Houston, we have a problem...

Okay, so last time I told you that I fell off the wagon.  It all started with two pieces of paper.  Two pieces of paper than gave me a whole lot of information I was not prepared to deal with.  Those two sheets of paper told me that I have digestive sensitivities to the following plus some I won't mention, it's a really long list.  Milk, all cheese, eggs, garlic, wheat, gluten, yeast, oatmeal, tumeric (the stuff in mustard), pineapple, honeydew melon, crab, and the list goes on.  I never counted but there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 things that I am either never supposed to eat or very infrequently.  Dairy was such a high sensitivity I was advised to never eat it.  Same goes with yeast and oatmeal.  This information was life a bomb blew up in my life.  These were things I was living on, and achieving weight loss on.  Milk and oatmeal in the morning.  Sandwiches at lunch.  It rules out bread. So I felt completely out of control.  These two pieces of paper told me something I didn't want to hear.  And I was faced with the choice of giving this all up or living with digestive issues which would prohibit me from being able to lose much more weight.  They were also causing inflammation in my body that was not allowing my muscle to recover like they should from my workouts, so I was having headaches and shoulder pain.  I found this out just before I left for vacation.  For three weeks I did a cleanse to repair my digestive tract.  And it was brutal.  But my pain lessened and I did feel better and I started losing weight again.  But it was so strict that I felt deprived.  So I went on vacation and I stuck my head in the sand.  I ate whatever I wanted.  And I gained a ton of weight in the two weeks I was away from our house.  We were in Springfield for Rob to work just before leaving.  Then when I got home everything seemed to spiral from there.  I felt spun out.  I felt out of control.  This spilled over into feeling out of control of our finances, out of control trying to keep the house clean, out of control making my children behave, out of control of the fact that my husband was having to travel so much, ok so you get the picture.   I allowed one area of my life to spill into all the others.  You see the problem was for 5 months I was all in.  All in on losing weight.  All in focused on weight loss and when I plateaued and found out about my food sensitivities, I wasn't ready to go there.  I had defined feeling good about myself as being successful at weightloss, and when I couldn't lose more I felt helpless and I gave up.  So, I'm having to learn how to control one of the not so finer sides of me.  I am having to learn a little balance in my life, a little discipline, and a whole lot of patience for my own failures.  Everything in life can't be all or nothing as I had made it with losing weight.  Everything in life can't be perfect, one of my packages, as Mrs. Pamela Crim calls them.  But if you stick your head in the sand, like I have a tendency to do and did with the eating, I can almost assure you that your problem or issue will get worse, like mine did.  So when it comes to weight loss you have to get rid of the all or nothing mentality that so many of us have.  I'll either be on a diet or I'll eat everything in sight. So don't start a diet tomorrow, don't start it on Monday, start now.  And actually don't diet.  Just decide right now that you are going to make a lifestyle change because this is the only way it's going to work. And start small, don't start by trying to take your biggest problem head on, start with something you know you can handle and have success at.  It turned around for me when we started the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace Course. It gave me something else to focus on, it gave me a different way to define my success.  My focus shifted.  I found myself obsessing less and less about not losing weight.  And when I got control over this area, it trickled into other areas.  I'm back in control of my weight,I'm working out more and finally back to running, my house is neater than ever, I'm at peace with Rob traveling, I'm more patient with the kids (although, this area still needs work)  So look at your life, what small things can you conquer right now, today that might give you a jump start to conquering your goals, gaining control of your life?