Thanks a bunch for the tips. Keeping the weight back on my heels is actually something I improved today, but definitely still need to get more comfortable with it.

I like all those deadlift tips too, except I'm not totally sure about the hip height. Are you sure my hips are too low? To me it looks exactly like the picture in the book, and I also thought lower hips would help keep the back up and arched and less prone to rounding.

And definitely should narrow my stance on everything.

And yea, Israel was with Birthright. You go on it or just know about it?

EDIT: regarding the calories, I don't really care too much about how effective my workouts are at this point. I'm sick of not having any of my diets work, I've been between 185 and 190 for like 6 months now, and I just need to thin out a bit.

Here's a 2 minute video by Rippetoe explaining how to set-up for the deadlift properly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syt7A...eature=related

If you start with the bar an inch from your shins and bend your knees until the shins touch the bar, everything will take care of itself.

Have you looked into intermittent fasting for diet? www.leangains.com
Lots of good info on that site. Although if you are set on eating 1k cals a day you should at least do a PSMF.

I went on the January Birthright trip in 2008 with Oranim. Amazing time.

Awesome thanks for the info, can't wait for my next attempt at squats on Mon and deadlifts on Wed.

Not totally sure if PSMF is what I'm doing or if it's something more complicated, but I'm going to get about 150g of protein, going to be eating tons of spinach, peppers, and celery, and gonna be taking a multi + fish oil. I've been linked to leangains before but never had time to read it for some reason, will definitely check it out today/night.

First day of the diet when all is said and done will be: 2 whey shakes, salad with spinach, green pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, can of tuna, a pwo apple, chicken breast for dinner, and celery for snacking.

Squat: 265 (+5)

Feels great. Narrowed my stance a bit as recommended and didn't seem to hinder my strength so that's cool.

Press: 150 (+5)

Did 15 reps, but barely. Form broke a bit, will repeat 150 on Friday.

Pull-ups: 8, 8, 5 (-3)

Felt drained the whole time. Could either be an off day or the first time I'm feeling weak from the diet. I hope it's the latter.

Weight: 184

Meaningless, but sweet.

Squats: 3x5 @ 270 (+5)

Felt great. 275 next time.

Bench: 3x5 @ 225 (+5)

Felt decent. It was about here that a lack of stamina started to kick in. Mad tired. Still think I should go for 230 next time.

Deadlift: 1x5 @ 320 (+5)

Felt good. Racking 3 45's on each side still feels badass, but now it's badass + mad tiring.

Couldn't be more pleased with today's results. Gonna keep it up. Thinking I'm gonna try and hang out at the frat house and NOT drink this weekend, that's how motivated I am.

Have you tried tacking your cals and macros at livestrong? Its great. Make sure you track the booze too bc its surprising how much it can mean in a diet. Im not sure how old you are but I saw fraT house so ill guess college. I wouldn't have toned down my drink in college for body building goals but for sure you won't lose weight and get adiquate nutrients with lots of drinking. You'll over shoot on cals or have to skimp on nutrition. Imo lift eaqt and drink just don't worry about weightg.

Yea back when I was eating more food at about 1500-1800 cals per day I used livestrong a bit to plan that out (btw, tried both fitday and livestrong, and livestrong is way better). Now I think I'm knowledgeable enough to estimate calories and even macro composition of many foods without looking it up.

I'm in my first year of grad school (at the same school I went to undergrad), 22 years old, so I've had my partying time and feel that I can hang out with my buddies and not miss too much by not drinking every night. Plus I'm still gonna go on spring break which it'd be nice to be cut for

Squat: 3x5 @ 275

Felt ok, struggled with the 15th rep. More comments on what I'm currently thinking of doing on Monday will be at the end.

Press: 1x5 @ 150, 1x5 @ 145, 1x5 @ 140

Each set was barely completed. Felt awful. Getting kinda tired during the workouts I think...

Chin-ups: 10, 7, 6

Grip slipping. Feeling dizzy.

So I'm thinking of making my first change in my workout and dropping squats to 2 sets. Hopefully this will allow me to do 280 for all 10 reps next time, as well as give me a bit more energy for the rest of the workout. Comments on this would be sweet

Rippetoe would be pissed. He says follow it to the T or its not SS. If you feel tired during your workout its prob bcb you aren't eating enough. I would keep up w livestrong imo and find a realy great peri-workout nutrition protocol and use it. I drink surge recovery after workouts and I carb cycle/calorie cycle to some extent. On days that I work out I eat 500ish more cals and eat 40/40/20 p/c/f. When you google surge work out fuel, the site that sells it also has a ton of free articles and a forum that might help.

Imo a cut isn't a terrible thing (its up to you) but SS is just about making max strength gains as a noob and not neccisarily physique oriented. Bc in SS you are always increasing weight a cut becomes tough bc its so jard to keep stength on a cal deficite. If cutting I would calculate maintenance cals and substract 259, and starrt there. Try to eat 40/30/30 and stay consistent. Drop 250 cals a week. Don't get all crazy right off the bat. If you are not totally sedentary aside from lifting then 1800 is not enough.

Rippetoe would probably be pissed that I actually care about lowering my bf%, I'm sure there's a lot we'd disagree on.

Not sure what you're trying to tell me... my diet is fixed right now. I'm decreasing squat volume so that I can have an overall more intense workout (since I'm not eating enough to have a fully intense workout with full squat volume), which will better maintain strength. Do you disagree?

I'm saying do more research on diet, and for now i would eat enough on work out days to do the full work out and to eat less on non-workout days.

Did a refeed Saturday night to reset my leptin and other hormones, ready for another week of my PSMF.

Squat: 2x5 @ 280

Felt great, glad I cut out the 3rd set, I think it definitely helped my bench.

Bench: 3x5 @ 230

Beautiful.

Pull-ups: 8, 8, 6

Pull-ups and chin-ups exhaust me, I dunno why. But I did one more rep than last Monday...

Weight: 183

**** my body, I can't believe 700 cals is what I have to do to lose 1 lb per week. But sweet, I'm finally losing weight I guess...

Squat: 2x5 @ 275

Dropped 5 lbs because I shoveled crazy amounts of snow and ice so that I could buy food and go to the gym.

Press: 3x5 @ 135

Reset again I guess. I'll definitely try microloading this time.

Deadlift: 1x5 @ 320

Repeated 320 because I shoveled crazy amounts of snow and ice so that I could buy food and go to the gym.

Squat: 2x5 @ 275

Bench: 1x5 @ 230, 2x5 @ 225

My form sucks; I can't figure out the shoulder and back arching stuff. Also was reluctant to move up without a spotter, but good thing I didn't' because I couldn't even maintain.

Chin-ups: 10, 8, 6

Standard.

Squat: 2x5 @ 280

Press: 3x5 @ 140

Pull-ups: 8, 7, 6