Should I be attempting recomp yet?

It is definately possible to loose weight and build muscle. The key is to make sure you are resistant training while maintaining a calorie deflict. The more muscle the more calories you will burn. In fact, resistant training will increase weight (fat) loss if you are eating properly for your body. Cardiovascular exercise is also important for metabolism, calorie burning and over all health. Women, in general do not gain as much muscle as many fear unless you are training for it.
It all comes down to diet for weight loss and the exercise with diet is what tones and reshapes your body. Common mistakes are over estimating how many calories are burned (Even with apps, fitbits, etc), over compensating with food, not doing enough resistance and skimping on cardio too much.
My late fiance was a body builder and we both did competitions together. I did not "bulk up" then "Cut down" like body builders do. I watched my diet, ran and did cardio plus a lot of weight training.
Any weight fluctuations can/ usually are water. You may want to consider finding a reputable source for assesing body composition. This ideally should be done by a highly skilled professional. I do not use the hand held or the scales because the margin of error. It could cost a few dollars but knowing can make a huge difference.

My career is working in the field of exercise, nutrition and supplements. I worked actively as a personal trainer for over a for a decade, nutrition coaching and now work with supplements.

Hannahwalksfar wrote: »

I’m still 10-12kg from my goal of mid range 60kg. Aiming for about 65-66. It’s where I was my healthiest. I’m currently 75-77kg atm depending on radical weight fluctuations as I take up new workout programs. I’m still quite high body fat but how high I’m not sure. Im really wanting to build muscle and tone up considerably but I’m worried that will impede my weightloss considerably. How would I do this? Can it be done?

Physical activity never hurts. It might not be needed for weight loss, but it absolutely helps both with help and looks. If you are thinking like visible muscles, abs etc, no, this is not going to happen anytime soon, but, still you can look more "firm" even with having fat.

Yes you should be lifting while you lose, it's the stringest signal to your body to preserve your lean mass as you diet.
Maybe you will add some muscle but even if you don't you will still be the best version of you possible while you are losing and also when you get to goal weight. There is no reason to wait and a lot of good reasons to start immediately.
Do the right things and let the results be whatever they are, the better your training the better your results.

No weight training in a calorie deficit cannot stop you losing fat / losing weight over an extended period of time - how could it? If you sustain a negative calorie balance you have to be getting smaller.

BTW - recomp is normally used to describe adding muscle / losing body fat while approximately maintaining your current weight. With a 10 - 12 kg to lose you are doing what is more usually described as cutting (having a significant calorie deficit).

If you're worried that you'll gain so much muscle so quickly that it will wipe out weight loss, that will not be a problem. For a woman, a really good muscle-mass gain under near-perfect conditions would be around a quarter pound of new muscle tissue per week. Near-perfect conditions include relative youth, genetic gifts, a sound progressive weight training program performed consistently, on-point nutrition (including adequate protein, but not just that), and a calorie surplus. On the flip side, a quarter pound of fat loss would be about the slowest possible observable rate, and observing it would require weeks to months of observation, ideally with a trending app.

I'd encourage you to begin weight training as soon as you can reasonably fit it in. It will very likely make you stronger quickly (at first, largely through neuromuscular adaptation, which is essentially better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers), and improve your appearance at any weight (again, even before much mass gain, through things like improved posture and a bit of a pump).

You may gain some water weight for muscle repair, but your continuing weight loss will outpace it with time. Many women report losing that water weight after a period of time; I seem to gain only a couple of otherwise-unexplained pounds when I start, and I hang onto them until I stop. (I don't weight train as much as would be best for me; when I do, I usually start in my rowing off-season, and stop again in a few months when the next season starts).

I sometimes think the term "recomp" does people a disservice. If you think of it as "getting in better shape", then it should be obvious that it's something people have been doing for decades by lifting (among other modalities) regardless of whether they were losing, gaining, or holding steady in overall body weight.

"Recomp" is just the specific term for recomposition, gaining muscle mass (very slowly), while holding overall body weight steady or nearly so, which logically requires losing fat (very slowly). Historically, that scenario has probably been the most common case of "getting in shape", or maybe a close second to losing weight while simultaneously "getting in shape".

"Getting in shape" is possible alongside any weight-management goal, it's just that the realistic rate at which muscle growth happens will vary under those different conditions.

eat a higher amount of protein and lift heavy. i don't know that while eating at a deficit this would technically be recomp, but you can certainly keep from losing muscle and even put on some muscle, and that never hurts.