I found that the psychological impacts of only creating a deficit via diet are over long term not negligible, and this gets worse as you get leaner. At low body

I found that the psychological impacts of only creating a deficit via diet are over long term not negligible, and this gets worse as you get leaner. At low body fat percents (low teens and below) you'll start to feel hungry all the time and it will impact moods/productivity. So I find myself forced to eat more but claw it back with exercise, which is great anyway because of all the other benefits of exercise. The degree to which you do this is the big question mark. In addition, the net achievable deficit while remaining happy as a function of exercise ratio is in my experience a U shape - if I exercise too much (e.g. a few ~2K cal hikes) I become ravenous, to the point that eating large amount of food barely makes me any less hungry, and almost always net out in the wrong direction. So this is a great kind of study, though my current happy setting all things considered is hovering around 150min/week.