Down to 213.5 as of today. Holla.

And that's after a week of being out of town and not eating properly. Not that I ate badly, but I had to eat like a normal person (only 2-3 big meals a day) rather than my usual 5-6 meals a day. That was hard and made me feel drained a lot of the time. I also missed a couple workouts. Yikes.

It seems like you're doing a good job of remaining healthy enough to lose some weight, so how about posting some of your lifts?

Keep it up! Nice work.

Ok.

I'm not really sure what my 1RM maxes are, but I'll post what I do for 5x5 on days where I pyramid up with squats and bench:

Squat
3x45 just the bar warmup
5x135 warmup (kind of)
5x155
5x185
5x200
5x215

Bench
5x45 just the bar warmup
5x115
5x125
5x135
5x145
5x160

Military Press
4x5x90ish

Barbell Rows
5x5x155

Deadlifts
5x135
5x155
5x175
5x200
5x225

Deads are low... I know. Still working on form on all exercises, especially deads and squats. Really need to get my lifts up soon.

As for this week I skipped every workout and didn't eat as well as I normally do (vacationing). I did, however, stay away from a lot of garbage foods and still ate relatively healthy. I lost 2.5 lbs and I am down to 211 lbs

really impressive. keep up the good work!

Thanks! As I said before, it is nice to see all the encouraging words on here.

Was wondering, specifically, what you guys thought of my lifts considering the weight loss? Am I being too ambitious while cutting to push them much higher than that?

Wow. Weighed in today at 205.5. That's a 5.5 lb loss in the last 6 days, and I am pretty sure it's not a water weight low for me (I weighed in at 206 yesterday, 207 the day before, etc).

That's a total loss of 39.5 lbs since May 10th. A big milestone for me. My goal was to be at 205 by September 1st and, erm, I think I'll get that *knocks on wood*.

I cheated a lot in the last 6 days too. I actually had pasta one night (albeit not much) and have been eating out a lot. Still attempting to eat as good as possible, but I've had a bit more bread than I'd like. I'm also missing workouts all over the place due to real life commitments. Oh well. I should be back on a solid routine next week.

Any thoughts on my lifts?

Congrats on the weight loss. Don't get complacent due to the good numbers!

you have really good lift numbers, nice work.

Respectable. Keep it up. Don't expect massive gains on your lifts, but at your training age, you should still make gains without gaining muscle. Just keep trying to go up a little at a time. Doing well so far. You should smash past 200lbs by the look of it.

also you will find that you will look better at around 175 at that height. i just don't buy the idea that 5'9 guys have an ideal bodyweight of 200 unless they are shredded up athletes.

Yeah when I said around 200 was my optimal weight I was wrong. Not even close. Just the ignorance of a fatty, I suppose.

Down to 202.5 as of today. That's a total weight loss of 43.5 lbs or 17.8 % of my total weight.

Getting kinda bored with my exercise regimen. Looking at mixing things up soon. May move to the SS routine from the 5x5 and start incorporating more "active sports" (such as basketball, racquet ball, etc) to replace some of my cardio.

As always, thanks for the kind words and encouragement. I really appreciate it, and they do mean a lot to me.

I can't believe I only got around to reading this thread for the first time today. Terrific stuff OP, it's great to see progress and commitment over an extended period of time, you're doing really really well.

I can empathise with the desire to change up the exercise routine, it can get a bit boring doing the same rotation of things all the time. I think I'm going to try and get some 'active sports' on the agenda too, a bit of competition whilst playing and suddenly an hour of great exercise has passed and you've enjoyed it too.

Keep up the good work.