When I start helping someone with their training and diet, I always ask them what their goals are. Goal setting is an important part of the process, so it's important to make it clear from the start. And the most common goal I get from men is "I want to lose fat and gain muscle".
And I can understand this. Most average people work out so they can get healthy and look better. Something that losing fat and gaining muscle will help you with. But I hate to be the bearer of bad news when it comes to this. While there are some genetically gifted people who would be able to lose fat and gain muscle all day, it is not a realistic goal for most.
You see, while you may lose fat and gain muscle when you first begin training, it won't last for long. This is because you have to eat less calories than you use to lose weight, but you need to eat more calories than you use to put on weight. So, it is really hard, if at all possible to lose fat and gain muscle.
What you need to do instead is work out which one you would rather focus on and do it in a cycle. If you are overweight, then lose some fat first, then begin to add some muscle. If you are skinny, add some muscle first, then get ripped, it will be much easier than doing it the other way around.
You see, adding muscle will actually burn calories on it's own, so you will be burning fat just by sitting around. It's estimated that 1kg of muscle burns around 50 calories, so that will make your fat loss efforts much easier.
So I definitely recommend trying to add some muscle to your frame if you don't have much already. However, if you are overweight and put on weight easily, you would be better to focus on losing fat first, then building some more muscle, then focusing on losing fat again.
I hope all this makes sense. I know it may suck for a few of you, who have been told that you could easily lose fat and gain muscle, but I'm afraid, unless you're one of the gifted minority, it's just not gonna happen. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I tell it how it is.
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