Hello Fatsecret fans everywhere!

My name is Amanda and I'm a married 53 year old mother of 2 teenagers (one male, one female) and I'm a career dieter. I have been on some sort of diet for most of my adult life. My weight has bounced up and down (but mostly up!)for the past 10+ years and I'm just sick if it!

Another thing you should know about me is that I'm a 20+ year member of Sweet Adelines International (and International women's barbershop harmony organization) and that takes up a big chunk of my life. I'm a member of a mid-sized chorus as well as a quartet, singing/performing acapella music in the Barbershop style. My weight fluctuation over the years has caused costuming nightmares for my various quartet/chorus mates and cost LOTS of extra money. Singing is one of the few things in my life that I do solely for myself ...it keeps me SANE!

The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of my battle of the bulge is this: last summer I started Atkins and lost 22 lbs in about 6 weeks. Just when I was getting into it and things were going well, I went on a business trip for a week and blew it all to heck with catered lunches and late night meals & cocktails with the bosses. For some reason I could not get myself motivated to go back on the diet and gained all the weight back, plus!

At New Years, I resolved to get on track but it took me until May to start reading and doing my "due diligence" work, I.E., reading and researching diets before decided that Atkins was my best bet. My actual diet start date was June 1, 2011 and my plan is to lose half my starting weight of 266.6...which is a whopping 133.3 lbs!

This is my story and I'm sticking to it! Hope anyone who reads this and would like a cheerleader will reach out and be my buddy. The older I get, the more I realize that life is short...LIVE LIFE WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE!