Through a bunch of experiments over the past couple of years (after a 3-year-long hiatus), I believe I've nailed down the 20% that'd result in 80% of the effects most sought-after. I've cut down my workout duration from 1.5 hours to about 20-25 minutes, and have been doing better -- on strength, gains and energy -- than my self-selected control group of sorts. Most of them workout closer to 2 hours, 6 times a week.
It isn't always easy figuring out the exact elements that'd make the perfect 20%. Experience certainly helps narrow things down. I believe the amount of experience & time required, could be hacked massively by studying the mistakes others have made (mentors, books, interviews), and the stuff the've learned the hard way.
Much of the info below wouldn't be new territory for you, but I hope it helps. The points I wanted to emphasize: measure, prevent plateaus, and that less is more.
Losing weight and putting on muscle should come easy initially, since you've had a break for a while.
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Most importantly, 'measure':
- Keep note of your 8-rep max. Make sure you're not pushing yourself too far. Most folks feel embarrassed to add on the tiny 1.5-2 pound weights to what they're currently lifting. But thats thats the sort of increment you should be looking at -- 1.5-2 pounds every other week. This can't go on infinitely.
- Vitals: blood pressure, creatinine levels, pulse rate, pulse deceleration time. If you're doing it right, you should see improvements on some of these. Most folks choose to ignore deceleration time.
- Muscle repair time. How long they stay sore. Things that've reduced repair-time for me: glutamine, multi-vitamins, fish-oil, upping the protein intake (fish etc.).
- Optimize the diet --> repair time --> strength-gains relationship. There certainly is a level of protein intake (differs per person) that'll result in maximized gains & lesser repair time.
- Quality of sleep. Note down how rested you felt when you woke up. Tune your diet/vitamin intake for better sleep & more vivid dreams even.
- Food intake. The exact items you've consumed, vitamins involved, calories (tagged by fat, carb, protein).
- Productivity, through measurable values: pomodoro's, lines of code, emails replied to, calls made, blog posts written etc.
- Energy levels during the day. Times you felt sleepy, irritated, low-on-resolve etc.
- Body function: pains felt, skin irritations, bowel-movements, urination-frequency.
- And obviously, you'd be tracking body weight constantly (preferably on a daily basis). Personally, I wasn't too bothered about tracking inches on my biceps and such.
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While it might seem mundane to track all of that stuff, you'll have a ton of fun coming up with interesting conclusions from the data. If you stick with it for at least 8 weeks -- measuring, analyzing, implementing, improving -- you'd have turned yourself 80% better.
Also,
- For a diet, I'd suggest Tim Ferris's 'slow carb' variant of the low-carb diets that are all over the place. It works quite well. Cheat-days are mandatory.
- My workout consists mostly of compound lifts (squats, bench etc.). I'd set aside a couple of days each week for cardio -- lasting about 25-30mins. Resistance training about 3-4 times a week, and keep switching workouts (you'll find a plethora of interesting ones at the bodybuilding forums) every month or so, to prevent plateauing.