Good morning,
I am an avid lurker here and I try to answers that I feel confidently knowledgeable about to answer but after much reading between answers to my own questions, other questions, and comments, I am more unsure than ever of how I should proceed.
Let me put my goal into focus: to lose fat weight.
Right now I am not interested really in strength training even though I've been doing stronglifts.
I guess the biggest thing I'm skeptical or unsure about is what ACTIVITY I should be doing(cardio? HIIT cardio?)to most effectively lose fat weight.
I love the relative efficiency of StrongLifts but as I said I am a skeptic of what it claims. The biggest ones are "gain muscle while burning fat", "your body will be forced to pack on muscle to squat 300lb" , "more strength = more muscle". I'm not going to lie; the latter two claims sound like total broscience and yes I know that SL 5x5 is a sort of derivative of other 5x5s like Starting Strength. I have hit a 250lb PR squat doing it, but, at weight this heavy, my lifts seem to stall and plateau all over the place even though I have deloaded and plateaued.
To me, it doesn't scientifically make sense that one could actually gain strength on SL 5x5 that isn't just a vast amount of "newb gains" since you technically don't actually pack on weight, whether it's muscle or fat, unless you eat over maintenance. So if you're not eating over maintenance how can you reasonably sustain any kind of strength gaining progression? I feel like my diet is what has really hindered my progress on SL 5x5, since, to be totally honest I just don't eat that much. But now that I recognize that my primary goal right now is to lose fat weight, is a restricted diet with a strength training program even really the most efficient way to go if I'm not even really setting myself up to gain that strength? I understand the principals of intensity and volume but just don't feel like they apply the same to individuals who actually are primarily concerned with losing fat weight if you take into consideration the actual science behind weight gain and weight loss.
One of my other issues is my diet I believe. My TDEE is calculated to be 2439 calories/day, which if you take off 20% makes it 1952. I eat below 1952 every day but don't see any weight loss and I think it's because my body is used to what I eat. I consume around 1500 calories a day if I'm lucky. I tend to only eat when I'm hungry and I don't really load up much on junk food. But I'm still quite chunky. So this + the fact that my gains on SL continuously stall and plateau makes me wonder if I should be switching to HIIT cardio to reduce fat weight.
What do you guys think?
edit:
I do appreciate both answers so far and they make sense but I guess I'm just looking for something more grounded as maybe an acceptable method. I keep googling and googling and googling things like "stronglifts fat loss" and "5/3/1 fat loss" and keep seeing posts from guys who say: "No offense man but aiming for strength while losing fat is just going to be an exercise in futility in both areas" or "If you're going to cut, then cut, if you're going to bulk, bulk" or "trying to add strength while cutting sounds like a bad idea to me". So I just don't know what really to do.
The reason I'm so focused on finding something more grounded is because I keep reading that you need the intensity. Well I can't get stronger if I'm mostly attempting to cut which undermines the intensity. So does that mean I should cut and focus on HIIT cardio 5xWeek and then bulk up?