Don't be so hard on yourself, just start from where you are now!
I find a great book and get on the exercycle. Well, in theory I do! I used to do it habitually and was 20 pounds lighter. There is no place for one in our current tiny abode, so I have to go to the garage. But it's a way to do a steady rate and just build fitness by going longer, until you can crank up a notch. Easier on knees than running.
One of the best ways for me to lose weight, and I finally gave in and have put myself back on it, is a no grains diet with a lot of vegetables like squashes, cruciferous veggies, and stuff like Chinese peas rather than peas, not starchy veggies like potatoes or beans. Our grains are so messed up from being bioengineered that they aren't a good food product. I'm not even talking Monsanto, but just our millennia of cultivating grains by picking the biggest and plumpest for seed grain plus modern hybridization. We can't really digest it now and weren't designed to subsist on it, and it is in almost everything that is processed. I try not to eat anything too processed.
I like to use avocados and nuts for a protein replacement, but in moderation as they have a lot of fat but it is a healthy fat. I still have a little chocolate but cut out any other sweets. I already seldom ever eat fruit except for dried blueberries and cherries, no fruit juices, and no pastries or baked goods of any kind. I cut my portions in half a couple of years ago and it still hasn't helped, but amping up my exercise has made my pants looser. I would love to walk more but my hip flexors are so tight from too much sitting in an ergonomically bad chair at my last job. It takes me a half mile to get loosened up on a good day. I switched to a backless chair where you sit on your rear and shins, but I want to get a balance ball for my desk chair, to work my core more.
The other thing that helps me is drinking more water. I'll put half of a lemon or lime in it for the diuretic effect too.
