Start eating some fresh fruit with every meal. Eat green stuff, you know, salad, spinach, a lot of anything green. When you start, ride every other day for a while. This will come naturally (when you're sore), just wanted to give you a heads up. Got shorts and a helmet yet? Good shorts really help. Btw, your butt will hurt for a couple weeks. Happens to everybody. Go to your library and ask them to interlibrary loan
Effective Cycling. You are about to have dozens of questions, that will answer a lot of them.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846