OK after seeing the article on digg last week and seeing his transformation in 4 months no less, it has motivated me enough to lose the fat and not the muscle. Since then after digging through the forums and reading the stickies and a lot threads with varying opinions on food, I have devised a meal plan and workout schedule to get me back into shape.

I have the program CalorieKing to log food and my meals (since Sunday) to count calories. The way I see the food I eat, is eat natural and healthy non processed low sodium foods, high in protein, low in sat. fat, and portioned to about 200-400 calorie per meal (6 meals a day). I actually don't plan on taking supplements, or protein shakes with the exception of an Odwalla Super Protein drink. I eat my meals like the basic 3: breakfast lunch dinner, with snacks
after each meal. My meal plan looks like the following:

Breakfast: Total cereal(plain)/oats in a cup/or eggs. Not sure if only egg whites or just eggs would be better.

After Breakfast Snack: Odwalla Protein Drink/dry roasted mixed nuts no added salt/Frigo string cheese/fruit (ie banana, mixed fruit cup, plumb, etc).

Lunch: Deli Boars Head Ham, Turkey, or Roast Beef sandwich with whole wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, and swiss or provolone cheese/or boneless skinless chicken strips/or leftovers from dinner (shark, salmon, chili).

After Lunch Snack: Celery with natural peanut butter/carrots with nat. peanut butter/cherry tomatoes/cottage cheese low fat/dry roasted mixed nuts with no added salt (if I don't have it for morning snack)

Dinner: Always have a veggie side dish with a main course usually will be/chicken breast/salmon/shrimp/chili/soup with low sodium.

After Dinner Snack: Find it hard to find something to eat here, usually string cheese.

I eat 6 meals a day; 1 because I love food, and this way I can eat all day even if I have to portion my food. 2 because if this does/doesn't produce a faster metabolism, it helps me portion my meals much better, and helps me psychologically to eat right.

OK now for the exercising. I am starting at 5'8 230lbs, with probably 30% BF. My biggest question so far that I couldn't find a clear answer searching through the forums, is before you start HIIT training, what is the proper training to get you ready FOR HIIT after being out of shape for so long. So I guess I'll just go with:

Sunday: Rest
Monday: Weight Training
Tuesday: Cardio: elliptical/stationary bike/treadmill
Wednesday: Weight Training
Thursday: Cardio: elliptical/stationary bike/treadmill
Friday: Weight Training
Saturday: Cardio: elliptical/stationary bike/treadmill

Now, since I'm just beginning to workout and since I'm preparing for HIIT training, I don't know what kind of weight training I should be doing. Should I focus on heavy compound exercises or light weight endurance lifting (which I understand is for toning)?

Some of the few things I've picked up in the forums: keep your motivation photo, track your fat loss progress, understand your body and how best it loses fat and gains muscle, drink lots of water, eating properly is the key, work out properly and with everything you got, stay motivated, and lastly nerds can have muscles too (woot, I'm IT).

If you have any suggestions/criticism/pointers for me I am all ears.

Hi, welcome to JSF :)

OK after seeing the article on digg last week and seeing his transformation in 4 months no less, it has motivated me enough to lose the fat and not the muscle. Since then after digging through the forums and reading the stickies and a lot threads with varying opinions on food, I have devised a meal plan and workout schedule to get me back into shape.

Great work on getting started :tu:

with the exception of an Odwalla Super Protein drink.

I had to look up this product on Google.

http://www.odwalla.com/upload/images1_label.gif

Looks like a ton of sugar and not so much protein at all. I would drop this personally. You'd benefit a lot more from some conventional protein powder, or no protein shakes at all.

Breakfast: Total cereal(plain)/oats in a cup/or eggs. Not sure if only egg whites or just eggs would be better.

Instead of oats OR eggs, why not have both? I would aim to have a decent amount of protein coming from eggwhites. Throwing in 1 or 2 whole eggs won't hurt. I'd also have some fruit with this meal.

After Breakfast Snack: Odwalla Protein Drink/dry roasted mixed nuts no added salt/Frigo string cheese/fruit (ie banana, mixed fruit cup, plumb, etc).

As mentioned, I'd replace the protein drink with another source of protein. Chicken, eggwhites, steak, tuna, etc.

Lunch: Deli Boars Head Ham, Turkey, or Roast Beef sandwich with whole wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, and swiss or provolone cheese/or boneless skinless chicken strips/or leftovers from dinner (shark, salmon, chili).

This doesn't look too bad to start off with :) I would add a big serving of veggies though. Broccoli is great for you.

After Lunch Snack: Celery with natural peanut butter/carrots with nat. peanut butter/cherry tomatoes/cottage cheese low fat/dry roasted mixed nuts with no added salt (if I don't have it for morning snack)

As long as you're having a decent sized serving of cottage cheese along with the peanut butter or nuts, this is a decent meal.

Dinner: Always have a veggie side dish with a main course usually will be/chicken breast/salmon/shrimp/chili/soup with low sodium.

I'd add some healthy fats here. Try drizzling some olive oil on your veggies.

After Dinner Snack: Find it hard to find something to eat here, usually string cheese.

How about replacing the string cheese with a cup of cottage cheese and some more natural peanut butter? It's a great bed time meal in my opinion.

Would you happen to have to total calorie count and macronutrient break down for this meal plan by any chance?

OK now for the exercising. I am starting at 5'8 230lbs, with probably 30% BF. My biggest question so far that I couldn't find a clear answer searching through the forums, is before you start HIIT training, what is the proper training to get you ready FOR HIIT after being out of shape for so long.

I guess you could start off jogging at a moderate pace until you build up the ability to perform HIIT. Hopefully somebody else can give you some better cardio advice.

I don't know what kind of weight training I should be doing. Should I focus on heavy compound exercises or light weight endurance lifting (which I understand is for toning)?

You understand an old myth :) Light weight, high rep work doesn't necessarily "tone" you. I personally don't like the word "tone". In my opinion, you should focus on the heavy compound exercises with a couple of isolation movements (also performed heavy). Since you're already set up to workout three times a week, try finding a fullbody routine.

:gl:

I didn't notice the sugar for the protein drink, thanks for the catch. Good thing I only bought one of them, lol.

Welcome to JSF. It's nice to see somebody that came in doing their homework on the front end before posting.:tu:
That protein water is junk, IMO. If you want to take in extra protein, find a good whey powder and shaker cup.
dluc, good comments!

Few suggestions:

1. Instead of Total cereal, try All Bran type cereals (several companies including Kellogg's and General Mills make them) - check the label and make sure there's no sugar. I found this cereal to taste great just out of the box and has a lot of fiber and no sugar.

2. If you're not on a tight budget and would like to read some more, I recommend a few books to get you started as well as motivated -
-Metabolism Advantage by Berardi
-Book of Muscle -Ian King/Lou Scheler
-Muscle Revolution -Waterbury
-New Rules of Lifting -Cosgrove
-Body for Life -Bill Phillips

3. As far as "getting ready for HIIT", well you just need to be in better "cardio"/endurance shape. I recommend running/jogging at 65-75% your maximal HR (220-age as a rough estimate) for 20 minutes and slowly building up to 45-60 minutes. While you're doing this, work in some "interval" work by going faster for 15 secs-30secs, then slowing back down for 1-2 minutes and then repeating (this is essentially HIIT, but at first, your speed will be much slower to achieve desired HR or "effort level"). You can also do a minute of slow, a minutes of faster, a minute of even faster, and a minute of real fast, and then going back down to slow (Bill Phillips and others describe this escalating type of "interval" method).

Good luck.