But I was exhausted, my legs feeling like weights were on them when I would walk. I was taking advil and sometimes a recovery drink just to make it through to the next workout. I sort of fell off.
Kidding me, I think your problem with exercise is that you were trying to do too much too soon. Especially as you get older it's important to give your body time to adjust to doing more, pushing yourself to the point your legs feel like weights is too much, with the inevitable result that you get discouraged and quit or cut down too much. I am 61 and can do 10,00 steps now, but I had to work up to that over a period of six months. It wouldn't take you as long of course, but what ls important is creating life long habits, not how fast you get there.
I am always struggling with this concept, as I am sure many do. if I didn't push myself some I would still he a couch potato, but if I push too much then it's counterproductive. You really have to learn to listen to your body, to pay attention to what it is telling With my being older and having multiple health issues I had to start very slowly and work my up. You will be able to go faster but the concept is the same, each time you add time or increase reps give your body a chance to adjust.
I don't get what i was doing wrong this time but I know that WW is working for now. I'm not sure if i was stressing my body out trying to burn so many calories just so I could keep eating what i wanted. Sometimes I would be way less than the 750 daily calorie deficit. I also didn't force myself to eat breakfast and lunch. I would sometimes do one or the other depending on how busy my work day was. Now, I'm doing both, just so there are no unused points at the end of my day.
I don't think it's a good idea to do less than a 750 calorie deficit. Just like with the exercise you should be looking at this as a long term strategy, not how quickly you can lose. I have heard that creating too much of a deficit will cause your body to go into starvation mode, your metabolism will actually slow down and start burning less calories, so it's counter productive. That is why they generally tell you to not skip meals, you want to keep your metabolism at its maximum.
The other problem is that you are setting yourself up for failure. You can white knuckle your way through a very restrictive diet in the short term, but you will eventually hit a wall, get discouraged or tired of the deprivation and fall off your diet and gain the weight back. You don't just want to lose X pounds but to keep them off in the long run. It's far better to lose twenty pounds and keep them off than to lose forty and just regain it that the end of six months.