I work out 4-5 times a week, and am in pretty good shape (got a bit of a beer gut that needs a looking after), but I have NO idea of what I should be eating! I definitly eat too many carbs, I eat bagels and pasta daily, so I have to figure out a way to exclude those from my diet, and add some other things. I am a very picky eater, and usually I just throw salami or peanutbutter on a bagel and that is a good lunch for me, than dinner is usually pasta or pizza or some sort of meat. Some nights, tonight included, I come home after a long hard workout, and I am starved, but can't figure out what to eat. Usually I just grab a bagel and I am set, but again, I don't want to consume so many carbs. If any of you can offer any advice I would appreciate that greatly!

Also, I was wondering what will protein powder actually do for me? Thanks in advance!!!

A regular healthy diet can be based on the food pyramid. This is a traditional 40/40/20 protein/carbs/fat calorie split. This can be a very healthy way to live and diet. There are other splits in that range such as 60/25/15 or 30/40/30 and those are all reasonable.

What i notice is that most people don't have enough protein in their diets. If you don't track your caloric intake, than i bet you don't get enough protein. Shoot for at least 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass per day. I've read ranges all over the place, but if you go from around .75 to 1.25 grams of protein per pound of TOTAL bodyweight, you're in the right zone. Don't put it all in one meal. Try to eat 4 or 5 meals a day. If you're training or cutting, 6 meals is generally preferred.

For dieting, you should try for 10x bodyweight for caloric intake. This may be fairly low initially. 11 or 12x can be tried and adjusted accordingly. You may, otherwise, use www.fitday.com (http://www.fitday.com) to estimate your daily metabolic calorie expenditure which tends to be very accurate. Also use it to track your intake. It's tedius work, but for af ew days at least it will give you an idea of what you're eating too much, or too little of.

Generally, you should eat the majority of your carbs early on in the day, and those should taper off later on, where you may replace those calories with fats in your meals. Try to keep the protein intake constant, and present, in every meal.

When you say "you work out", does that mean that you weight train, or do cardio? Diet is a very important peice of the puzzle here. If you weight train 4-5 times a week, you are likely overtraining (unless you really have it together), but that's another story. Your diet is absolutely essential. For cardio, there are many schools of thought. In general, it's beneficial to have a quick dissolving protein (whey protein shake) directly after a cardio or weight training routine. This should also be augmented with some simple sugar intake. The sugar boosts your insulin, which helps transport the protein into cells, where anabolism occurs (muscle building). If your body is starving of nutrients, your system will generally be in a catabolic state (muscle wasting for energy). So after a workout, a protein shake, potato, rice, or a high GI carb would work well. The bottom line is quick dissolving protein and quick sugars (if you're serious about it, try 30g whey and 30g dextrose after weight train, and 30g whey and 10g dextrose after cardio).

You may opt to eat before cardio, or not. I believe in the former, myself (others believe different). You should not be hungry when weight training. It's generally a good idea to get some carbs in 1-2 hours before weight training, although you can still weight train in ketosis (having been without any carbs for days), but it's harder, and you still need energy (from fats).

I think that the traditional pizza, bagel and peanut butter, and pasta all have the same downfall: they are meals full in both carbs and fat. The insulin spike from carbs results in a more efficient storage of fat. If you try to limit the intake of large amounts of BOTH in one meal, you will be making progress without much effort.

Some of the best things to eat for breakfast include oatmeal, bran cereal (all bran with extra fiber), or another low GI food. Also, since your body has not been with nutrients for many hours when you wake up, it is starved of nutrients. You normally wake up in a catabolic state; therefore, protein is always a good idea in the morning (Eggs!).

Your five servings of fruits or vegetables per day is also a very good thing to remember.

Bagels and pizza suck. Pasta is kindof a cheat food, but I can't tell you not to eat it unless you are on a strict diet.

I eat salami and cheese every day and i lose weight like crazy; however, i am in the state of ketosis. In essence, i am eating less than 25g of active carbs per day in order to train my body to utilize fats as the preferred source of energy. This is the idea of the atkins diet, but in my case it's widely different (I add carbs periodically, and post workout). You shouldn't worry about this sort of diet unless you are very disciplined and need to cut down seriously.

For desert, or before bed, try not to eat any carbs. Instead, it is a good idea to have eggs or casein protein (a slow digesting protein poweder). casein takes around 7 hours to digest, and keeps your system out of a catabolic state qutie efficiently.

