For the beginners on here to get it done right.

1) Eat breakfast try to gun for 30% protein, the reasoning is that it will raise the metabolic rate and get you started off right. Look at my diary to get an idea of what I do to make that happen. If you are pressed for time do a protein shake with some fruit and fiber mainly flax seed. Add a slice of rye or really nice grainy bread with some good peanut butter and you are off to a great start with a 5 minute breakfast. Make sure you eat this within 30 mins of waking.

2) Carbs and fats are not your enemy, refined carbs and saturated fats are, these 2 create a vicious cycle that peak insulin response which you do not want to do. You want a steady slow release of sugars to keep your energy up and cravings down. Carbs coming from lentils, legumes, veggies are your friends. There are great links that list all the slow releasing carbs I do not have room here to list them all.Get good fats into you, nuts are great for that as well as olive oil, macadamia nut oil and fish. I highly recommend getting omega 3s into you as well as salmon and tuna, all great foods.

3) Every meal should be a carb and protein, it will satiate your appetite longer and keep the body happy. However with that said I gun for at least 3 servings of veggies a day, spinach, broccoli, green peppers, mushrooms (this is a fantastic one especially for women but make sure they are cooked for the max vitamin D)

4) Snacks, get almonds into here as well as peanuts and pumpkin seeds, the pumpkin seeds have many benefits including a positive libido hit. Flax seed is also fantastic I recommend getting that into your shake in its ground form or into an omelet.

5) teas or coffees, get cinnamon or honey into them if you need sweeteners both are far better choices than creamers (these can contain some deadly crap in them that I would not dare let pass my lips) honey has huge health benefits and cinnamon is a natural blood sugar stabilizer just do not exceed 1.5 tsps/day.

6) go for quality not quantity in the diet, remember feeding muscles requires that you keep an excess of protein, good fats, and vitamins in the body, building muscle needs even more of the basic building blocks. Eating to few cals makes it turn on itself for these needs which you want to avoid at all costs and is the sole downfall of 90% of the diets out there, they deprive the body I want you to feed it and do it right.

Clean eating, I made no secret of the fact that I advocate it, it has all the building blocks needed for a healthy body even without exercise, consider exercise to be the icing on the cake. It will help you improve upon the basic building blocks you have and if you built a strong foundation the rest of it will be strong. So get that into your head that to succeed you must feed the body.

Helpful links that I use regularly;

http://www.beachbody.com/category/michis_ladder.do

eating off the top 2 tiers makes you a saint so long as 80% of the diet is in there then the last 20% will not hurt you, do not treat that as a license to go nuts though but I highly recommend splurging once every 3 weeks unless you have hit a wall in that case do it once every 2 weeks.

http://fourhourbodysupplements.com/2010/02/slow-carb-diet/list-of-slow-carb-foods/

list of slow carbs for you to resort to.

http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/body-fat-percentage-calculator.php

bodyfat calculator, get it into your head that the scale is not the way to track fat loss measurements are. The scale is the greasy car salesman of the weight loss world, it only tells you half the story. If I had to recommend one thing to do when you start its take measurements and a before pic. I recently replied to a post about eating your exercise cals I think it may be beneficial to those who are unsure about eating back the workout cals.

think of it like driving a car, you have a limited amount of gas before the car starts to break down. The calories or fuel that mfp gives you will get you to your destination driving at 80 mph. Now think of exercise as getting you there at 120 mph but not stopping for fuel means that the tires get worn down faster, the car will break down easier and in the end will explode. The body is the car, the calories are the fuel, the tires are your muscle without proper fuel they break down and in the end the body feeds off itself. The point of the exercise is to increase the metabolic rate (the speed at which you can safely drive) not to burn off the fuel (calories)