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What always worked for me was lifting heavy in large exercises (bench, squat, deadlift) and eating a ton. Cutting is harder but once you're bulked fat starts sliding off like there's no tomorrow. I also did it eating one large meal a day, basically paleo without all the root vegetables.
I was also looking for strength more than size, I am naturally a very big dude. Maybe going for hypertrophy is a little more sensitive to what you do?
There are lots of different body types and metabolisms and workout goals. My thinking on the subject is that your body knows what it's doing. It WILL pack on muscle if you lift heavy and eat. You WILL lose weight if you burn more calories than you intake.
The one exception to that is sugar. I think sugar is basically the devil because of what it does to your insulin-- the shit is basically poisonous if it's not in fruit, it quite literally can kill off your pancreas.
When cutting, I ate such low carbs that I started fainting in the weight room. The way I fixed that was eating a low-carb bar, half just before workout and half during the workout.
Different ways of getting things dialed in may get you where you wanna be a little quicker than others especially if you want to cut or get a bodybuilder physique in a hurry. The way I view all that is that it's a lifestyle, you should be doing it anyway for health reasons and you should not ever quit, and it will all come if you lift heavy and cycle your calories between a normal diet and heavier eating.
Personal trainers and dieticians are a ripoff, your body has a billion years of metabolic experience and you should listen to that when bulking, don't give it quite as much as it wants when cutting.
If you're looking for routines check out Pavel Tsatsouline's book "Power to the People." It's available online.
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