Body confusion-Advice needed!!!🙏🏻

Ta
So I've very recently begun going to the gym with my best friend to motivate each other in loosing weight and get in shape/fit; saying this, I've been following her workout sheet with weight training/resistance machines with her.
My goal is to lose some extra pounds and firm up my body, not become body builder huge. 
I read somewhere that you can't burn fat and gain muscle at the same time and that you should focus on either fat loss or muscle gain first depending on your weight and which one is needed first; is this true? 
Also my husband said not to drink protein shakes unless I want to get ripped.
I guess my biggest worry is that I'll do all this gym work (along with eating right) and not see right results because I'm doing things in the wrong order or not correctly..