Previous Success

Not to harp on the past but I like to remind myself from time to time the techniques and practices that got me to a level I was proud of. At my peak I was at 225-30 with about 9-10% body fat. I would say I had been working out off and on for about 8 months followed by a period of a very dedicated 4 months. During the above mentioned time I didn't have a single drink. I would go out with my workout partner and we'd both drink water at parties/bars. I was in the gym 5 - 6 days a week. I was using the one body part per day approach. For example, chest monday, back tuesday, legs weds, arms thurs, shoulds friday, and we'd go in on some saturdays if we had the extra motivation where I'd do stuff like lower back, forearms, neck exercises, calves, grip exercises, all the stuff that gets worked out indirectly but doesn't often get that direct workout it might need.
I ate 7 meals per day (3 of those being protein shakes if you want to call that a "meal"), was pretty damn strict eating mostly wheat breads and a lot of chicken and turkey. I stopped having desert and actually didn't miss it at all after about a month. My normal daily meal routine would be 4 eggs/2 slices of toast or protein shake/oatmeal, mid day meal can of tuna, lunch - 1/2 chicken and 2 sweet potatoes, protein shake before and after the gym, dinner (place appropriate meal here), a micellar casein shake before bed. There were a couple weeks where if I woke up for water at like 3 am I would pop another micellar casein shake. But LOL seriously was overkill.
Anyway this is to kind of remind myself that once I get in the rhythm of working out, eating is the most important aspect.

Here's a pretty helpful tool for building a workout if you want/need to change it up for a week or two: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/workoutdatabase.htm