Mike, I havent read everything on this page but to sum up my experiance if you were quite a big guy just eating healthy will make you loose weight, but once you do that for so long and loose so much you have to start exercising for it to come off.
When I just started my weight loss I could just eat healthy and loose around 3lb per week. The past week I've ate great and also been to the gym 4 times and only just made it to 2lb.
Also, you really don't need a personal trainner. Just join a gym and I'm sure one of the staff will help you draw out a plan you can use for the next 6 weeks or so. Also the golden exercise rule is that if you're not soaking in sweat you're not working hard enough.
Hope that helps.