This.

I want to look athletic enough so I can put a shirt on without having my belly being the part that stands out the most.

I don't want to look BIG necessarily.

You have to put in so much effort to look big that it just does not happen by accident. If you just want to lose the belly all you have to do is stop eating. No exercise required. Resume eating when your body finishes eating the belly.

I don't want my body to eat up my muscle mass in the process.

You really don't have to worry about accidentally building too much muscle. It takes a ridiculous effort. I'm talking about multiple hours of training a day, 6 days a week. If you go and spend an hour in the gym lifting weights 3x a week and do some cardio before each session, you'll get a nicely shaped body with well defined muscles but you definitely aren't going to be even close to looking like Ronnie Coleman, trust me.

With "eat up" I was talking about losing muscle by not doing any exercise while I'm on a caloric deficit :)

Make sure you're getting enough protein and do some weight training while you're cutting and you shouldn't really lose much, if any, muscle.

I'll go farther, I want to be as strong as I can be, at something near my minimum healthy weight. Weight is wear and tear on my body I don't want. Sadly, I'm very far from that goal... My appetite is just so intense after lifting, it is really hard not to eat big, so I end up dirty bulking and never have cut.

Accidentally becoming too muscular simply does not happen unless you start injecting. Don't worry about it.

I disagree. I never injected anything, but I was a distance cyclist for many years, ending almost 20 years ago and my legs are still mannish. High reps, low weight can build build muscle on a high-carb diet. What I really don't understand is why cyclists get bulky and runners don't.

Have you seen the thighs on sprinters? Maybe an extreme example, but they are often similar to cyclists.

https://www.menshealth.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/tra...

Distance running and sprinting lends itself to completely different physiques.

Just like the dudes competing on the Tour don’t look anything like the guys competing in the velodrome.