on the long road to losing 120 pounds... lord help me lol

Well I started in January, needing to lose 100 - 110 lbs....so I feel ya. Just keep at it, plug along, one day at a time. I've lost nearly 46 lbs since the end of Jan. of this year.

The most important thing is diet, and tweeking with small things, meaning if you drink coffee with sugar and milk, try reduce the amount of sugar and milk every few days/weeks and this will slowly lead you to a healthier way of life. Create yourself a diet plan, no need to be too stict but it is important you recognise the good nutritious food compared to the bad (eat better and your body will be more satisfied and you should be able to eat smaller portions without feeling hungry). Do not be to hard on yourself, just lower your calorie content and make adjustments to certain things you could do without and think of how will your body like this food!

I started by just logging everyday. Try to meet your calorie goal, but if you go over a bit, don't sweat it. It's all a learning process.

Also, once you begin losing weight it helps to look at it from a different angle. Instead of looking at it like "I have 120 lbs to lose" think of it like "I've already lost 20 lbs!" and such. Glass is always half full or half empty, depending on how you look at it!

I'm also 100+ pounds overweight. I lost the first 30 pounds and then I was pregnant and put back around 20 pounds and now I'm back at it again.

FOOD
Remember: it is 80% food, 20% exercise. Men have a easier time it seems to just up their exercise and not up their calories without counting. If you are like me, exercise will mean hunger and eating more without realizing (a little bite here and there). Concentrate on eating first - log for at least 2-4 weeks, you will then have added all your "usual" food and many recipes and it will then be easier to log.

Food scale: you need to weight everything, but if it's too much, at least weight things like meat, dairy, pasta... I weighted everything for a couple of weeks and then I weight from time to time to make sure I'm not uping my portion.

Work on adding healthy low calories meals option to your diet. Try new things and by adding them to your regular diet, you're not just dieting, you are learning healthy eating for the rest of your life (it will be easier to maintain after). Don't think about "I can't eat this or that" think about and plan new low cal meal and try to stick with the plan. I hate planning every single meal, so I have a couples of option for breakfast around 300 calories, same for lunch but with 400 calories, some snacks idea under 100 and if you're like me you can plan ideas for supper and do the one you feel like eating the most when it's time to cook (the easiest for me for supper is any kind of meat with a lot of lightly grilled vegetables) . It feels less restrictive then planning every minutes.

EXERCISE
When you are within your calories for a couple weeks (you will most likely lose a lot in the first few days and then it will be steadily 2 pounds a week) or feel like it you can start exercise. I bought an HRM monitor that tells me with my weight and heart frequency how much I'm burning. I subtract 1 calories by minutes (so if I did 30 minutes and it says 230 calories I only add 200 calories to myfitnesspal). Some people do not eat exercise calories, some people eat half and some people save them for a treat on the weekend. I eat them usually, it gives me an insensitive to work out (If I go for my run I can put cheese in my lunch and have ice cream after dinner, etc.)

If you want to exercise, lot's of sedentary people here (like I was) started to exercise with 30 day shred level 1 by Jullian Michaels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pc-NizMgg8).

It will kick your *kitten*, but you get very good results (look on Google image for 30 days shred results) (take pictures before an after, it feels good to SEE results) and take measures with a tape, you will loose inches.

I also used the app C25K (couch to 5km) where you learn slowly to run for 5k! I love running, I'm just the laziest person and running can easily burn 400-500 calories in an 1h and I just love the feeling you get when you find out you CAN actually run! I stop when I was pregnant and I want to go back to how good it felt before!

And if exercise really feel like the worse thing in the world I suggest to at least take walks! I love gadgets, it keeps me motivated, so you can get a pedometer and give yourself steps goals for the day or the week!

MOTIVATION
Just browse the success story of the forum. If they can do it, we can too

Good luck.