Hello, I had been on a cut for 10 weeks where I lost 8kg. At that time I was eating 2200 calories 6 days a week and 1 day where I didn’t track some times and had a cheat meal, generally putting me in the 3000-3500 mark at the most. In the end, I stopped losing weight but had no diet fatigue, no cravings and even my training kept improving albeit slowly due to optimal programming and life conditions, so I took a diet break where I added 700 calories making it 2900. I track my calories consistently every day, I always wear a pedometer (so you dont accuse me of greately increased NEAT later on xD) and also log my weight. What I noticed is that the first 5 or so days I had averaged 1.2kg increase from water and glycogen I guess since most of the increased calories came from carbs, however after these days my weight fell again to my previous one that I had on 2200 calories. Not only that, my weightlifting belt now needed to be tightened by 1 hole. I visited a dietician because I plan on competing this year and informed him of this situation, to which he replied that as long as I had no diet fatigue, no performance drops and generally nothing apart from loss of rate I should have decreased my calories even more.
Thing is I psychologically feel that 2200kcal for a person of my performance and stature was too low even without feeling any side effects. Was I right to think that I was eating too little or was he right for taking a more subjective approach (I.e we are all different and all that matters is TDEE, no matter the difference between individuals?)
What do you think I should do from now on?