In the 15 months between April 2010 & mid June 2011 & gained 50lbs.  On March 26^th 2010 I hit my goal weight in Weight Watchers and all was good.  Then I sold my house, moved house, returned to work after being off for almost 2 years, designed a house, applied for planning permission, realised that my draughty rental was going to be impossible to heat over the Winter, J broke his arm, got frozen out of my rental (first the internal water system, then the mains water froze) over Christmas, got swine flu (along with my husband & both of my kids), built our home, dealt with MIL breaking her hip & being in hospital 30 minutes away for a month, MIL died & we moved again.  All of these can be used in defence of my weight gain but at some point a line has to be drawn and the defence has to rest.

I was online late one night 3 weeks ago and saw a link to a discussion about The 17 Day Diet and decided to check it out.  Having tried, unsuccessfully to restart Weight Watchers several times in the last 15 months I knew I needed something different and this looked like it could be it.  I was having a house guest during the week and planned to start on the Saturday but then realised that he would be gone by Friday at 10am so Friday became the start day.

To go from baking every day and eating whatever I want to eating 1200 calories a day with NO sugar or refined carbs is a huge leap.  But I knew something major had to be done.

I weighed in on Day 1 at 210.2lbs.  I was horrified.  I had stopped weighing myself altogether and I knew I had gained weight because none of my jeans fit me but I didn’t think I had put on a total of 50lbs. 

The 17DD “promises” 10 – 12lbs loss in the first cycle and I was aiming for 10lbs.  The available foods is a list of 45 things.  The first few days were rough.  I had a headache and eating soya yogurt was not something I was enjoying but the results were almost immediate and I knew I was working towards something.  I was sure I was never going to get to the end of the 17 days but I did.  I have eaten more fish in the last 17 days then I ate in the last year and that includes cod & chips from the chipper J  I can do more things now with chicken & fish than I ever imagined.  Because of being dairy free and simply disliking turkey I cut the list of available food down to 30!  I can make so many different dishes with those 30 foods now.

Midway through the 17 days I restarted the Fit Yummy Mummy program of in home resistance work because not only do I need to lose weight I need to shape up what is underneath that fat.

All that time I told myself that if I made it to the end I could have day 17 off.  Day 17 was yesterday and I had bacon with my breakfast – it was altogether too salty.  Then, midmorning, I decided to have some of the jam sponge that I had made the day before.  I cut myself the smallest slice of cake that I have ever served to myself and I have never eaten cake so slowly.  I had to convince myself to swallow every bite.  I knew at that point that not only was I not going to eat any more of the cake but I was finished having the day off.

Now I am the Queen of binge eating.  I can eat a 600g box of Cheerios in a day without bringing the box in out of the car.  I can bake a cake and have the dishes (including the plate the cake was on) washed and back in the cupboard when M gets home.  Not only am I a binger, I am a secret eater.  Dashboard dining is one of my (many) downfalls.  So to not want to eat cake that was sitting there waiting to be eaten is a completely new concept for me.

Today I start cycle 2 which involves the introduction of red meat & natural starches on alternate days.  I have also committed to myself to restart the Couch 2 5k program on alternate days to the FYM resistance work.

For the first time in a long time I feel like I am doing something just for me and it feels good.

- Mushrooms grew out of the rental house wall
- J broke his arm
- The attic of the rental froze and with it all of the hot water
- We were frozen out of the house for Christmas
- We returned home from Dublin after Christmas to find the mains water frozen & the kids & I returned to Dublin
- The kids & I got swine flu
- I started building our new home
- MIL fell and broke her hip & spent a month in hospital
- MIL died 5 days after being transferred to the rehab unit here in town
- I finished building our new home
- We moved again
- My last & final IVF cycle, #8, failed when the frozen embryo did not survive the thaw

So, now you are all caught up.  Does anyone have any questions?

So this morning I made the decision to kick the sugar again.  It is now 3.30pm and my head has been thumping for the whole afternoon.  I just downed a cup of coffee in the hope that the caffeine will get me through to home time.  While it has taken the edge off it has certainly not cured me.  I suspect it is just the first day of many but hopefully by the weekend I will be headache free.

Last week, on Tuesday night, J woke in the middle of the night and I knew straight away that a drink of milk was not going to make him go back to sleep so when he asked for milk I told him it was asleep.  He asked a few more times but I offered him a cuddle each time and he was, reasonably, happy with that.  The next night, after a disturbed night the night before, I decided that I didn’t want him nursing for hours through the night so again when he woke I told him that the milk was asleep and offered him a cuddle.  He accepted it.  Last night, Monday night, he rolled over at 10.20 and banged off the radiator and woke up.  I gave him a cuddle and he fell back to sleep straight away.  The next time he woke was 7am!  The milk did well and truly sleep last night J  I am not assuming that the night weaning process is over but it is certainly going very well J  It is so nice to have a positive night weaning experience with him.  When I actively night weaned D he was 8 months and wasn’t eating solids very well.  It was an horrific experience which involved him crying for hours at night, which hindsight shows me was caused by hunger, and I have a lot of guilt about that.

