Too much to tackle and no idea where to start!!!!

There's a lot to unpack in this post so I'll try and address things one point at a time.

The physical limitations you discuss suck but, the good news is that for the most part losing weight has little to do with working out and everything to do with managing your calorie intake. I and many many people here have successfully lost significant amounts of weight with zero working out. In fact it's often a good idea to separate weight loss and fitness into two separate goals. You eat to lose weight and exercise to get fit. So being unable to work out shouldn't prevent you from dropping weight. Just walking more during your day is more than enough at least to begin with.

Lots of people lose weight on programs like Slimming World, Weight Watchers and the like then put it all back on again because this is how these programs are designed to work. They make their money from repeat customers. They don't sell you a solution, they sell you a program, then as soon as you stop paying for and using their program you go right back to where you started. Then you think "Oh Slimming World worked last time" and you open your wallet again.

I'm 46 and started my weight loss at 44 and the hard truth is that losing weight in our 40's isn't any harder than doing it in our 20's. The daily calorie targets for a 20-something is less than 100cal higher than a 40-something which is fractional at best. Most of the difference comes from the fact that we tend to be more settled and less active in our 40's. Jobs in our 20's tend to be more 'entry level' and manual, in our 40's we're more likely to have moved into more senior and sedentary positions. We tend to play more sports and go out partying on weekends in our 20's and have more low key pastimes in our 40's. There is a flip side though. We tend to be more settled and disciplined in our 40's. Our lives are less hectic but this also comes with a greater level of control and routine so it's not all bad.

The other good news is that there's absolutely no need to overhaul anything. In fact a massive overhaul is probably a terrible idea. You want easy changes rather than big changes. Look for long term rather than drastic. Weight management is, when all is said and done, ridiculously simple (but NOT always easy). Eat more calories than you use and you'll gain weight, eat fewer calories than you use and you'll lose weight. That's it. That's as complicated as it gets. When you boil it all down and strip away all the extra stuff it's nothing but a simple energy equation so keep it simple.

Here's all you need to do in 3 steps.
1. Enter your details into MFP, select a reasonable weekly calorie loss target and get your calorie target
2. Eat food you genuinely want to eat in amounts that let you hit your calorie target most of the time. Forget 'good' food and 'bad' food, forget 'healthy' and 'junk', forget all that moralising and demonising of food and eat food you want to eat. Not food you can tolerate, not food you think you should be eating. Usually this is exactly what you're eating now. The only difference is you're going to get a food scale, you're going to accurately measure your food and you're gong to tailor your portions and intake so that more often than not you're hitting close to your calorie target.
3. Learn and improve. As the months go on (not days, not weeks, months) you'll learn and get better. You'll begin to recognise the foods you eat that are way to 'expensive'. Nothing makes a food less appetising than logging it in your diary and seeing the massive dent it makes in your calorie target. You'll learn where you can make substitutions to get more bang from your calorie buck, You'll learn when you're naturally more hungry and what sort of eating schedule pattern works best for you. You'll learn and you'll apply this and you'll get better at this and you'll start making more changes and better nutrition choices and most importantly, you'll build momentum.

The key thing to remember is that the value of a weight loss approach has nothing to do with how much weight you're losing. The value and the measure of a weight loss approach is how easy and effortless you can make it. When making adjustments to your approach you're question shouldn't be "what can I do to lose weight faster" it should be "what can I do to lose weight easier". Losing 4lbs a week on a tough program that you can only stick to for a few months is utterly worthless. losing 4lbs a month on a program that takes no effort at all is infinitely better. Think long term. In 12 months time the fast program will have you exactly where you are, or worse. The easy program you'll be 48lbs lighter.

So in summary
- Eat for weight loss, exercise for fitness
- Age isn't a barrier, don't let yourself use it as an excuse.
- Diets and Programs are temporary solutions that yield temporary results. You need permanent "forever" changes
- Keep it simple. 1. get your target. 2. eat what you like and stick to your target most of the time. 3. learn, adjust, improve.
- The easier the better. You want to lose weight as easily and effortlessly as possible. Effortless is permanent.

G'luck