I'm "skinny fat" how can i gain muscle but lose fat?

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As a guy, I have similar goals as you. Lifting can define areas but nothing is really happening to the stomach.

The advice I've been given and have been trying to use is to limit sugars as it can cause the body to limit fat burning.

Also, I was told the focus to lose the stomach area is:
DCBA:
Diet
Cardio
Building Muscle
Abdominal Exercises

You can do it and I definitely will be watching to see the advice. Keep up the great work!

strength train, with a concentration on barbell exercises.

Dead lifts, weighted squats and Swiss ball crunches are my ab moves. Planks for as you can hold the form are also good, though boring. My carpet is only interesting for a couple of seconds.

I have the same stats too except for age. My abs are rock hard....under the fat. I need to get rid of the layer of fat, I guess. I'm one of those people who seems to gain all my weight on the stomach. The rest of me is thin (like, my arms and legs are actually bony). Trying to lose a few pounds (like only 3 or 4) to see if that helps, just hoping it all comes off the belly.

This is my issues as well. I carry most of my fat over my stomach. It is possible to build muscle and lose weight, but it's difficult. The research I have seen suggests the following:

1) Keep the protein - you need that to keep the muscle you have.
2) Watch the carb/fat ratio intake - you need to "trick" your body into going for the stored fat. There's a lot of good material out there that describes how to do this. Example: Low Carbs 4 Days of the Week (Higher Fat), and then do Med/Med ratio two days, and then end on a High Carb/Low Fat ratio the last day. Your body won't think your are "starving" yourself and will minimize fat storage (converting carbs to fat).
3) When doing cardio - always do it in the morning BEFORE you eat. Your body naturally uses carbs first for energy, then uses fat after carbs are low or depleted. If you do cardio in the morning, your body will have used a lot of the carbs in your system to maintain your body while you sleep. With low carbs in your system, your body will then go for the fat deposits for energy.

There's a lot more... but those are three that I am doing to keep growing but watching my body fat percentage.

Work Well. Eat Well. Be Well.

Bryan

You cannot gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously.

Choose one.

The best you can do while losing fat is preserving as much muscle as possible--you do this by consistently eating in a moderate caloric deficit.

On the other end of the spectrum, the best you can do while aiming to gain muscle is to gain as little fat as possible--you do this by consistently eating in a moderate caloric surplus. That being said, it's impossible to gain absolutely no fat while eating in a surplus.

This book has helped me a lot in understanding how nutrition works.

http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Curves-Womans-Building-Better/dp/1936608642

My understanding is that if you are on maintenance calories (ie you don't gain or lose scale weight) you can change your body composition ie lose fat and gain muscle. Losing the belly fat is a case of reducing overall body fat, unfortunately ab exercises will do nothing for it as you can't spot reduce fat. That's not to say ab exercises are bad, you still need to do them in order to strengthen your core, but killing them isn't really going to achieve much. Personally I don't do many ab exercises. My programme contains enough deadlifting and squatting which strengthen the core anyway.

It's not really about your weight. What matters is your body fat percentage. As you exercise you gain weight from the muscle you are gaining and the diet you are eating to grow muscle but as long as you gain more muscle than fat you will look leaner and your stomach will flatten out. Basically don't concentrate so much on the weight your scale is showing you and don't be alarmed if you see it go up. Your weight can go up but as long as your body fat percentage goes down (from gaining more muscle than fat) you'll get the results you want.

No matter how you try you can not build muscle and loose fat at the same time. Stick to one and follow it. I am currently skinny fat as well. 5'7, 140 lb male. I choose to take the approach of bulking up first then cutting later on.