On Saturday J was the same age as D was when I had my second D&C.  It is hard to remember D at that age as I was so wrapped up in pregnancy and loss but in my mind he was so much older than J is now, even though J is so much more talkative & independent that D was.  It is so interesting to watch them grow up together.  Last week I listened to D “teach” J how to count in 10’s and when they got to the end D complimented J and told him that he had done a very good job.

So two weeks ago I decided to risk it and then I remembered that I had loaned my Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book to J’s Godmother and the brioche recipe is in it.  Then I remembered that recipe is listed on the website so I got started.  The original recipe calls for butter but I swapped it weight for weight for Pure.

Brioche dough (makes about 2.5lbs of dough)

• 3/4 cups lukewarm water
• 3/4 tablespoons granulated yeast
• 3/4 tablespoons rock salt
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup honey
• 6oz Sunflower Pure, melted
• 4 cups plain flour

Mix the yeast, salt, eggs and honey with the water in a 5-quart bowl, or lidded (not airtight) food container.

Mix in the flour, using a spoon (or stand mixer with beater blade) until all of the flour is incorporated.

Mix in melted Pure.

Cover (not airtight), and allow to sit at room temperature for about two hours.

The dough can be used as soon as it is chilled. This dough is way too sticky to use after the initial rise, but once it is chilled it is very easy to handle. The dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. After that you can freeze the dough.

On the day of baking

Dust the surface of the dough with a little flour, just enough to prevent it from sticking to your hands when you reach in to pull a piece out.

You should notice that the dough has a lot of stretch once it has rested.

Cut off a 18oz piece of dough using kitchen scissors (for 8 rolls) and form it into a ball. For instructions on how to form the ball watch this videos.

Flour a bread board/counter top to prevent your dough sticking & flour the top of the ball.

Roll the dough out to approximately 1/4″ and aim for a rectangle (I say aim for because it is HARD to make it a rectangle so I cheat* at the end) with the short edge approximately 6″ long.

Cover the dough in light brown sugar making sure to spread the sugar all the way to the long edge of the rectangleish dough.

Spray a 6″ x 6″ square dish with spray oil to prevent the dough sticking.

Pull the corners of short side of the rectangleish dough to “straighten” the top edge & fold over the dough.

Roll up the dough to the last 1″.

Again pull the corners of the short side of the rectangleish dough to “straighten” the bottom edge & fold it over the top.

Pinch the dough closed.

Cut the roll with a scissors into 1.5″ sections.

Transfer the rolls into the dish & cover the dish in cling film.

Allow the rolls to rest for 1.5 hours.

20 minutes before baking time heat the oven to 180⁰C (use an oven thermometer to ensure the temperature of the oven)

At baking time remove cling film & bake rolls for 30 – 35 minutes

When finished baking remove the rolls from the dish immediately to prevent caramelised sugar hardening and sticking the rolls to the dish.

Allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Icing

• 2oz icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon water

Mix the sugar & water and heat over a low heat until sugar is transparent

Pour/brush over cooled buns

When the icing is set pull apart the buns & enjoy!

I have photos of the process on my camera but I can’t find the lead to get the photos off the camera and don’t have an external CF reader so the photos have to wait.  Once I have them on my laptop I will add them in to this post.

I am tired now and it is bed time but tomorrow I will put up alternate fillings for the rolls (by then I will have eaten some of the maple pecan ones that are being baked in the morning )

I don’t have expensive tastes but the County Council put so many restrictions on the site & design that there is a huge amount of work involved in just getting the area ready to be built on.

I am dreading ringing M to tell him.  I prewarned him about a figure that I had in mind, based on a labour only quote I got elsewhere and the quote today was double that!  I hate being the bearer of bad tidings.  I am also sick of having to explain the same stuff over and over.

Why can’t I win the Lotto?  Well, I would have to buy a ticket but if we get past that.  Why can’t I? Maybe tomorrow…

The quotes are in and with them came a defibrillator because they were heart stopping stuff.  In my head I was hoping to come out the other side of the experience owing no more than €200,000, preferably no more than €180,000 but the quotes for the house alone are coming in at €240,000 and that is without a kitchen, without the garage, no garden, no tar on the driveway.  So, we have decided that we are going to have to go with direct labour.  It is not the route I wanted to take but I also didn’t want to spend more than €300,000 building my house and garage

So the madness has begun.  I am in the process of getting quotes for the groundworks for the house and we should have the house & garage up to ground floor level by J’s 2^nd birthday, hopefully earlier than that.  What I need right now is for my engineer to call me back so I can get the specifications for the foundations from him so that I can get the drawings and specs off the to Quantity Surveyor who can get working on the Bill of Quantities.  I am surprised that I know all of this stuff but I am learning fast and picking the brains of everyone who comes across my path.

