Shall I lose the minor amount of fat first before I begin bodybuilding?

I'm a guy of 5' 6" tall, 164lbs, age 24.

Have a little bit of a stomach fat/beer gut that sticks out, otherwise no fat anywhere else.

For the past 3-5 months I've been doing light cardio to lose the calories/fat. Thing is, I want to start building some muscles as soon as possible for a certain holiday around in around 10-11 months time.

Shall I lose the minor fat first before I begin, or shall I start it anyway? Is it even beneficial to having a little amount of fat when going into bodybuilding?

Thanks in advance.


  

Start weight training now.  Building muscle helps you lose fat.  The only time excess fat helps in weight training is in powerlifting, olympic and strongman.  But even then you have competitors in those fields with excellent physiques (Mairus Pudzianowski, for example).

http://www.discussbodybuilding.com/When_to_bulk_and_when_to_cut/m_241537/tm.htm
 
I have the same issue.  I was advised to do about a month's worth of bulking.  It's not much, only 4 pounds.  Besides, what you want to do is lose body fat so gaining or losing weight shouldn't make you apprehensive.
 
You could, in fact, gain 4 pounds and look better because you could and probably will lower your body fat %.  That is a great and easy way to kick things off.  From then on you might want to consider a cut, but it's all up to you.
 
If you ask me, you really want to lose the gut, and I'm no experienced in bulking, but am pretty sure you'd get frustrated because while gaining muscle helps you burn fat, you are always going to have some fat during a bulk. 
 
I'll go ahead and ask the standard questions.  Whats your training like and what is your diet like?  What is your body fat %? 
 
It's all up to you, but you can basically either bulk or cut.  My personal decision is to go on a cut because of my current BF%.  That should really be the determining factor.  Don't go by "I have a big gut but am skinny everywhere else."  Even with thing people, they can have high BF% which is not good, and is how you end up with a gut in the first place. 
 
To be honest, I don't have a great answer for you.  As you can see, I'm making the same decision myself right now.  However, if you can figure out what your lean weigh and fat weights are, then you can guage what you want to do.  If your lean weight is really low then you might want to build muscle and go on a bulk and have a really clean diet so as to not add on any fat.
 
It's going to take some research, but it'll become a lot more clear soon.  I still am not  a know-it-all but know enough that the most important thing is to measure your BF%.  That's how you measure success and failure.  When your fat% goes up, for most beginners, that's bad and you have to change something in either your workout or your diet.  So find out that, and I guarantee your life will be changed.  If you can find out exactly how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight, you can figure out how much to eat to either bulk or cut.  Extremely vital in doing this, otherwise it draws out the proccess of trial and error.

ORIGINAL: danmac75
I'll go ahead and ask the standard questions.  Whats your training like and what is your diet like?  What is your body fat %?

Cardio training is stuff like short rides on the exercise bike and running, but rather erratic as I don't have a set plan - I train when I have time and feel like it...

As for my body fat %, I don't know it, and currently I do not know how to work it out either.

I'm just starting out on this bodybuilding thing, so if you or someone could direct me to all the important mathmatical technical stuff (like working out BF %, gains, losses, etc.) would be a good help.

Thanks in advance.

This link should explain caliper testing to find body fat percentage.
 
http://www.linear-software.com/online.html
 
YOu can buy calipers ranging anywhere from $20 to $200.  A Lange caliper will go fo about 200.  More accurate because of the spring loaded action.  There's tons of articles about measuring BF% on this website as well if you're curious as to how it works and why it works. 
 
You can also do a search for how to determine it using a tape measure.  That's probably the cheapest way and easiest for a beginner, but least accurate.  It's not accurate in terms of calculating your actual body fat percentage, but i'm sure it's accurate in determining actual changes in body fat %, if that makes sense to you.
 
I, personally, just went to a local university for hydrostatic weighing.  Thats when they weigh you as normal, then weigh you under water.  Fat floats, so whatever you weigh under water is your lean body mass.  Subtract LBM from total body weight and you have your fat weight.  Divide your BF% by your total body weight and you have your BF%.  This is the most accurate method, and I highly reccommend it for at least the first time.  I've never seen anyone reccommend it as vehemently as I do, but it will save time in trying to figure out how many calories your body needs to maintain, gain weight, and lose weight.  Weight meaning either gain muscle or lose fat, ideally.
 
That's the whole point.  Figuring out how many calories your body needs.  You'll need to track it along the whole road to fitness as well, because as your body composition changes, so will your caloric needs.  The Hydrostatic test cost me $40 and, like I said, is a long term thing.  I probably won't go back for another 3-4 months.  It gives me some added confidence when figuring out my diet, because I know that if when I go back I don't have the results I expected, it's that much less likely that I was just eating the wrong amount of calories, and it's more likely I was doing something else wrong like eating the wrong types of food. 
 
 
That's the root of all the mathematical stuff.  I'd reccommend Danmirage's primers for Losing Fat and Gaining Mass.  I'm not going to lie, all this stuff is pretty technical, but don't let it scare you.  Sometimes it can seem like "Wow, that's so strict that I don't even think I can follow that."  Most people make compromises and have certain things they have to do that technically aren't so good (like eat certain foods, in moderation) but are good for them in the long run in the sense that these not-so-good habits at least keep them in the game overall.  If you hate broccoli and have to put a little salt on it, so be it.  Just don't do it all the time, ya know what I mean? 
 
And then, you can guage how important it is you eat a perfectly clean diet by checking your BF% regularly, comparing it to your goals, and making a decision. 
 
The main thing to remember is that what you want to do is change your body composition, not just lose or gain weight.  If that was it, it'd be easy.  You could just eat 3 tv dinners a day, making sure your calories are half of what you need, and go running every night.  You'd lose a lotof weight, but it'd mostly be muscle, and then you'd be shooting your metabolism down, since muscle = metabolism.   Furthermore, you'd look the same only smaller, still have the gut, just weigh less.   Likewise, if you wanted to gain weight and just ate fast food way over your needs, you'd gain weight but it'd mostly be fat, and the same thing would happen.
 
See how rapid weight loss is so bad?  It's basically as bad if not worse than unrestricted weight gain.  Its all about controlling how your body changes on your terms.  So be careful when starting out, because you'll want fast results and will be tempted to starve yourself and do too much cardio.  By all means, work out!  But make sure you're eating only 500 calories less then your daily needs, max.  Don't go any less than that or your body starts storing food as fat, because it thinks you can't "find food" - it's a survival mechanism from our ancestors.
 
Sorry to be longwinded.  Hope this helps.  Read Danmirage's articles, stay informed.  Knowledge is power.  Stay in school, and don't do drugs.