How can I start losing weight and building muscle?

Question

Ok, so I've put on a little more weight than I'd like to have right now. I'm a pretty strong guy willing to change my diet and put in some gym time, but I'm not quite sure what excercises I should be starting with. How many reps? what machines? Are there any particular routines or patterns I should be looking into?

Answer 1

find calorie/fitness calculator on the net, enter all your stats and it will tell you how many calories you need a day to maintain, take off 300-400cal off that number and thats how much you need to lose.
eat 5-6 small meals a day (eat every 2-3 hours)
5-8 servings of fruit and veggies a day
8 glasses of water
have complex carbs for breakfast - they give you energy
have lean meat (protein) for dinner - repairs muscle
cardio exercise 4-6 times a week for 30-50min, weight training
dont consume foods that are made of white flour (white bread, cakes, past etc.), sugar loaded foods (cookies, icecream, candy etc) and nothing fried, oily.
ofcourse you can spoil yourself once in a while with a little treat:)

Answer 2

Eat 6 small but balanced meals per day. Your carbs should be high in fiber and your proteins should be lean. Fats should be sparing but concentrated in the omega 3's and omega 6's. This will provide a slow but constant stream of vital nutrients. Avoid greasy foods, alcohol, and candy.

Lift weights or perform power yoga because either of these will slightly increase your lean mass, which will burn extra calories 24 hours per day. This will increase your resting metabolic rate. Also, some cardio helps.

Use a measuring tape instead of a scale to measure your progress because it is more accurate than the scale.

Here is a sample workout and a sample meal plan:
http://www.spartafit.com/exercise/exercise%20program%202.php
http://www.spartafit.com/nutrition/sample%20meal%20plans.php

Answer 3

you are better off with free weights vs machines. routines and patterns depend on what muscles you want to improve. No offise, but since you are a guy, I would guess you want to work less on lower body and focus on upper body??! Arm curls, bench presses, don't know what it is called, but weights with bar in front of and behind your head (pecs and lats). Use bar/weights lift off ground for shoulders. Weighted squats and lunges too. If you do use machines, keep control, don't let the weights slam back into place. Slow controlled movements