Why is it all so overwhelming!?

12 pounds in two months is a lot! Those first few pounds are usually mostly water weight from cutting back on carbs.

Your tag says 50+ pounds to lose, so you can expect to safely lose between one and two pounds per week. That's the healthy weight loss approach. As you approach a healthy weight, that will slow down even more.

It is a slow process. You didn't gain all the weight over night. It comes off the same way.

Losing weight is a slow process. Also, walking is great exercise and great for your overall health and well-being, both physically and mentally, but it is a very efficient movement for which we've evolved to be very adept at and doesn't burn a ton of calories.

I walk everyday primarily to reach a baseline of general activity for my physical health, but also for better mental clarity. I wish I could find the chart, but essentially it's something like 0-5K steps is sedentary (with 5K being at the high end of that activity level), 5K-10K steps is lightly active (10K being the high end of that activity level), 10K-15K steps is moderately active, and 15K-20K+ is active. These would be steps or equivalent activity.

This comes from a wellness guy that was being interviewed on a podcast I sometimes listen to. Basically (and I agree) that somewhere between 6-10K steps (or equivalent light activity) is a baseline for where we should be just generally...kind of like having 8 cups of water per day as a baseline for general hydration. This makes total sense to me when we look at things in a more historical context of human activity prior to sitting at desks all day and automation. Unfortunately, it also means that just to get to a minimum baseline of activity, desk jockeys like myself have to engage in deliberate activity. Improvements to overall fitness will require more depending on one's goals.

Your rate of loss over 2 months is well within expectations of healthy weight loss...it's a very slow process. You don't want to have too large of a deficit as that can also have negative health ramifications, but if you want to increase your rate of loss a bit, you need to either move more or eat a little less or some combination of both. I lost somewhere between 30-40 Lbs and that took me the better part of 9 months...it's a slow process and difficult because it requires consistency and discipline over a long period of time which is why I always made various health and fitness markers my primary goals, not the number on the scale.