I learned so much from My Food Diary (I think its similar to Spark People??) before I got pregnant with my son. For years I was exercising away and starving myself, only to gain weight each month. Thanks to folks on My Food Diary, I learned that I need to eat MORE - I need to eat at least 1800 calories, PLUS whatever I burn. I was wearing a heart rate monitor (also thanks to the folks on MFD) to learn how much I was burning by walking the dogs twice/day and doing aerobics, which was 600-700.
The old way was burning 600 calories = eating 600 calories.
The new way was burning 600 calories = eating 2400 calories.
I didn't focus on points/fat/carbs/etc because I was losing 12lbs/month. I hit a brief plateau and learned that the chicken breasts I was eating were loaded with sodium, so I started buying plain chicken breasts (instead of marinated or 'flavored') and that broke me thru the plateau. Had I plateau'd again, I would've started looking at fat/carbs/sugar/etc to find a trigger.
Recently, I've joined a gym that has unchoreographed workouts that change every single day - you never know what you're going to get when you show up. Its awesome, its the first time my husband and I both go. We do unlimited lean protein/veggies/fruit. We don't count anything. We limit desserts to once/week and make healthy versions. We limit pasta/potatoes to once/week. The first month, I lost 10lbs of fat (got a fat scale) and gained 3lbs of muscle, so a net loss of 7lbs. There are various exercises that I could barely do at the beginning, but did 30 of them tonight.
With kids - scooters, bikes, rollerskates, pool, team sports, etc.
Good luck!!!!