A GENERAL GUIDE TO NUTRITION
What to eat?
Generally speaking, there are three food groups; carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. They can be further broken down into things like monounsaturated fats, and individual animo acids, but it's a lot easier to group them into the three above groups then into their individual varieties.
Each group is important and vital for maintaining proper nutrition, though you need larger amounts of foods from certain groups then you do from others. I suggest eating more protein than fat, and more carbs than protein.
For carbs, you can't go wrong with produce. In my opinion, produce should make up the largest portion of an active athelete's diet. However eating apples all the time is rather dull, and there are foods with far higher nutritional value. Consume berries often, particularly blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. Other great fruits include pineapple, bananas, oranges, kiwi, even lemons if you're brave. This is by no means a complete list, I left plenty out. Vegetables, eaten with meat or low carb meals are great too. My favorites are carrots, brocolli, green beans, lettuce, and eggplant. Aside from produce, certain grains are also great for you. Potatoes are easy, and beans are a great source of fiber. Brown rice and classic rolled oats are easy winners.
For protein, I suggest animal meat.... for obvious reasons. Fish, especially tuna and salmon, are amazing protein sources, and also come with fish oil, which is a good form of fat. Lean meats like chicken and turkey are nice too. Red meat is ok, but I wouldnt advise eating moer than once or maybe twice a week. A great and fast form of protein consumption is drinking protein shakes, made from whey prodtein powder. Some people are afraid that whey will make them bulky like bodybuilders. Those people are silly. Whey wont make you bigger. For the record the only way to really gain significant muscle mass is by training hard AND consuming a caloric surplus (more calories than you need). I highly advise substituting out one or two of your meals daily with protein shakes, but I'll get into that later.
As for fats, you should try to split your fats evenly between saturates, monounsaturates, and polyunsaturates. It sounds complicated at first, but it really isnt. Get saturates from animal fats, which you'll no doubt be consuming when you eat meat. Flaxseed oil, sunflower seeds, and walnuts are all great sources of polyunsaturates. Macadamia nuts, pecans, almonds, and cashews all have loads of monounsaturates. Eggs are an example of a food that has an even balance of all three, pretty radd.
When to eat?
You should try your best to sonsume approximately 6 meals daily. I know I know, it sounds like overkill, just wait, I'll explain. Eating six meals a day, or one meal every three hours, helps keep your metabolism going, so you burn more calories and your body doesnt have to synthesize its own muscle as fuel. Basically take the amount of calories you're aiming to consume, and divide that number by six. That's how many calories you'll be eating per meal. Now the trick is to spread those meals out so that you're eating a meal every 3 hours. For bonus points, try to consume more of your carbs in the earlier half of the day, and your fats in the later half. Every meal should contain a solid protein source of at least 20 grams. Meals should also be either protein-fat dominant, or protein-carb dominant. Combining carbs and fats in a meal is BAD. Please dont interprit this as "I must never consume carbs and fats at the same meal, or else I'll die!" Its ok to have a little of everything, just make sure the meal is dominant in either carbs or fats, not both. If you're aiming to lose fat, then I highly suggest performing morning cardio BEFORE eating your first meal. Also, if possible, try to schedule your meal time so that one of your meals takes place right after your workout. This "post-workout" meal should probably be in shake form.
What NOT to eat?
It goes without saying that certain foods just dont have a place in any advanced athelete's diet. Anything that contains hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup should be eliminated immediately. It's also advisable to eliminate most dairy products and baked goods from your diet, as they're more or less just empty calories. If you're worried about getting calcium, which you can get from green vegetables, than cottage cheese is basically the way to go. Milk pretty much sucks, forget about it. Other than that, basically watch out for anything highly processed, or artificial.
What to drink?
I'm a big fan of drinking only water. It sounds a little extreme at first, but think about it. Soda sucks for a myriad of reasons. Drinking juice is a pathetic substitute to just eating the fruit said juice was made from, plus most commerical juices have preservatives and such undesirables in them anyway. Energy drinks do slow but steady damage to your central nervous system, are filled with processed sugar amoung other things, and have ludicrous amounts of calories. Water on the other hand is cheap, has no calories, helps cleanse your body, has an extensive list of health benefits, which include fighting disease and even cancer, and it even helps lubricate joints! You really cant go wrong. Other acceptable drinks are protein shakes, which can be as simple as whey powder and water, or can include fruits, yogurt, ice, and more. Basically just blend it and chug it. And please, no ice cream... please. Fresh juices made from fresh fruits and vegetables in a juicer are also acceptable.
I'll probably give it at least a six month experimental period sometime soon though.