don't want to rain on your parade, but as a mother myself, I have to ask you "why are you dieting?" If you start dieting now, you will be dieting your whole life. The best thing to do, (Atkins lovers aside) is to go to a dietician and learn to eat sensibly...now. If you are eating fast-food every day when you are not on Atkins, stopping that is a good starting point.

I know that you are probably impatient and want to see fast results, but the next 90 years of your life will go much better if you learn to eat sensibly and exercise now, instead of going off and on diets for all that time. I can not tell you how many times I have wished I never started the first diet I went on (I was 15). I had been on vacation and gained about 12 pounds and went on a diet to lose it. No one was around then to tell me if I just went back to sensible eating when I got home that I would have gone back to my regular weight.

My whole life has been a constant stream of on/off dieting. Instead of just realizing that eating sensibly, without od'ing on the simple carbs, and exercising would have saved me all this torment.

I constantly say that all carbs are bad for me. But the truth is, I have never been able to stay on a diet where I eat only good carbs (in other words without the flour, sugar and junk).

And regarding the scale...junk it.

You need to decide what you want to look like, what you would be happy with, and disregard the rest.

I have always weighed about 15 pounds more than people think I do. So, I go strictly by size as to what I want from myself.

Anyway, just something for you to ponder.

It does not have to be all or nothing. There is a middle ground