What would be your ideal menu within your set limits; do you find it tasty and desirable?
Ten years ago I was teetering at 204 lbs. Even though I was speedskating 3 days a week, the weight was going nowhere. I picked up "The Zone" by Barry Sears and let my body fat percentage dictate my portions. That was June 1996. By November '96 I was at 187. In April '97 I was down to 174. In June '97 I was down to 162. That was as low as I could go skating 100 miles a week. In May '98 I returned to my current job and the time demands made it impossible to keep up the required level of exercise. It's a battle that has to be maintained.
The menu plans offered in Atkins and Sears' Zone books give some good examples. Obviously you need to tailor the choices to your own tastes. My favorite protein sources are grilled beef, grilled chicken, small curd cottage cheese and albacore tuna in spring water. Protein at breakfast is usually scrambled eggs or cottage cheese or a protein shake from the store shelves. The protein element is often the most difficult choice.
I usually work right through lunch, so a "Zone" bar and a diet Mountain Dew fills that slot without breaking the work flow. Dinner is the only meal where my wife and I both have time off. She works graveyard shifts, I work typically from 9 AM to 3 AM with a couple brief breaks for food. Recently I've been having dinner at Applebee's. The grilled chicked/walnut/apple salad with a glass of iced tea fits nicely.
The ideal menu is really a matter of personal tastes. I recommend setting portions by body weight per Sears. I also spent a little time in Peter D'Adamo's "Blood type" diet books. D'Adamo's recommendations my be helpful in a qualitative way. He has food lists of "recommended", "neutral", and "avoid" based on observed food sensitivities. You can easily fashion a menu around "recommended" and "neutral" items in appropriate portions. Most fitness books admit that achieving the desired levels of leanness and muscularity are 85% diet, 15% exercise. I've found that to be the case. The Atkins diet coupled with 30 minutes of exercise 3 times a week was every bit as effective as the Zone plus 100 miles of skating each week.