Hi everybody! I'd try to be brief. I started working out Oct-07, as I arrived to the States and everybody adviced me about gaining weight here easily.
I was around 190 pounds, and started doing some cardio (20 min. every other day), and lifting with a friend, a group of muscles a day 7 set x 10 reps., 5 days a week. Diet was pretty clean and restricitive. But during this first period, I didn't really measure neither food nor workouts, so no idea about calories intaked .
I dropped about 15 punds and gained some muscles, but nothing really noticeable.
I went back to Spain for the summer, nol workout, no worries about food. Only came up some punds.
After the summer I started doing a lot of cardio ( 45 min. a day 6 days a week) and kept lifting. And reduced a lot the diet. Never counted calories but a regular day could be like that:
cereal, skim milk, whey protein/ veggies or a lean sandwich and a piece of fruit/ 1/2 protein shake, wor out, protein shake/ only some days some salad as dinner. Only some days had chicken or fish. Sundays i used to indulge a little bit.
From mid November I started doing 20 min. of cardio plus Circuit training 6 days a week, following the advices of a personal trainer ( I never ate was he asked me to).
By Christmas I was in 152 pounds, not looking verygood, maybe too thin but with body fat still mainly in my belly.
During Christmas, in Spain again, I ate as a desperate and gained 12 pounds in 20 days. (165 Lbs)
After that I did other 2 weeks as it was before Christmas ( Circuit Tr. + cardio + undereating). I dropped up to 158, but feeling so bad, headhaches, and really weak.

After the two weeks, so a week and a half ago. I decided, after finding John Stone, I have to say, to quit this way. Eat more protein, back to weights and HIIT ( as acorded with the trainer).
Now I'm still going down (154 Lbs.) eating 6 times a day, but still I think that under 2000 cal, low in fat.

Cereal +skim milk/ Whey prot + water/ chicken or tuna +vegg. + beans or rice/ apple/ work out/ protein shake/ chicken or tuna + veggies/

It looks to be working, but I don't know if I'm still trying something contradictory. I want to get ripped, lean. My body fat, as read in and impedance machine was 10.5 %, but I think is a little bit higher.

I apologize, was a little bit long, but wanted to give as much info as I could. COuld you give some advice? COuld I gain muscles while dropping body fat to a 7-8 %? How long can it take? And then what?
A lot of questions, but I have been reading this Forum since I discovered it. I guess I need some feedback to keep my soul up with the plan!
Thanks a lot guys!

2000 calories at 154 is likely going to be too high. I'm 25+ heavier than you, and that's pretty close to what I'm eating on my cutting diet.

You need to hit the weights pretty hard - 3-4x per week.

My advice, since it seems you already hire a trainer is that you look into getting some nutrition advice from someone like Aram (see the mastover ad at the top of this page), and get some specific help nutrition wise. It's well worth the money, and I'm seeing good results. He already has a free example weight training workout on his website.

Thanks! I'm doing weights 6 a week, two parts per day ( back+biceps/ chest+triceps/ legs+shoulders, twice a week). I didn't hire a personal trainer, I just ask the guys that work at the Y. They offer me their services, 35$/hour. But with the advice and you guys I think I may have enough info. I think I'm doing great, just in need of some extra motivation I think. My big question was cardio needed for cutting to what I want? and any thing you want to comment to my situation.
Thanks a lot.
155 lbs. 11% body fat
02/05/09

In my opinion, there are very few males that should be eating less than 2000 calories per day. It sounds to me that at 152 pounds, you don't have enough muscle mass to lose that last bit of fat.

If you lose any more weight, there is a good chance it will be muscle, and if not, you'll end up fairly scrawny. I would focus on putting muscle on. You can do this without putting on fat.

I agree with the previous advice, that you might consider using the advice of a personal trainer found on JSF, or at least the one you have access to.