Hi Denise,
I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. You are smart to be focusing on making yourself feel good about yourself!
When you say you have been working out moderately, can you give us some examples? That will help us give you suggestions on where to go next. For instance, if your cardio so far has been walking, you are probably not ready for the choreography or impact of Cathe's advanced cardio tapes. You may want to start by looking at videofitness.com and collagevideo.com. If you have never used a workout video before, or even if you have, these are great places to learn about beginner and intermediate cardio tapes to start out with.
As for strength tapes, I think even a beginner, and definitely an intermediate exerciser can start out with Cathe strength. Just lower the weight considerably from what Cathe uses, and you should be fine. You don't HAVE to have a barbell when you first start with the tapes, even though Cathe uses one. You can just use dumbells. Here is a list of the tapes I would recommend:
1. Pure Strength (PS): This one is broken up into 3 workouts. ONe day you work your back, biceps and abs. Another day you work your chest, shoulders and triceps, and the third day you work your Legs and abs. The pace of the workout is moderate, and the focus is on getting stronger.
2. Maximum Intensity Strength (MIS): This is a total body workout that you could do all in one day, or break up into two sections: work legs one day, and upper body/abs the next. The pace of this is just slightly faster than the PS tapes, with a bit more emphasis on endurance.
I think the above two tapes are the best for beginners, because they have a lot of form pointers. They are two of Cathe's older tapes, and she was teaching her buyers the correct form and terminology. As she has produced more workouts, she still provides form pointers, but maybe not quite as much because she knows that most people who work out with her already know about form and all that jazz. So, the tapes below will still work for a beginner, but I would still suggest starting out with PS or MIS.
3. Slow and Heavy: VEERRY slow paced workout using heavier weights and focusing entirely on strength gains. This doesn't mean you will get big muscles! Three tapes in the set, one you work biceps, triceps and abs; the second you work back, chest and abs (?); and the third you work legs and shoulders. THis one is great for form pointers, but since the pace is so slow I wouldn't recommend starting with it.
4. Power Hour: and endurance workout similar to MIS in its pace, but the leg work is interspersed with the upper body work, so it is more difficult to break up if you are short on time. (If you get it on DVD, that won't be an issue.)
5. Pyramid Upper Body and Pyramid Lower Body: focuses on strength and endurance, very fast paced, wouldn't get this first. If you get it on DVD you can make this workout work for your level much better, by breaking it up in various ways
6. Muscle Endurance: very similar to Power Hour in it's pace, but has some questionable moves that I wouldn't want a beginner to try.
Ok, I probably missed some, but that's what I would suggest.
Just because you want to work out seriously, does not mean you have to work out with Cathe exclusively. I think she is the best, but I had to learn certain moves and work at a much less advanced pace before I made it to her level! For me, it isn't much fun to modify half a workout. It's more fun to be able to do the whole thing as is. For that reason, I started with Kathy Smith, Gin Miller, Kathy Kaehler and others (collagevideo.com). I worked my way up to Cathe with them...
Good luck
Wendy