I would suggest you start educating yourself on eating right and finding a fitness plan that fits your lifestyle. Webmd.com has a good link on healthy eating and fitness. If you need something more accountable for you, I would suggest weight watchers. They taught me how to eat healthy. Good luck to you:)

There is so much information its so hard to give it to you all at once. Step by step, precept upon precept. Learn to read and understand food lables! The higher up in the ingredients list something is the more of it is in that product. The first 5 ingredients is what you mostly want to be concerened about. Avoid HFCS ( High fruictose corn syryp and corn syrup and GMO's ( Genetically MOdified foods ) like they are the plague! Watch your sodium intake. Eat food that are more in their natural states. Lots of fruits and veggies, nuts, seeds and berrys and whole grains. Stay away from enriched foods. Make sure it says WHOLE grain or stone ground. My favorite bread is Jack Spratt sprouted wheat or Paleo bread which you get at natural food markets. Watch out for sugars too. LIke I said there is a lot but this is a start. Do portions control. I weight andmeasure everything and i do mean everything I eat or drink !! Eat on smaller plates.
Learn to recgonize when your hungry and full and if you are eating, ask yourself why. Are you bored, tired or truly hungry.

Start with all of this , give it two weeks and see what happens. Let me know and i'll add to this. A great website to follow is...
www.weightcoachlinda.blogspot.com and idealprotein.com and the alkalinediet.com

Good Luck. I"ll be waiting to hear back from you to see how it's going. For exercise at least do some walking. Get up and get moving!

Thank you tlmack and beauty,
what I'm hearing is to get a handle on the nutrition. It's kind of hard to do in my house as my wife of Spanish heredity handles all the food prep. The diet contains a lot of white rice, bread, potatoes, beef, chicken and pork. We both have a taste for sweets. She's as much (if not more) in need than I am of getting things under control. I'd really like for this to be a joint effort, but she has less willpower than I do.
I keep trying to convince her the first line of defense is at the market. She bought a nice lemon cake this weekend. MMM! it was good! You get my point, there are ingrained habits that are going to be hard to overcome. I'm thinking that perhaps a structured program such as weight watchers might be a good option. I just don't think we can do it on our own.

I agree that you need to get a handle on your eating habits first.

I am on a very high protein diet. My husband and grandson eat rice, potatoes, pasta, and bread. I do not. I haven't eaten any of the aforementioned foods since July 2011.

If you're going to eat those foods, let me suggest that you keep it at a Tablespoon of them.

I know that with your wifes Spanish heritage, she is used to cooking high carb meals. Maybe you two can compromise?

My husband, following some of my dietary changes has lost 80 lbs. So it can be done. Good luck to you!

Good news,
It looks like I have the wife on board. For the past month, she's been very conscious of her food intake (and mine). I've dropped about 7 lbs so far. We have a new gym opening in our area. I hope to get in there 2-3 times per week and boost my activity. Hopefully my Dr will be pleased with my progress when I see him in Dec.

hey folks,
Just a quick update..
The new gym opened in my neighborhood and I've started working
out. Problem seems to be I have difficulty getting there more than once weekly. I'd like to make it 3. I've continued to watch my diet. Weight: 208.
I seem to have more energy and am experiencing less pain.
I've also noticed my BP has moderated.
It seems even a small incremental weight loss can have benefits!

Hi philo, it's great that your wife is on board now!
My husband and I eat lots of salads and veggies. We also eat fish, chicken and bison and grassfed beef in moderation. If we want rice or pasta, we have small portions of brown rice or whole wheat pasta.
We also use olive oil but no butter.
We eat fresh fruit for our sweets.
We exercise 6 days a week and on the 7th we take a loooonnng walk.
We also eat nuts and seeds in moderation.
Every once in a while we will have a sweet desert if we eat out but not often.
If you make it a continuing lifestyle choice-it will work!
You will look better and feel amazing.

Oh and by the way, I am 58 and hubby is 64.

I recently got back into the exercise routine after years of being lazy. I only need to loose about 30 lbs but I want to get back into my old weight lifting shape.

3 days a week is heavy upper body workout using a Bowflex and free weights, alternatiing days with lower body/cardio using a elliptical machine and other free exercises.

I limit the bread intake with usually a sandwich once a day, high fiber cereal in the morning and protein and veggies in the evening. Desert is a high fiber drink (doctor orders LOL).

Oh, I'm 50.

Bubba,
I'm kind of in the same boat as I really needed to loose 30lbs. I'm about half way there. I find visiting the gym is a great stress reliever and gets me out of the house which I like since I work from home.
I find the need to moderate the amount of weight I'm using in resistance exercise as I felt I was getting a bit too ambitious.
I go in the the intent of "really hitting it." I noticed I was having muscle spasms in my back after last weekend. Time to let whatever it is resolve and take it a little easier for a bit. The main thing is to avoid injury.

Yep, can over do it. I had a muscle cramp in my leg last night. Wow, that hurt.

Trick is to start small but with a lot of repetitions. And the older we get the recovery time will probably be longer. So keep that in mind when stepping up to the heavier lifting. I'm in it for a few months now and I started light and slow. Now I have really stepped it up the pace.

To help increase blood flow to the muscles I'm taking 3g of L-Arginine per day. I do notice a difference.