Join the club, I have this problem with my family as well. My mother is the worst. She is constantly telling me that I am overweight and this does nothing for my ego. I look at myself and think yuk, how can my husband love me. I don't think people realise that if you are doing something positive, all you need is a little encouragement and it will go a long way. Last night, after trying to explain to my parents how the atkins diet worked, my mother said to me, "Why don't you just stop eating so much." Not what I wanted to hear. I have polycystic ovaries and my doc told me that for every pound I have to lose, I would have to try twice as hard to lose it as someone without PCOS. This was quite depressing news to me as I have enough of a problem losing just 1 pound. Then another doctor advised me to go on the Atkins and here I am. Just five days into the plan and I have lost 5 pounds already. So basically I don't care a monkey's what they all say now, I am sticking with this, it seems to be working for me, if they don't understand that is their problem. I also have the problem that my sister is around about 8 stone and she wants to lose 3 pounds!!! She told me that her 3 pounds was just as important to her as my 3 stone??? I could have slapped her, she obviously doesn't understand what it's like to carry this extra weight. So the moral of this story is, Keep going and ignore what other people say, you know what is right for your own body and if you feel good, stuff the lot of them!!!!!

I have the same problem, even with my own doctor! It helps to mention studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine (see elsewhere on this and the Atkins site) - it impresses some people! My doctor was worried about my cholesterol etc, so I asked her to order the appropriate blood tests for me after 6 weeks on Atkins. She has done so, now I just pray that they come out well, or at the very least no worse than they were before I started!

Incidentally, it was a doctor who recommended a LC diet to me, as he had success on one. Admittedly he is a surgeon, but he is thus a qualified doctor and I doubt he would advise me to do it if he felt it would endanger me at all!

Good luck all!