Want to loose inches ... Best to eat to gain muscle or loose

I'm in nearly the same place as you and I think it just depends on what YOU want. I am carrying ALL my excess fat on my belly right now (ok and a BIT on my thighs) and it drives me nuts, I hate it, so I can't stand to not cut at LEAST 5 more lbs of fat because seriously I don't even have a lot of places left to lose it from so its got to be at least SMALLER in 5 lbs.

and I'd say it also depends on how much muscle you've got right now - if you're pretty low on muscle mass I'd say bulk first. If you're already fairly muscular, I'd cut. I've got a goodish muscle base as is right now (Been trying hard to conserve whats there) and like I said - belly is driving me MAD - so I'm cutting still.

I'd personally cut fat down more before going to maintenance phase.

My reasoning is: You'll have amazing muscle strength but it'll be hidden beneath the fat. Yes, muscle burns more calories, but you'd need to put on some serious muscle for it overcome the 10-15lbs that sit ontop of it (I'm assuming that you're ultimately going for a 'toned/sculpted' body shape)

Thats just what I did though, everyone burn fat differently and its up to you - no right or wrong answer, technically speaking.



Edit: Forgot to mention that muscle weighs more than fat, so you may ultimately not lose 15lbs, but decide that you can tone up at, say, 12lbs to go - Which is what I did. I've stopped doing calorie deficits and I've started heavy lifting and mixing 30DS into my martial arts/gym sessions to help that. So far I've lost cms off my hips and waist, even though the scales bounce between 61.2 - 62kg every morning.