It's really not about any fitness schedule or specific diet. Honestly, every one of those 4 week abs program or fitness machine are pretty much the same because if you're exercising every day for a long time then you're going to see results no matter what you do. I would just recommend you start out with free weights (dumbbells, plates, pull-up bar) and find some good exercises for the muscles you want to develop. One very important and often overlooked step in a workout is the beginning and end parts. I very strongly recommend you (as a guy just starting to really work at it) run for at least a mile before every workout, or at least build up to running at least a mile if you can't at first. After running, you stretch for a minimum of 5 minutes. Stretch shoulders, legs, back (very important), arms, and wrists and ankles. Then you can start your workout. After you finish, be sure to run a cooldown, for like a quarter of a mile and very slowly. Then, stretch for five more minutes, and that's it. This is go a LONG way to helping your muscle recovering and it will build your cardio strength and flexibility which are just as important as muscle. Also, in my experience, this cuts down significantly on muscle soreness the next few days. Yeah, if you're still reading, good job. Now onto diet. Instead of constricting yourself to a very small group of untasty foods (a diet which people don't do so well with), just cut out one or two major unhealthy things. This is much easier to keep in the long run. I'd suggest something like cutting out all soda (replace it with fruit2O or something zero calorie), no more frozen foods, eat some fresh fruit every day. Just one of these will do for now. The entire point of exercise is to make your body think that you are constantly experiencing a lot of muscle heavily activity, so it will grow more muscle so you can work less. There is no trick, just simple rules. Eat less, do more. That's really all it is.