Confused about tracking my pounds?

I wouldn't track your pounds- just your inches. Especially if you're not trying to "lose weight" but are trying to build muscle. Tracking pounds is unnecessary for you! Good luck!

if you want to lose fat and build muscle, but not really talking about losing weight, eat your tdee (set your deficit to 0) and lift weights.

I think you can set you goals to 0lbs /week lost.

If you want to build muscle you need to eat a surplus. This means that you will gain fat along with the muscle (the inverse is true for calorie deficits). You can minimize the fat gain by following a protocol like lean gains and eating clean foods, but some fat gain is inevitable.

Most people trying to build muscle go through bulking phases followed by cutting phases. This involves a period where you eat a surplus of calories and put on both fat and muscle, followed by a period where you eat a deficit and cut fat. Done correctly, this can have very good results, but it takes time, patience and dedication.

The basic recipe for bulking is to eat 500 calories above maintenance per day, 1g of protein per lb of lean body weight and keep fat calories down to about 20% of your total calories.

You should track your weight while bulking. You should not expect to gain more than 0.5lbs of muscle per week. Everything over 0.5lbs of gain is fat or water. You can expect to see a significant weight gain at the start of a bulking phase from increased water retention in your muscles. This serves both as protection for your muscles and joints and also increases glycogen storage. This should stabilize after a few weeks, but you can still expect to see weight fluctuations of up to 3lbs per day depending on how much water you're retaining.