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Many exercise routines have a specific diet routine to go along with them. My problem is that I'm not really sure what I should eat.

I live at home, and pretty much eat whatever my parents cook. I also have to go to work, so I don't have time to get all kinds of meals in.

I hear that if you want to build, you should eat around 5-8 meals a day with animal protein, fruits and vegetables, etc. and that you should keep carb intake around the mornings or slightly before workout.

What are some good carb foods? What's your diet plan? Do you know of any effective, fairly easy dieting plans? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

According to sources what makes you lose weight is a calorie defecit (average human male burns about 2,000-2,100 calories doing very little but random tasks around the house, walking short distances, typical daily routine that doesnt involve much work). Sources also say that dividing your 3 square meals a day into 4-6 smallers ones works better since you're giving your metabolism a workout (takes energy to process food and convert it to energy) so just eating 3 bigger meals just has your metabolism rest after it finished its work. But eating every 3-5 hours has your metabolism working constantly. At first it sounds like eating too much but its not. Just eat like a small thing like an apple or a light sandwich (I mean dont put too high calorie high fat things on it, just a simple ham, light mayo, light cheese sandwich, dont stack the meat too much would work fine). Count your calories and don't go over your daily limit there's a formula for it on the internet usually ends up being 2,000-2,100 for the average man but dont go under 1,500 calories or else your body's metabolism will slow down and kill your progress. Best things to eat while on a diet is like a said a simple sandwich, fruits, vegetables (like cut carrots, celery with a light dip, or boil/grill zucchini, brocoli, or make a salad). Oh and this is not "super" important but for health reasons try to stay away from foods that have hydrogenated oils. Too much of it leads to heart disease, its measured in foods by trans fat. Even though some foods say they're trans fat free it might still have some but if a food serving contains less than 0.025 grams of transfat you can legally say its trans fat free. Besides the heart concern, some people argue that too much might hinder or slow down weight loss since it leads to obesity. I am not sure if this is true alot but just to be safe try to cut down on that. It's mostly in foods like pre-packaged cakes and pastries, fast food (nowadays KFC Chicken is Trans Fat Free but not their biscuits) and some pre-packaged foods (well alot of them but you can still find some without transfat and/or hydrogenated oils just read the ingredients). Oh and one other things, you always need an off day cause you need a day to keep the body off a one track diet or else it gets too used to eating fewer calories and progress slows down or halts sad