes

Courgette Bread

Mini Sweet Potato and Bacon Frittatas

Overnight Oats 4 Scrumptious Variations

Power Granola

Sweet Quinoa Breakfast Bowl

Breakfast One-Liners

Light Meals, Soups & Salads

Hummus and Rocket Wrap

ASian Beef Salad

Black Bean Blast Burgers with Avocado Mash

Broccoli, Hazelnut and Kale Soup

Creamy Coronation Chicken Salad

Broccoli Falafel with Celeriac Coleslaw

Cod Loin with Lentil and Caper Tapenade

Lemon and Olive Chicken Traybake

Thai Prawn Cakes

Pesto Courgetti with Baked Chicken

Light Meal, Soup & Salad One-Liners

Bean and Lentil Chilli

Turkey and Chorizo Hash with New Potatoes

Leek and Potato Soup

Roasted Roots with Lentils

Warm Tuna and New Potato Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing

Salmon, Lemon and Pea Penne

Spiced Sweet Potato and Cashew Stuffed Mushrooms

Chicken and Cashew Stir Fry

Light Meal, Soup & Salad One-Liners

Hearty Meals

Pork Steaks with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

Thai Tofu Curry

Beef and Chorizo Burger Stack

Gill’s Almond-Crusted Fish with Lime and Coriander

Sausage Goulash with Cauliflower Rice

Salmon Tandoori with Cucumber Raita

Spicy Lamb Meatballs with Minted Smashed Peas

Turkey Burgers with Peanut Dip

Turmeric Chicken with Spiced Cabbage and Leeks

Garlic Tofu with Nutty Greens

Hearty Meal One-Liners

Chicken and Tarragon Crumble

Annie’s Chicken and Chorizo Stew

Lamb Biryani

Cottage Pie with Potato and Parsnip Rosti Topping

Mediterranean Fish Bake

Roast Cauliflower, Potato and Butter Bean Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing

Sausage and Potato Traybake

Spiced Green Bean and Butternut Stew

Peppered Fillet Steak with Turmeric Sweet Potato Wedges

Hearty Meal One-Liners

Sides, Dips & Relishes

Pea, Leek and Kale Mess

Carrot and Celeriac Mash

Pepperonata

Green Beans with Tomatoes and Olives

Roasted Carrots – Two Ways

Warm Beetroot, Leek and Walnut Salad

Cauliflower Rice

Broccoli Rice

Carrot and Caraway Dip

Creamy Herb Dip (or Dressing)

Red Lentil and Coriander Relish

Spinach with Caramelised Onion and Sumac

Mackerel and Dill Dip

Watercress and Avocado Dip

Snacks

Savoury Pancakes

Courgette and Pea Fritters

Fish Goujons

Curried Bean Patties

Blast Beetroot Smoothie

Snack and Gap-Filler One-Liners

Sweet Potato and Walnut Cake

Easy Peanut Butter and Banana Clusters

Apple, Cardamom and Ginger Muffins

Snack and Gap Filler One-Liners

PART 3

THE WORKOUTS:

Getting fit, firm & strong . . . and maybe a bit sweaty

Chapter 9: An Understanding of Exercise

The Warm-ups

The Cool-downs

The Exercises – How To Do Them

The Workout Charts

PART 4

FILLING IN THE GAPS:

Knowledge is power

Chapter 10: Frequently Asked Questions

Chapter 11: Day-by-Day Motivation

Chapter 12: Adapting Blast to Everyday Life

Acknowledgements

List of Searchable Terms

About the Publisher

HELLO

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.

INTRODUCTION

The 21 Day Blast plan is a fat-loss and fitness plan. It’s a programme of short workouts, which can easily be squeezed into anyone’s week (at a time best for you), and a way of eating that means the body isn’t wasting its effort dealing with digestive problems or storing fat. It is going to use the fat as fuel! And you are going to get fitter and stronger in the process.

