Personally, i would focus on getting your BF% down alot more. bump cardio from 120-130bpm to 130-150 and keep it there the whole time. As far as lifting goes, i'd focus more on getting everything a good pump 2x per week to signal your body that you need to keep the muscle tissue. forget about progressive overload, forget about muscle gains and get into a good deficit. you will redline your cns if your eating in a good deficit and lifting to gain tissue. I was in a similar boat before i started all of this shit and kept kidding myself that i was lean enough when i wasn't. I know this isn't fun advice but it's my .02. Get your abs showing then turn up the sauce. personally i recomped well, but the loss of bf was so slow and eventually stalled. I can now see my abs for first time since highschool and everything I did over the last year is now showing. But i wish i had cut first, and made better gains since i can now afford to actually bulk. trying to gain muscle AND lose weight gave me mid results on both.

I made the mistake of bulking when I was already fat. I've now been cutting since October trying to shift this weight and I still have another month or 2 to go. Get as lean as possible before you bulk.

Lol you're ready to ditch the cut after 2 months? You have a ways to go my man.

If you have any quantifiable muscle mass built and work on cutting slow and maintaining as much of that muscle as possible, your end result will be impressive. Getting lean REVEALS what you have built whilst being fat and able to grow. I'm talking about being able to see abs and obliques (10-15%).

Let's say your arms are 16" now and look "meh". Cut to 15% and those same arms will pop, along with your shoulders and lats.

Single digits is definitely not necessary and EXTREMELY hard to maintain. But is also extremely impressive. Just not sustainable for most mortal men. Low teens is usually a sweet spot.

Keep ur head up and try to get there.

At 26% bodyfat your gains will be suboptimal and you'll convert alot of estrogen and gain alot of fat. Whereas if you cut hard and deep into single digits body fat %(6-8%) and then when you increase the calories to bulk you will make serious quality gains and even when your bulk is over you'll still be fairly lean and not have to cut so hard next time. Theres alot of ways to go about it. But when you can get yourself under 10% bodyfat and lean AF then your body is primed to grow like you've never seen before. This is the difference in an average gym bro and a professional body builder. The deep cut. That's where all the magic happens.

You are currently at 26% BF? I would cut down at least 6-10% before even thinking about bulking. You can easily eat more than 1750 daily, at 215 lbs you are probably burning 2500 (ish) just living. You could eat 2500 “clean” calories (Whole Foods, high protein) and be more comfortable, not always starving, and still lose body fat

Are you getting bloodwork? I’d be worried about your E2 levels with that level of bf%. If your E2 is high, it’s gonna restrict both your bf % loss and lean muscle gain.

If i were you, I’d cut until mid summer, then reassess.