Hi Cathy, welcome aboard.
You're starting out at the same weight I was last year when I went on a "diet" at my doc's "suggestion" after I had a physical and bloodwork and asked him for arthritis meds. I was in so much pain, I couldn't sleep at night and was having a lot of trouble getting around. I have osteoarthritis in all the major joints and in my spine, and somedays it hurt terribly just to get out of bed. At 46, I'm too young to feel this old!
Well, it took me 2-1/2 weeks to lose 5 lbs on the traditional aproach - low cal/ HC - and I suffered all through the blood sugar swings, constant cravings and hunger. Then I tried LCing and lost an additional 25 lbs in about 2-1/2 months, and felt great while doing it too. Unfortunately after that I let myself get talked out of LC WOE by an "expert" and went back to a "balanced" diet. It took about 5 months, but I put 20 of those 30 lbs I'd lost back on again. I eventually hit the HC skids and starting bingeing on all kinds of junk and feeling like
yuck again. That's when I realized that if I didn't make some kind of permanent change, I was going to be an obese slave to HC food for the rest of my life. So I've been LCing for good since July 20th, and while I haven't been perfect, the WOE is now my WOL and I'm feeling pretty enthusiastic about my future.
One thing that really helped me was that I had become a water drinker on my own before LCing, so I didn't have to force myself to drink it. But I still need more than the 4 (16.9 oz) bottles a day I used to consume. Right now I have a rule - when I eat a regular meal I must have only water with it - 1 bottle during and one within half an hour after. I also insist on having one bottle for any snack, and will also drink a bottle while I'm cooking or handling food (keeps my mouth busy) and at least half a bottle before deciding if a desire to eat is legitimate or not (I still have some emotional eating problems). That way I'm almost guaranteed 6-7 bottles daily and usually 1 or 2 more. We have a downstairs fridge in the cellar that's strictly for bulk food and beverage storage, and I keep my water stocked in there so I get some extra exercise going downstairs to get it. Buying bottled water is more expensive than just filling a pitcher or jug every day, but my upstairs fridge is always so overloaded, it just wasn't convenient for me to keep it in there, and sometimes I'd forget to put it in (I like it really COLD). Plus this way, there's no glasses or jugs to wash and I just toss the empties into the recycling bin for pickup. I figure the DH has his beer and the DS's have their OJ and milk (they don't drink much soda anymore) - this is my healthy little luxury. And now my oldest is drinking more water too, so the good habits are rubbing off.
Hello From So Cali!!
Wow, what's in that drink? 
I think I would have tried one just to say I had it - imagine how much fun you could have telling people what you did at that concert! 
I remember when my MIL, FIL (deceased) DH and I used to go out for our B/days (we were all in April) we went to this little restaurant in MIL hometown a lot. They had a drink there called an "orgasm". My MIL and I don't get along that well, but she can be a real character sometimes. She says out loud to the waitress after seeing it on the menu, "Oh yeah, and I want an ORGASM too! And the waitress played right along and said, "Yes ma'am I know, we all do..." I didn't know if I wanted to 
or 
but I choked on my water and spit it all over the table. Wish I could remember what was in that drink as well! 
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