‘What? In 21 days? . . . Oh come on’

Yes, not long, is it? But during that time you will experience a way of eating and a way of exercising that you can (and will want to) continue on your own. You will learn which systems in the body work with you and which work against you and just how brimming with energy you can be.

In short, this is a self-help manual of empowerment, full of deadly serious facts with more than a sprinkling of humour.

‘I’ve only just about enough energy to sort my family out, let alone dabble with empowerment . . .’

Hear me out.

You might be coming towards the end of your thirties and are juggling work, commutes, sleepless children and parents’ evenings. You feel ongoing pressure to prepare nutritious, tasty home-cooked fodder (big on kale, low on pizza). You strive to be outstanding at work, the pinnacle of parenthood and manage a sparkling social life, despite a nagging desire to run amok with a bottle of Pinot Grigio and let it all descend into chaos.

Or you’re trying desperately to withstand the test of time as your body heads for middle age or even the menopause, while being the best possible mother, friend, wife and lover, all with one eye on a waistline that has slid into your hips and another on the clock wondering if your teenage children are home yet.

As our years advance (fingers in ears . . . la-la-la-la), we can tuck all kinds of experience (and back fat) under our arms. Marriage, children, divorce, debilitating illnesses, the loss of parents . . . stuff that life throws at us. Big stuff that we have to deal with and emerge from looking sensible and grown-up. Consequently our health and our own efforts at staying in shape fall to the bottom of the list.

I’ve been through it all and more and I know the 21 Day Blast plan will help you get a tighter hold on everything.

‘Annie Deadman, I am so done with diets; nothing works’

The 21 Day Blast plan is not a diet. It’s a programme of better eating and exercise, during which you will deal with sugar and carbohydrate cravings. You will be eating in a way that’s going to soothe your gut, boost your energy levels and subsequently your mood. You will be using food to help you burn fat and create a body that is harmonious, inside as well as out. Twenty-one days is enough time to break well-entrenched habits. We’re talking that wind-down wine at the end of every day and the TV chocolate.

Yes, we all love those things. And no, it doesn’t mean you won’t ever have them again. It just means that over these 21 days you will find out what highs and lows certain foods bring to your mood, your sleep and most of all the bits on your body that are surplus to requirements.

‘So you’re going to help me take control? Lose fat and get into shape?’

Dead right I am. And that’s just in 21 days.

This book is a super-easy read. There are some food guidelines and principles to follow and some workouts to do during each of the three weeks. If you eat like this and do the workouts you will lose fat.

‘Tell me I don’t have to spend hours in the gym when I should be waving the homework stick and force-feeding my children broccoli’

No, you don’t. The workouts are between twenty and thirty minutes long and you need no equipment. And as for the food, it’s all normal – it’s just a matter of swapping a few things around.

This book is going to show you how to get serious with yourself and take charge. You’ll become slimmer and fitter. You’ll discover new routines and you’ll be motivated enough to sustain them. This is a bold statement, but I’d really like this to be the last book about losing fat that you ever, ever pick up.

So, if you fancy a good shot at losing a few inches, taking control, kicking your sweet tooth into touch, feeling downright gorgeous and having a bit of a giggle along the way, then let’s get on with it.

Remember one thing: I’m on your side.

‘Six months ago I was bursting out of my clothes and needed to buy a size 16. This was the turning point for me. I had never been “big” and here I was, FAT! Three Blast programmes later and I am a size 12. I focus on size and the tape measure and overall I have lost a total of 17 inches. SEVENTEEN!!! Needless to say I am delighted. Thank you so much.’

J.P., London

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK

Here, I’ve laid out a plan of all the chapters in this book so you can see at a glance what’s in store.

But before we go any further, I just want to say something. No one ever lost fat (and sustained it), increased their energy levels and had a happy body and mind by chewing lettuce and sitting still. Very low-calorie diet plans make us miserable because they leave us thinking incessantly about food. There is NOTHING more destructive to one’s weight-loss plans than being constantly hungry.

