It is a wonderful thing that you are taking these positive steps to improve your health, congrats to you on the committment.

As stated above, a personal trainer can be very helpful to you in the process. A word of caution however. Be very careful who you select for this. There are a lot of Shysters in the personal training buisness. Make sure you check out the credentials of the person and get refererals from people who have worked with them in the past.

Best of luck!