Hello all, my name is Kristi, I'm 25 years old and I have been married for six years. When I got married I weighed 220 pounds but I still felt good and felt pretty in the mirror, however; in the past 6 years, I've gotten clear up to 296 and I'm only 5 foot 3. It's kinda hard for me to lose weight because my husband tells me I'm "beautiful" no matter how big I get and he hates it when I call myself "fat". Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I know how lucky I am to have such a wonderful hubby, it's just that in a nut shell, I kinda use him as my excuse for being fat, by telling myself if my hubby likes me just the way I am and he tells me how cute and beautiful I am, I should be satisfied, but I'M NOT!! I feel like a skinny person trapped in a fat person's body, considering I was always thin until I was taken off of Ritalin after being on it for 11 years. Well, I decided with hubby's support to try to lose my weight by trying the Atkin's Diet, so I started in January, lost 40 pounds in 3 months then cheated one time and wrecked my diet because I started craving the carbs all over again. I decided 2 weeks ago to muster up the courage to start again and I've lost 10 pounds so far and I refuse to fail this time. I'm trying to stay away from the scales, as they discourage me if they don't show a significant loss, especially if I've only lost like 1 pound in 3-4 days. I know I didn't gain it overnight, but patience never was one of my better virtues, LOL! Thank you so much for listening to me ramble and I'm sooo glad I found this board, I'm always here for anybody that might need moral support, much love to you all ~*~*KRISTI*~*~