Danny you need to find out your body fat percentage not just your weight before you start making goals. Then your goal needs to be lowering your body fat percentage and not really focus on lowering your weight. Also you need to keep track of your diet, buy a notebook and log every thing you eat into it and know how many servings you had of each. You need to keep count of your calories a day, grams of fat a day, grams of carbs a day, grams of protien a day, and if you want (you should) grams of sugar a day. Cooking you own meals is the best way to do this and you will know almost exactly what you are putting into your body. Then the hard part (deal breaker for most) only only only only drink water, nothing else no coke somebody suggested diet but again thats a no no, carbonated beverages make your body store fat even your diet cokes. I also saw someone suggest crystal light which is again a no no makes you store fight all simple sugars do they raise your body's insulin levels and insulin keeps fat stored in the cells. Now you get some good news, every two to three weeks give yourself a cheat day(dont go hog wild) on your diet, where you can have a coke eat some slighty unhealthy stuff and have more calories. Ever been on a diet where it gets harder and harder to lose weight, thats because your body is starting to not release as much nutrients and a cheat day prevents this from happening and makes the diet easier by giving you a day to look forward to every couple of weeks. Also on flour eat only all natural pasta, rice, and wheat bread cuz processed flour is basically junk food that makes you fat and has nutrition your body doesnt take to well.
Finally Danny you have to have cardio workouts as well as weight workouts to make everything come along and to increase your metabolic rate and help it stay up. If you are very overweight or in extremely bad shape start light with your cardio such as brisk walking or an easy treadmill pace for 30 min. Then you can gradually increase but bottom line it should be challenging but not overly stressful in the beginning. Then for weights you need to remember BE SAFE AND START LIGHT do not put too much strain on your muscles this will hurt you and your goals. Second joint pain is always bad pain and if you experience it try changing your grip or find another exercise you dont need to mess your elbows or knees or something else up. Also when working out make sure one day is devoted to your legs they are big muscle groups and tear through fat and calories.
Finally you are the only person who can make you achieve your goals, no one else can do it for you its gonna be tough but with a positive mindset it becomes soooooooooo much easier so think positive and be positive. Think of your diet as like a round of golf you are responsible for governing yourself and not cheating.