Hi, I have worked out for many years so I hope I can offer you some sound scientific advice.
Firstly I would say you should get a percentage (%) body fat analysis done at your local chemist (looks like a weighing scale but with handles) the reason I say this is when you work out you will likely add new muscle and lose fat at the same time but remain the same weight, e.g lose 2 pounds of fat and gain 2 pounds of muscle, this is the best way to monitor weight rather than a normal weighing scale and always keep a record, it makes you more enthusiastic when you see results.
Try to keep away from fad diets, you want to keep the weight off long term so go the healthy realistic diet direction, eat salads, veg, fruit and high protein meats like chicken or fish, but maintain some fat in your diet other wise your body holds onto fat, strange but true, you have to eat some fat to lose fat and I would recommend eating different varieties of nuts as these are high in good fats.
Unfortunately you can not spot reduce fat on any particular body part, the body burns fat on a whole, the best out of all ways to burn fat on any body part is to jog but if your like me and hate to jog I suggest playing a sport like tennis, netball, football or swimming but most of all you need to enjoy it to maintain it and want to do it around 3 times per week for a couple of hours, but the more the better.
Overall I cant stress this enough: to keep the weight off long term you need to keep active and it wont be hard if you enjoy what your doing, take measurements on all your body parts and and record in a diary and only go by body fat % and not weight in general, eat healthy if it's generally natural its good, avoid processed foods.