Hope this helps. It's a start, anyways.

WOW! Thanks a lot for all that info man, that will REALLY help! When I say I work out, I go into the gym and do upper body one day and lower body the next for 4-5 days a week. I usually do hard weights for about 45-60 minutes, than I do a run on the treadmill for 45 mins or so. I am not trying to lose major pounds here, I am 5'10, closer to 5'11, and I weigh 160. From like my pecs to my neck, my upper body has shown a lot of improvement, but I would still like to cut the fat out of the stomache.

One other question, what drinks should I be drinking. I don't drink much pop anymore, but I am not sure how much I should be having of what I drink. I tend to drink tons of milk and oj during the day, and up until recently, didn't drink much water. I have started to drink way more water and less of the other two, but can you give me any advice what to do with this situation? Lol I have also stopped drinking with the buddies on weekends, so I have overcome one obstacle!

You should drink a hell of a lot of water. That's all i drink (but i'm a bit overboard). You can add diet drinks but if they are sweetened with aspartame, there is some speculation that this is counterproductive. There are an increasing number of drinks sweetened with Splenda, and those are the freebies (suck 'em down).

V8 and tomato/vegetable juice is very healthy. Everything you read about tomatoes is good, and they're always finding out more good things that tomatoes do to keep you buff, healthy, and alive.

Other than that, just keep hydrated with water man. I don't think it's generally beneficial to drink juice-- i prefer the natural form (orange rather than oj, apple rather than aj). The reasons for this are many, but my specific reason is to lower the GI (glycemic index, or the "speed at which the sugar enters the bloodstream"). It also adds fiber, and it's "the way nature intended" (<---debatable, let's not get into this).

I'm a true believer in the upper/lower split. This has a basis in the dual factor hypertrophy theory. Although you are already probably on the right track, please read this link to augment your current knowledge on the subject:
http://www.asylum-strength.com/dual.htm

as for how many reps/sets to do, i think it would benefit you to read the following:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/issa74.htm

finally, a quick link for upper body/lower body muscles and corresponding workouts:
http://www.exrx.net/Workouts/Workout2UL.html

25 minutes of reading might be very useful and save you hours of wasted time in the gym. hopefully i'm not underestimating your knowledge on the matter; however, i do believe that for someone who does upper/lower routines, this is a must!

Man thanks sooo much, I really appreciate your help. I love V8, have it whenever I can. I guess I will start gettin the big 2L bottles instead of gettin Tropicana.
I just want to type out what I had to eat today, and can you tell me if what I am eating is good?
Breakfast
2 Eggs with melted cheese on them
0.5 of a whole weat bagel with butter
Lunch
1 Bowl of multi-grain cheerios
Dinner
Pieces of chiken breast
Bowl of Caesar Salad

sounds pretty well balanced. you have no reason to totally switch up your diet unless you aren't reaching the goals you are aiming for (it really depends on your particular goals). i've read things about how even whole grain bread is crappy for you... but it's definitely not somethign to pull out of your daily routine. if you want to go healthy on the bread, find one that is stone ground, like Milton's Multi-grain.

butter and cheese are not the best fats to be taking in. your body needs fats, but if at all possible try to work in the monounsaturated fats that are present in olive oil, salmon (and other fish), flaxseed oil, avacados, etc.

some very small manner of saturated fats are required in the diet, but i gurentee that you'll be getting plenty in those egg yolks.

again, your diet looks good; try to get at least a peice of fruit in every day. i like to go to the farmer's market and just pick something up i've never tried before, and go online and look for recipes for it (or just eat it raw and see how i like it). variety is always a good idea.

One other thing: since you weight train, try to make sure you're putting back at least 30g of protein during lunch; it seems that you are only eating 3 times per day, so you need to be sure to get the protein you need for each meal.

it has been estimated that you can only assimilate 30g of protein for each meal, so when you eat more, it does not help for hypertrophy very much, if all (hypertrophy = muscle mass gain). this is an estimate, and it may be different for different people/sizes/etc. On the other hand, if you are only eating 3 meals per day, than you can only assimilate 90g of protein per day. You should be shooting for at least 160g per day, so theoretically you should be eating 5 meals per day. If you don't want to do this, try to put away a protein bar or shake at least one time in there (post workout), and put back some casein protein before bed if possible. These are guidelines, not rules, so just adjust your diet to be as strict or lax as you like, according to your specific goals.