u/Aware_Cucumber6706

I'm roughly 28% body fat, with above average muscle mass for my demographic (I got a dexa last year and have been measuring with a smart scale at home ever since; I know the at-home scales can be wrong, so I'm just watching the trend and 28% is the average lately).

I've gotten down from 31% last summer, so taking it really slow lol. But I'd like to speed things up a bit, get to ~24% and then reassess as to whether I want to go to 21-22 or maintain at 24.

There is so much advice out there as far as calorie intake goes for my stats and activity level, and so much info about strategy, too.

Current sats for more info- 35F, 5'3.5", 133 lbs.

I track calories in MacroFactor and have been for months consistently. It says my TDEE is 1750 (my step count is variable and I have a sedentary job now; I lift 2-3x/week). Right now I'm eating 1,450 daily average, and every 2 weeks I have a 1,900-2,000 cal day to help with adherence. I wanna eat more, but it's hard for me to be more active cuz of my job and current life stuff.

Wondering if anyone has been where I'm at and successfully lost a little more body fat- did you cut while trying to maintain muscle? or focus more on building muscle / slight deficit and let recomp happen?