PAstudent

I don't see how you can't put on muscle now...that doesn't make any sense that they don't see it happening until you lose more fat. If anything you'd wanna incorporate those strength training workouts so you can have the muscle to burn the fat off better and possibly faster too. Personally that's not a personal trainer I'd go with. Hope you find a good balance hon.

Thanks! I am definitely stronger through the strength training I've been doing since 2 weeks post op so there's probably some small level of muscle gain. I'm really just focusing on maintaining what muscle I have now (which is probably significant considering my body is used to carrying 250 lbs around haha)

The issue is that for the kind of muscle gains I want, the general consensus is that the conditions needed to build muscle are very similar to gaining fat (excess calories, but with lean meats and complex carbs). You need the extra calories to fuel your workouts and also need the extra calories and carbs to give your body energy to repair itself.
I'd like to eventually see changes along the lines of this: