EQ question and effect of exercisediet

Question 1 is - I’ve read a bit of the posts on the subject and the one thing I want to know is - if you do a workout that’s strenuous enough to induce gains, is some temporary loss of EQ, even if it’s only 5%, unavoidable, or does any loss of EQ at all, even just 5%, mean that you overdid it?

I ask this because I started out a few months ago doing pumping only and the last month I switched to primarily stretching/jelqing off the linear newbie routine, and clearly I was either stretching too hard or jelqing too hard, or both, because after 2 days of it even though I started out with only like 50 jelqs, EQ was 0%, I mean, DOA and it took 2 days of rest to get back to normal. I’ve now started stretching and jelqing significantly more gently and it is much better, and while it’s hard to tell when talking about such a small change, it does seem that there is still perhaps a 5% reduction. Which is why I wonder if some loss of EQ is unavoidable, because as it is I’m not sure if I’m doing it strenuous enough for gains and if I reduce the force/pressure any more it will certainly not be enough. Or to put it in more specific terms - if you stretch only with enough force to stretch to your max stretched length and no harder, and if you jelq only hard enough to see the glans well up full but no harder, is that enough force to result in gains?

Question 2- I lost a bit of weight a year ago and I still have that dreaded last 10 pounds of fat I want to get off. However, it’s not that I ‘need’ to get it off, it’s more like that would be the last 10 pounds I need to get nice and ripped - so if it comes down to PE gains or the last 10 pounds of fat I’ll go for PE. Anyway, that matters because, I’m lifting weights naturally, but of course you also have to eat less and do cardio to get fat burned. The question then, is does being in a catabolic state from both restricted calories and from doing cardio prevent you from gaining from PE?