Questions for women lifting heavy...

I am wanting to lose some more body fat---and tone up the muscles I already have. Should I be eating at a deficit with heavy lifting OR should I be eating at maintenance while heavy lifting?

To lose body fat while minimizing muscle loss, you have to eat at a deficit with sufficient protein intake to support your muscles plus cardio & heavy weight lifting

Can someone answer these questions for me?

1) What does heavy lifting at a calorie deficit do?
2) What does heavy lifting eating at maintenance do?
3) I imagine eating at a surplus while heavy lifting builds muscle, but how much of a calorie surplus?

1. To minimize muscle loss since our bodies when in deficit would get rid of our muscles if not being used
2. To maintain our muscle in its peak condition. See we need to constantly train our muscles not only for faster metabolism but also to prevent injuries, osteoperosis, posture & to keep our body stronger
3. That will depend but personally whenever I'm in bulking phase, I eat around 200-500 cals above my TDEE

I just don't want to bulk up. I just bought a whole new wardrobe and everything fits perfect. I just want to lose more body fat and tone up what I do have. Any help would be appreciated. I just want to understand how much I should eat while heavy lifting .

Don't worry about bulking up. Yes you may gain some temporary gains in inches & pounds because of water retention since our muscles are holding onto water after each weight training session but eventually it will go away. Also when we gain muscle, we also gain some fat along with it which makes us look a bit bigger & we cannot avoid that but we can minimize fat gain by cardio. Do not neglect cardio when in bulking phase (aka muscle building) however cardio days needs to be reduced when you want to build muscle. Moreover once you are happy with the muscle gain then its time to cut (aka fat loss) to reveal the muscle thus you will look smaller, not bulky. It is the fat that makes us bulky.

EDIT: our hormonal make-up makes it impossible for us to gain big muscles like a man can since women don't have equal amounts of testosterone levels to a man in order to build huge muscles. Now you may be wondering why some women say they have the genes to bulk-up easily. First of all, these types of women are very rare so you have tiny chance to be one of those people & even if you happened to be one of them, still you won't get big like a man unless you take steroids.