Currently, I am 5′11, 215lbs, and my bench max is 365lbs. I don’t specifically target bench over other muscles, so this bench max is indicative of my overall upper body strength.

Although most of my weight is from muscle mass, I do have fat I can lose. Also, I could stand to lose some muscle, but I want to keep as much as possible. Ideally I want to weigh 190lbs or so. I doubt I have enough fat I can reasonably lose to get down to 190 soley by losing fat, so I probably would have to lose 5-7lbs of muscle also. Still, I want to limit my muscle loss and maximize my fat loss. In the past, if I have ever tried to lose fat I have not been pleased with my ratio of fat to muscle lost. Whereas I’d preferably want something like 3lbs of fat per 1lb muscle, its more like 3lbs muscle per 1lb fat (my estimation based on how much weaker I get compared to how much weight I have lost)

Here is the plan. I currently lift 4-6 day a week. I think I am going to try to add 45 minutes of consecutive cardio (probably something like 3 sets of 5 min punching bag with 3 min jumping rope in between, then finish with 20 min run, I would do this variety mainly so I don’t get bored), which although I should be doing, I have not been. As for my diet I currently eat like crap, and am almost certainly running a calorie surplus. I figure if I want to lose weight and keep muscle I need to eat a lot better and maintain a fairly small calorie deficit. Probably going to try for 4-5 small meals a day, including 3 servings of vergetables/fruit each day. For two of those meals I will probably have chicken, for one maybe tuna (I have heard eating tuna daily is no good because you might get too much mercury, can anyone confirm or deny this). I might look into lean ground beef as another entree for one of the meals. Any turkey I find has too much sodium, so thats a no go. Salmon is too expensive. Any other nutrition suggestions?

I am thinking if I really want to maintain muscle while losing weight, this will have to be a slow process. So, I would probably be happy with losing 1lb a week, as long as that pound is around 75% fat. Has what I have laid out look good? Any other advice?