So we’re going to be doing plenty of eating . . . and some exercising. Both of those things. Any successful fat-loss plan involves focus on both the nutrition side of things as well as exercise. It’s actually getting going and making that first move that is the hard part, but we’re in this together, so let’s crack on and let me tell you how this Blast manual is going to help you not only lose fat and inches but also get fitter and stronger – inside as well as out.

Firstly, this is how the book is structured.

PART 1: FOOD & OUR BODIES

The background to Blast fat loss

‘How come that woman on Instagram can stuff her face with tacos and soured cream but her thighs are the same size as my arms and I’m sitting here with a crispbread and cottage cheese?’

Galling, isn’t it?

In these chapters we grasp the concepts of why and how we put on fat and we look at the part our hormones play and how their groove can upset our groove. We’ll also take a good, close look at the food groups and see how they can both help and hinder our fat-loss efforts.

It’s four glorious chapters of entertainment but deadly serious facts. Let’s call it preparation.

PART 2: THE BLAST EATING PLAN & RECIPES

The food, the rules, the tools

‘They devoured the meals with relish and never even noticed I was following a fitness programmme. And my husband lost weight too . . . he wasn’t hungry once! Thank you so much, Annie, this has really changed our lives.’

V.W., Derby

This is the nub of the book and the section that equips you for success. It tells you exactly how you’re going to be eating for 21 days, how you will focus less on sugary foods that soothe your emotions and more on the right food to fuel your body, soothe your gut and bring power to your muscles.

It’s packed with really delicious, inspirational cooking ideas, not just to fuel you through the day but to satisfy your heart and your head too. You don’t have to be a gourmet chef (if only . . .) and you’ll have most ingredients already in your store cupboard. There are full-blown recipes as well as simple meal suggestions, which involve more assembling than creating, for busier days.

The Blast guidelines adapt perfectly to everyday family eating, so you won’t find yourself confronted by a plate of diet-y food, while the rest of the family tucks in to something different. Yes, there will be changes to make and change means effort, newness, unfamiliarity. But it also means swap around, improve, revamp, convert. That’s all we’re doing.

The third part of this section is given over to positive strategy advice as well as practical tips on how to gauge your fat-loss progress – seeing your results will become your motivation.

PART 3: THE WORKOUT SECTION

Getting fit, firm & strong . . . and maybe a bit sweaty

‘What a fantastic plan. I loved (and hated) the workouts. By week 3, I was getting an endorphin rush after the exercise and finding it a great de-stress after a hard day at work.’

K.H., London

I can hear you inwardly groan. It won’t go away. Yes, you could tear the pages out and pretend they weren’t there but you’d be chucking out half the fat-loss equation. These workouts are the vital factor in accelerating and sustaining your results.

I’ll say that word again . . . sustaining. Not for a week, not for Christmas, not for 21 days. For always.

Check out the different levels, decide which is yours and then follow those workouts, using the pictures and instructions to help you.

Towards the end of the section there’s advice for those who want to go above and beyond the Blast call of duty and do extra workouts, plus helpful motivation in maintaining a workout habit after the 21 days are finished.

PART 4: FILLING IN THE GAPS

Knowledge is power!

‘I have totally changed the way I eat now . . . I can still have treats, but they’re no longer a daily crutch. Thank you so much.’

G.P., Shropshire

This section is devoted to helping you make informed decisions about what’s worth listening to and what isn’t. I talk about intermittent fasting and its benefits and how you can incorporate it into the 21 Day Blast plan, if you choose. Well-known myths are given the once-over and I tackle common fat-loss questions.

There’s also a special section towards the end. This is a great place to come for a ‘tell it how it is’ dose of motivation. Days 1 to 21 are little paragraphs of fun for you to read as you work your way through the 21 Day Blast plan. They’re similar to the daily email I write to all who take part in the online version of the Blast plan. They will help to keep you on track and fired up.