3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community - Another new person saying hello!

I just stumbled across this forum today while pottering about on the googletubes, and it looks an excellent place. I rather suspect my friends and family are getting bored with my constantly rambling on about weight loss, but here I'm guessing that rambling is positively encouraged?

A little about me: I'm English, I turned twenty seven two days ago, and I'm unemployed. I'm also fat, and always have been. I graduated nearly three years ago, and since then, having no job and the shops just around the corner, my physical activity levels have dropped dramatically, and the weight's piled on accordingly. At my sister's at Christmas, I finally weighed myself: eighteen stone three. Before university, I always fluctuated between thirteen and fifteen stone. Eighteen was a bit terrifying, if I'm honest.

I could have spent the rest of my life telling myself I was happy as I was, but last year I stumbled upon what I'd always thought was a myth - a man who prefers larger women. He's given me a lot more confidence and an enormous self esteem boost, and is also willing to give me children. And that last is what really got me wanting to lose weight, eat sensibly, and get a decent amount of exercise - I want to be the best mother I can be, and carting around all this extra weight won't make that any easier.

I started a week into February, cutting out the crisps and chocolate, and jumping on my grandad's old exercise bike for a few kilometres every day. The scales arrived on the 13th, and I weighed in at 17st 13.8lbs. My target weight? I'm not sure. I haven't the bone structure to be some sort of waif-like figure, and it would seem counterproductive to aim for lower than the boyfriend finds attractive. Any suggestions?

I decided to set myself interim targets: lose a stone by my birthday, and another by the time my sister comes to visit in August. I had no idea if these were even achievable, because I've never really lost weight before. As it turned out, they were super-achievable - I lost the first stone seven weeks ahead of target, and by the time my birthday rolled round, I'd lost a second too. Fingers crossed the other four will be just as easy, but I doubt it...

It all looks wonderfully positive so far, doesn't it? Let's leave it at that, and save mentioning the motivation difficulties, the refusal to eat carbohydrates, the sitting around weeping feeling as though I'll be fat forever, and the unhealthy addiction to the scales for another day. And with a bit of luck, hanging round here may help me with all of that.