On my to do list there is:

• Talk to engineer
• Send plans & specs to QS
• Contact plumbers for quotes
• Contact heating specialists for quotes
• Contact windows companies for quotes
• Contact suppliers for quotes for: blocks (regular & aircrete blocks), concrete, mortar
• Get insurance quotes
• Get safety signs/PPE
• Source hard hat & boots for a 5 year old who is going to want to go into the building site J

Oy, that is list is longer than I thought it was but I know that it is going to get longer, and longer, and longer!

We need to make a decision between the following:

Concrete floor vs timber floor upstairs

Under floor heating vs low temp fan assisted radiators upstairs.

We are having underfloor heating downstairs and the radiators for upstairs are proving to be as expensive as having underfloor heating upstairs BUT in order to have UFH we have to have a concrete floor upstairs (which I want) but it is ~€4000 more expensive than the timber floor (that M wants).  I want to spend the extra money for the floor so that I am not listening to foot falls upstairs for years to come but all M can see if the €4000 saving.  Oy!  Oh, having a timber floor upstairs means we wouldn’t have to use the bigger aircrete block on the internal leaf of the downstairs wall so we wouldn’t have to spend as much on the blocks either.  But I want my concrete floor!

That is the only choice we have to make for now but it is a big choice and it has to be made NOW.

I have been watching what I am eating for a week now and I feel so much better because of it.  It also helps that J is going to sleep super fast these days so everything is calmer.  3 weeks ago I was 80kg.  Now I am 75.2!  A lot of that weight was the junk that was being stored in my gut so I don’t think I have lost almost 5kg of fat in 3 weeks.

So 2 weeks ago I decided to just cut out the sugar.  Not bothering to watch what I was eating, write it down or try to stick to a set number of points.  It took me 5 days to get over the sugar seeking.  I would find myself in the kitchen hunting for something that wasn’t there that I didn’t actually need to eat.  By last weekend I was feeling better and had lost 5.5lbs in the week.  Last week I just lived in that space knowing that starting yesterday I would get back to pointing.  I wasn’t sticking to points and was probably touching 30 points a day but that was way better than 45 or 50 a day.

Yesterday I started tracking and man, I had forgotten how hard it was to get back into the groove of remembering everything and also resentful of how many points are in so many of the things that I had become accustomed to eating.  With an allowance of 22 points I finished the day on 23.5 which is not bad.  Officially I have 27 points because I still get 5 bonus points for nursing J but I gave them up a long time ago.

I weighed myself this morning and I am 12 stone even.  It is quite some time since I saw 11 stone something but I know I will be there by the weekend J  It is time to get back to the odd WW meeting too but most importantly it is time to make time to exercise.  Even if I take the boys out for a walk, it has to be done.

Planning permission has been granted with 10 conditions.  The 10 conditions are standard stuff like “native hedge at the front, build the house like you said you were going to, have a parking bay at the front, treat the waste water according to the way you said you would…” etc.  nothing out of the ordinary or that would stop us going ahead.  The decision wasn’t supposed to come through until today but it was made on Friday 13^th!  We were caught a little by surprise by it and we weren’t as far along with the mortgage application process as I would like but then I discovered that we cannot apply for the mortgage until the final notice comes through 3 weeks tomorrow so I still have plenty of time to get stuff together.

Right now the plans are with 5 building contractors.  The first quote is due in this week and to be honest I am dreading it.  I don’t want to know how much it is going to cost to build this house! The other 4 quotes will come in over the next 3 weeks and at that point we will decide what we are going to do.

It is a good time to build.  Builders aren’t busy and therefore can’t charge what they were charging 3 or 4 years ago BUT and it is a very big BUT it is a LOT harder to get finance now than it was 4 years ago.  Heck, it is harder to get finance now than it was a year ago and that was hard.  But we will fill in the paperwork and send it in and hold our breath.  I know what they offered us a year ago based on not too dissimilar figures and have to hope that they will give us at least that this time around.  The fact that we don’t have to pay for the land will, hopefully, go in our favour.

The boys are both growing like weeds and J is in the middle of a language explosion.  Every day there are new words, new things to say.  Last week the things that are worn on your feet (outside your socks) were just shoes.  Now they are shoes, slippers, crocs, runners or sandals!  A month ago clothes were clothes.  Now they are tshirt, trousers, socks, pants, cardi(gan).  There are places to go, people to see, and lots to talk about.  This is not a good, or cute, thing at bedtime though when he just.won’t.shut.up!

The plans are out with 5 builders and we should have a set of quotes by Sept 10th and then we have to apply for a mortgage!