Dead/Dying Leaves, best way to remove? Or what to do?

My plant is almost 4 weeks old. She was doing fine, then I had a few nute/PH problems and some of her older leaves started dying/died. Whats the best way to remove them as they are impeding new growth as well as blocking light from parts that are still thriving. Should I just trim the dead leaves off the stem, and leave it? Or trim the stem back to the main stem of the plant? I cut one of the leaves off about a week ago to get a good picture of it to show what kind of problems I was having, but I left the stem intact. This area of the plant seems fine now, the stem is still healthy just no leaf on its end really. Any suggestions would be great. Here are a few pics of the dead growth I want to remove, if you can see it. My cam is pretty shitty. Theres only about 3-4 of the larger leaves that I want to trim out of the way.

when they are totally yellow trim them to the stem

Some aren't yellowing completely, they start with tiny brown spots almost like rust, and spread as the leaf dies. The end result is a very crispy/dried/shriveled/curled up leaf, with a very healthy stem. Even the vein(stem?)running up the center of each blade is healthy more or less when this happens. And if I cut off at the stem, do you mean the main stalk of the plant? Because a few are the very first leaves she produced, so they aren't on a branch, just connected to the main stem.