Squats at high body weight?

SFalconStorm

Okay, so I'm doing the calorie deficit, healthy eating, cardio. I want to do strength training so that when the fat does melt off, there's something there worth looking at. The problem? Although I've lost 40 pounds already, I am 360 pounds still. I started this journey at 401, and I am not ashamed of that, but I do have some concerns about doing home lower body strength work at my weight.

Namely, squats. Naturally, in a gym, I can parallel squat a LOT of weight. After all, that's not much worse than me just standing up. However, I can't really afford a new gym membership at the moment. I did purchase some resistance bands for upper body work, am doing modified planks and bridges for core work and was planning to do squats and calf raises for some lower body work. This is just my plan for the beginning.

The thing with the squats is...my knees creak really bad when I do them. They don't really hurt, at least no more than you would normally expect from stressing a joint. Also, when all is said and done, I am squatting 360 pounds. Hopefully, that will become less over time, but for now, it's a lot and it concerns me. Should I even be doing squats at my size or will the excess weight just help build more muscle faster and I should just keep it to lower reps until my muscles build up a little more? Some advice would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, and I did try asking a doctor once...they gave me no opinion, only concentrating on what I was eating at the time, which wasn't the reason I was there. I'm a little leery of talking to a doctor because none of them seem to want to listen to me or take me seriously. Thanks!