When to start cutting for the summer (weightlifting)?

If you've put on a significant amount of fat in your first 6 months, you've done it all wrong tbh. Eating too much for a beginner, you can gain strength and muscle just from eating at maintenance even if you're female. Never ideal to be cutting in your newb gains phase I say, but what's done is done.

Anyhow, when to start depends on when you plan to finish and how much you plan to lose. A caloric deficit of around 500 a day will see you losing about 1lb per week, 1000 a day for 2lbs a week and so on. So calculate how much you plan on losing per week (2lbs a week is a tad aggressive but perfectly healthy) against how much you're aiming to lose in total and when you want to be finished by, then you should be able to see when's the best time to start. Also, it's better to overestimate how long you'll need rather than reach the time you thought you'd be done and realise you're not quite there yet.

Thanks for your reply how will cutting affect my lifts? I want to milk this bulk for all it's worth tbh before I cut

What I always advise during the beginner phase tbh, milk the newb gains dry How much fat have you actually put on, rough bodyfat% currently?

Your lifts will be affected when you cut, no escaping that. People seem to forget though that once you raise the calories and carbs again, you'll bounce back in the weeks to come. You'll lose more strength from cutting more aggressively but then the duration of the cut will be shorter, so it balances out.

a) I normally start cutting around 3 months before summer, bit earlier or later depending on how much I think I need to get rid of.

b) The absolute lowest you want your calorie intake is 400 calories below your recommended daily intake, normally I'd sit around 200-300 below.

c) You'll find that the weight you're capable of lifting will go down, because as you cut you'll lose some muscle with the fat and the fact that you've got less calories, so less energy to play with. For instance, my deadlift 1RM drops from 250 to around 210 when I'm cutting hard (I weight about 160lbs). In terms of changing your program, I normally drop one weightlifting session a week and add two cardio sessions, each of which consists of a 3k run warm up followed by 20 mins of tabata drills. Also, I shift my weightlifting to slightly lower weights for more reps, normally training in the 12-15 rep range instead of the 4-8 rep range for bulking.

To calculate my recommended daily intake I'm using the IIFYM calculator, but should I include excersize in it? How do i know how long I'm weightlifting if so much of that is spent doing rests?

Just use the calculation using whether your active, lightly active or passive etc

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Start cutting hard now

so you mean just put '0' where it asks days exercising?

Ive been doing StrongLifts since mid October/early November.

My stats are as follows:

Height 5'2
Weight: 61.5 (I was at 57.4 mid-November)

Daily 2100-2200 kcals

Workout 3/4x a week :
Squat: 60
Deadlift: 70
Ohp: 22
Bench: 34
Rows: 38

I feel fat as hell and want to start cutting for the summer but I'm not sure:
a) when to start
b) what to restrict my cals to
c) if I should keep my programme the same?

Any help is appreciated!

You only stop a 5X5 program once you have achieved 4/3/2/1 for reps (180kg DL, 140kg sq, 100kg bench, 60 kg press). You are a long way off coming off a 5x5 unless you want to look like you don't even lift - if you think you are gaining too much weight just eat maintenance calories however 60KG is nothing, as a former skinny cardio obssesed guy I can tell you its well worth stick with it OP,
just make sure you do some cardio to counteract bulking (2 HIIT sessions like sprints, 2 mile run, 2 mile row for time etc.) and make sure the quality of your calories is good. Paleo diets are good because they make you shift to eating high quality calories from meat, fish and veg - just include potatoes and brown rice to make up your carbs.

Too cut, personally I think there is no better protocol than low carb/keto or intermittent fasting - yes its hard but you will see the best results in the shortest amount of time, calorie counting only guarantees WEIGHT loss not FAT loss regardless of what the queens who tell you that your body will only go into lipogensis in a caloric deficit (You will also go catabolic and lose muscle).

OP is a girl, so that 4/3/2/1 doens't work

Realistically keto is fairly miserable and not for everyone, whilst it's cool it works for you; it's worth pointing out it isn't for everyone