Yeah, I did the same thing essentially, I got to 15% trying to see how far can I get with intake adjustments.
But the realization I had is that to be healthy, you need some muscle, to build muscle you need to gain muscle weight and to gain muscle weight you will also gain some fat. You can't separate the two.
Unquantifiable gray area between "need some muscle" vs me being less strong *by gymnastics standards*. Like, I'm not going to win any Crossfit competitions but my "out of shape" floor (a few months ago) is:
https://cdn.nostr.build/p/w25d.mp4
But when I was in exceptional shape a few years ago, man was I STRONG!
