Dad bod to Grandpa bod

I made another thread about refeeding and got some advice to take a 2-week diet break. So I did, and here is my follow up post, reposted here:

Woooohooo! Let the re-shred begin! The two week diet break ended yesterday. It was brutal, eating Hawaiian shave ice and fish tacos, peanut butter M&Ms and leftover See's candies from Christmas, but I powered through. Overall weight went from 195 to 211 from mid-Oct to now. Guessing some is water, glycogen, more water(creatine) and some fat. I'm bigger all over, clothes a little tighter, abs less defined.

Started the refeeds in mid-Oct, a couple of days, then a week for Thanksgiving, then a couple weekends, then a two-week diet break. Also increased creatine from 3g/day to 8g/day in mid-Dec. Avg calories Oct-Dec jumped from 1700 to 1900-2200, and diet break cals avg'd 2800. 200-250 g/day carbs, tried to keep the protein 180-200 g/day.

This first week will be a little goofy because it's close to the weekend, but after that I plan on doing 4-5 days of deficit and 2-3 days of maintenance. I really don't know what my maintenance is yet though...I still have some mathing to do.*

The reason I got interested in refeeds is this:
I started at 232 and dropped to 192, but let's say 195 because that's where I was most of the time after dropping weight. 195/232 = 84%
I started at an estimated TDEE of 2300 cal/day and plateaued at 1600 cal/day 1600/2300 = 69%. And if 1700, then 74%
Started at 20%-ish bf = 185lbs lean, ended at 10%-ish bf = 175lbs lean 175/185=94%.
Activity levels are practically identical, then to now. Strength levels dropped a little, not much, came up with carbs.

It didn't make sent to me that if lean only dropped by 6% (maybe a little more) and total weight by 16%, how did TDEE drop by 25-30%? This is why the hormonal component / leptin thing resonated with me. If my TDEE was 2300 or so, I'd expect my new TDEE to be in the 1950-2150 range....not 1750 (avg Sept '19 to Oct '20)

*I just went and took a look at the numbers. I was averaging 1.18 lbs/wk (Dec '18 to June '19), which would be 590 cal/d deficit. If my logging was accurate, avg 1650 cal/d, TDEE was 2240. If my logging is inaccurate, and is actually higher, then my TDEE is higher, but since I'll be logging the same way that I have been, it should work out the same.

Based on the body weight and lean mass ratios above, I would think my new TDEE would be 85-90% of previous, ranging from 1900-2000 cal/d. I'll try 2000 for my maintenance days, 1600 for my deficit days, and see what happens for the next few weeks.