Bama Man,
You have so many choices. It's a journey and process.
Now that you have determined you need to do something, start today.
For the foods, it's quite easy. You want to reduce the foods made by man and increase foods made by God. Foods made by man are things that contain white flour products, refined sugar, processed stuff. Foods made by God would be in as natural state as possible.
Body by God, written by Ben Lerner, is a good book detailing this.
Body By God Food ListI think truly the first step is to work on the root causes of why you gained the extra weight. Once you eliminate the psychological as well as the physical cyclical connection, it will make this journey much easier. I believe there is a huge connection to the mind and body.
As for what weight you should weigh, everyone is different. Many things say I should weigh in the 125-130 lb range. For my specific body at a healthy bodyfat of 22%, that would be around 175-180 lbs. My goal is lower than that. Why would the extra 50 lbs be healthier for me? I have a lot of lean body mass. My body is very mesomorphic (means I gain and retain muscle fairly easily). I'm also a strong endomorph (meaning, I gain bodyfat easily and losing that is a challenge).
Tom Venuto writes a really good ebook that covers mind & body, nutrition, exercise called
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. I really like it because it opened my eyes to a lot of things. It has several ways to calculate your caloric intake. Tom has a site that has a lot of great information, and I've found one of the best on the internet about dispelling a lot of lies in health & fitness. He's also big into developing your mind, emotions.
Tom Venuto's Fitness ReinnasanceI would recommend getting some bodyfat calipers and learn how to take your bodyfat measurements. Just because you're losing weight does not mean you are losing the right stuff. If you lose lean body mass, you are slowing down your metabolism. The best thing is to lose just bodyfat and maintain lean muscle (or build this). In order to do this, it would be helpful to understand some things about your body: somatyping (Tom talks a little about this), metabolic typing, how food works with your specific body.
You can find out more about metabolic typing by William Wolcott's book,
The Metabolic Typing Diet.
Dr. Mercola's site gives a lot of information on how to have better health. I think getting your health in order helps you to better lose bodyfat. He also has a quiz to tell you how to figure out your metabolic typing
Dr. Mercola's Health Site.
The reason why you want to understand your metabolic typing is, let's say in my case, my body requires a lot of fat and protein. For most of my adult life, I didn't know this. My diet was high in carbs and this was making me fat, despite regular exercise and fairly good eating. It actually was also making me unhealthy. I learned about this nearly 2 yrs ago, and I've greatly changed how I eat, which is now letting my body heal. It takes time for one's body to heal, especially as one gets older.
As for the exercise, get a heart rate monitor. It would be nice if you could figure out what your anaerobic threshold is. This will tell you specifically for your body what your fat burning range is. In my case, I operated way above my AT for almost all my adult life until last month. This also contributed to some of my health issues. As you use this information, you can help it gauge whether you're working out hard enough or too hard.
I'd start with walking and move up from there. Yoga is also great for the body. You learn how to breathe properly, so when you get more into exercise, you'll be able to supply your muscles with greater oxygen. The walking will help you develop your aerobic part, which also helps with oxygen supply. Lastly, but not least, resistant training. There are many things you can do here, depending on what you want to do, your goals. You don't need fancy equipment.
Though I go to the gym, I do not use a lot of equipment. A good workout bench, with a good set of dumbbells (I've heard power blocks are great) and a barbell, you can do so much. I'd include a Swiss Ball and a Bosu ball into this. You can use these to workout your core (which are the muscles in your torso). You can get some bands, which also provide extra resistance if you don't want to do the dumbbells or barbell yet. Often you can get these at a garage sale.
Anyway, this is a start. Address the mind, nutrition, rest (make sure you get enough sleep every night, as if you do not, it can screw with your hormones -- which hormones regulate insulin, cortisol, etc...which help determine how effectively you will lose weight or not), resistance training, flexibility, cardio.
Also, you've probably greatly taxed your digestive system, so to learn how to undo this is key. Even if you have good nutrition, if your digestive system is not working well, this could undercut what you're doing. Jordan Rubin writes some books that are great for helping this area
The Maker's Diet.
I know this is a lot of information, so here it is summarized as a start:
1. Get enough sleep each night
2. Eat foods as naturally as possible, with little processing, all organics if possible
3. Get rid of negative thought processes & mindsets
4. Start with some cardio (i.e., walking). Use a heart rate monitor.
5. Determine what your caloric intake should be to maintain and do a GRADUAL calorie deficit. I would start with 250-500 calorie deficit a day. A 250 calorie deficit is a 0.5 lb loss a week. Remember, this is a health thing and gradual is always better than quickly lose to regain again.
6. Do daily stretching (yoga is good).
7. Drink good, filtered water. Avoid juices, coffees, sodas, other drinks.
Learn as much as you can from reputable sources. I would avoid any "diets" as this is deprivation and has negative connotations. My approach is also rather than lose weight, it's how to gain optimal health. As you do this, the weight will drop. And, the weight you want to drop is bodyfat, not muscle.
God bless you,
Doris