You’ve made a lot of progress man. You’re honest enough to realize you have more progress to be made. But you’re almost there. I’d say you’re 3/4 of the way accomplished and there’s a lot to be said about that.
I think the biggest thing to be said is you don’t want to reverse the changes you’ve made. The most important thing to be successful is to not make big changes. Your metabolism is very low right now and you need to make small changes to help your metabolism speed back up.
If you add calories and macros too quickly, your body won’t be able to process them and will store nutrients. Your body is also in survival mode right now and so the first thing it will do is store nutrients to make that happen.
On the flip side, if you slowly rev up your metabolism, you can keep fat off and possibly even burn more fat while slowly adding calories. Your body can become accustomed to processing the nutrients and partitioning them to the proper areas, so long as you continue to require your body to use nutrients to repair muscle and tissue (exercising).
In my opinion, I feel you should start a reverse diet. Slowly add in calories (100-150/day) every week. So if you’re at 2,000 calories right now, aim for 2,100-2,150 next week. Then add 100-150 calories the following week. Depending on your current macros, I would add in the proper macros each week. Basically reverse diet for a mini-bulk (6-8 weeks), but don’t go above a 250 calorie surprlus. It’s not so much a bulk, as it is a redirection for you body’s equilibrium. Your body is so accumulated to dieting down that it’s running to efficiently and needs to be taken out of that comfort. Then after that mini-bulk, your body will be prepped for another good 18-24 week cut where you can probably get close to 12% bf.
At this point, when you’re done with the mini-bulk, slowly decrease the calories (100/day) every week and slowly add in cardio so you don’t plateau throughout the cut. You will continue to burn fat and preserve more muscle if done properly. I wouldn’t go under a 1,000 calorie deficit.
Sorry for the long post, hope this may help someone.