Consider this too:
In 2016 I could eat 5500 cals a day.
But continued losing body fat as I steadily gained muscle.
2 reasons for this, instead of eating barely enough calories to rebuild my muscle and rebuild it bigger, I ate more than enough calories to build muscle, but WALKED 8 hours a day for my job. I also never skipped workouts, did HIIT type training(change of T-shirt needed type training where you do 1:45 workout in 55min)
2nd reason is drugs.
Test never below 250, Trest cruise, fast acting insulin, and potent Oral Dht’s.
You could take the recomp approach and ENSURE you are building muscle but do so much activity, that your body will be anabolic but forced to peel muscle off from drugs and energy expenditure.
I don’t care if it’s old school bodybuilding thinking, IIFYM and calories in vs calories out aside, you can do more when your carbs are yams, brown rice, and veggies than if you just ate your days carbs in Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Drugs will make things possible that aren’t. And if you want badly enough to be ripped and put more muscle on concurrently, it’s just a matter of how tenacious you are about it. It can be done, I’ve seen it.