Help from experienced people? Skinny fat syndrome.

AliceDark

Don't overthink it. Eat at maintenance for awhile and start lifting. Give yourself a little bit of leeway on the scale -- maybe 5 pounds or so -- and see how your body changes in 3 months or so.

sazzyb_

than you so much, everyone's been very helpful!
now this all makes sense, but what about amount?

My main question now: is it possible to build lean muscle on maintenance, and let said muscle burn off fat?
I'm willing to do whatever workouts I need to, I have access to a free college gym, even though I commute XD

Yep you can! I've been doing so for the past 4 months and seeing amazing results. Just stick to a reasonable number of calories, lift heavy and eat a lot of protein

Caged_Heat

This article has appeared on the Message Boards and appears to be well accepted. I've been wrestling with what to do next. Like you, so far my goals have always been to lose weight (54 pounds in 3 years). Although I've been in the gym a while now, my stamina has steadily decreased because my workouts have demanded more from me while still eating at a calorie deficit.

So I had decided it's time to bulk but was paranoid about messing it up and wasting the calories on "weak" workouts. I read this last night, which prompted me to decide on calorie maintenance for 8-10 weeks while doing the Power Muscle Burn program to make strength gains. Then decide about bulking after that.

From the article:
"Unfortunately the body does not want to grow big muscles with extra calories that you eat. Otherwise there would be no fat people, just a whole bunch of swole folks. In order to grow bigger muscles you have to somehow “tell” your body to do so, and do so efficiently.

"This is where being strong comes in.

"The body adapts to strength training at first through your nervous system, using the muscle you have more efficiently, and by increasing the number of nuclei in the muscles (which itself does not contribute to size). This initial adaptation acts as a foundation that will eventually allow hypertrophy to occur. [1]

"When you first start strength training, the body just isn’t ready to grow bigger muscles efficiently."

http://strengthunbound.com/bulking-complete-guide-for-beginners/