Weight lifting doesn't do much for fat loss, but one thing it does do is give you rapid, measurable results that keep you coming back in the long term. Also, your perception of your progress will be far greater because you'll simultaneously be seeing fat loss and muscle growth for a good while in the beginning so long as your diet is in check.
Last year I lost ~85lbs in a 10-11 month span, so I know what you want is possible. I lifted weights from the start because to me "getting in shape" means a combination of diet, cardio, and resistance training. It doesn't even make sense to me to do one without the other, because I'm doing it to look good, not just average.
Diet should be the focal point of your efforts though. Diet is everything. I couldn't have done what I did without tracking what I ate. You can do that with pen and paper, or you can do it with an app on your phone. The app is way easier and less time consuming, but whatever you feel comfortable with is the right answer. I used an app called "myplate", but there are many equally good ones out there. Get into the habit of logging every single thing that passes through your lips and suddenly you'll feel in control of your weight loss like never before. Eventually the same app can be used to help you maintain proper balance of carbs, fat, and protein to aid you in gaining muscle as well, but to start with you'll probably want to focus purely on calories in vs. calories out.
Don't think that now you are in "diet mode" and can't have good food ever again either. Tracking calories is better than getting on any kind specific diet with only certain carefully curated foods that you can have because it doesn't really matter where those calories come from, so long as you come in below the designated number every single day.
You can eat your entire allotment in cake icing if you want to, but you'll quickly learn that there are drawbacks to that approach. For one thing your calories won't go very far, and eating sugary foods ultimately does nothing but make you hungrier in the long term. These are good, concrete reasons to change your diet that you'll come to understand on a visceral level as you progress though. That's much better than simply being told "have this, but not that because of reasons" IMO. In that way you'll slowly steer yourself toward better foods for the simple reason that they're lower calorie and more filling, so you can eat more and feel satiated.
I look at exercise in a similar way. I understand that it's ultimately not going to be the relative optimization or intensity of this training philosophy vs. that one, but the consistency and total time I'm willing to put in that determines just what kind of shape I manage to get into. I want results, but I have to balance that against my own continued willingness to exercise basically in perpetuity. The workouts have to be designed so that I can keep coming back day in and day out. I want to do my work, make some discernible amount of progress no matter how small, and then go about my day having expended as little time and effort as humanly possible. To that end I decided to make my workouts as short and easy as I could while still allowing myself a path for progress. That means that no matter how tired or unmotivated I feel on a given day I KNOW that I can get my workout out of the way without much trouble, so I never dread it and I almost never miss it. I have achieved consistency and probably will be able to keep going essentially forever, which means I'm eventually going to surpass 99% of the people out there who are in danger of burning out because they think the only path to fitness is a grueling, hours long workout 5 days a week.
My weight loss has been without tracking anything: if i'm hungry I eat, as I eat only on-diet that day I never feel continuous hunger pangs.
I do hit chronometer like once a week because i'm a geek, but only eaten whole plant foods i've never had to worry about anything including counting calories.
I have a smoothie (black+blue+rasp berries & 1 cup almond milk, 1tbsp non-alkalized coco powder, 1tbsp ceylon cinnamon (standard cinnamon is poisonous at that level), 1sp cloves, 1tbsp turmeric, crack of pepper) for breakfast,
fruit as ongoing snacks (2 green kiwi, 2 yellow kiwi, 2 apples, 4 oranges, 1 red banana),
A salad at lunch time (1 cup packed: baby kale-spinach-arugula, broccoli, garbanzo beans, black beans, & 1/4th cup of balsamic vinegar),
dinner involves red cabbage, kale, red onion, leeks, fresh broccoli (kids love it w/ mustard), 3 cups of beans (black, red, black-eyed or split-pea), cooked mushrooms, and now a 1/4th cup of black or red rice.
I'm going to increase the beans and rice when I'm ready to stop losing weight.
Drink in the morning: black tea w/ lemon juice and zest of both
Noon: White tea steeped for 5min+ w/ lemon juice, lime juice, and zest of both
Evening: green tea w/ lemon and lime and zest of both
This is known as a "nutrient dense" approach to weight management:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/nutrient-dense-approach-to-weight-management/
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