TDEE and MFP Calculation Confusion?

Pocket__Cthulhu

Alright guys, so at the risk of sounding silly, I gotta ask this question. Has anyone else encountered MFP giving you a number for weight loss, and the TDEE giving you that same number just to maintain?

For the past six months, I've been kinda stalled out on my weight loss. I've had bad days, I went over, didn't measure this or that. For the first three months I know exactly why my weight was being maintained rather than lost. I was slacking off and losing sight of my discipline. Not blaming anything but myself on this one. About a months ago, I decided I was going to get back into serious business mode and start following my calories, watching my macros, and paying attention. I weigh everything, I measure everything liquid, and I wont typically eat things I don't prepare myself. I ate back roughly half my exercise calories. I've got those basics down for the most part, because I've been lurking a lot to learn a lot.

So I'm going through my logs, scanning the 'reports' tool...I note that I'm eating an average of 2,300 calories because I kept eating back exercise calories. I know that's not enough to cut, but the 'net calories' is always much lower. Well, I calculated my TDEE for funsies and noticed that the amount I have been eating for six months is exactly what it says I should be eating to maintain. MFP seems to disagree with the TDEE.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, folks, I'm confused.

I'm not sure if my activity level has been calculated correctly. I'm unsure if I should disconnect my Garmin Forerunner from MFP, because it gives me 300-700 extra calories a day (but only on the days I'm running around like chicken at work. I do have negative adjustments activated.) I'm unsure about not eating back at least some of my exercise calories, because I do SL 5x5 3x a week, jogging avg 2-3 miles 3x a week (I usually lump those two in the same day,) and about two hours of martial arts on the weekends. I don't want to be sluggish and sloppy because I'm eating too little for those activities.


Any advice on some tweaking my goals or switching up my macros would be welcome, Thank you!

deannalfisher

what is your height/weight/activity level?

what did MFP give you to lose weight and to maintain?

personally, I don't log my exercise in MFP because of the presumption of eating back calories

Pocket__Cthulhu

5'5 164lbs.
I'm set at lightly active with the following results:

Maintain: 2040
.5 lb/wk: 1845
1 lb/wk: 1540

deannalfisher

the TDEE calculator I used gave very similar - 2021 to maintain
https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=female&age=29&lbs=164&in=65&act=1.375&f=1

Pocket__Cthulhu

I must have put the wrong numbers in somewhere. Thanks

cwolfman13

Two different methods are being utilized...they are 6 of 1 if you're doing it right and comparing apples to apples rate of loss goals, etc. The only difference is where you account for exercise.

TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure...an estimate of you exercise activity along with all of your other activity is included in your target.

MFP = NEAT = Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis whereby your target is simply derived from your day to day activity sans exercise. Exercise is accounted for after the fact when you log it and "earn" calories too "eat back".

Another common issue with either method is selecting incorrect activity levels.

At any rate, the math with my numbers looks like this...

MFP to lose 1 Lb per week = 2000 calories...meaning my NEAT (daily activity only) maintenance is around 2,500 calories.

TDEE is about 3,000 calories per day (includes all of my exercise as well as daily activity)...so to lose 1 Lb per week I'd eat around 2,500 calories.

On average, I burn around 500 calories per day with exercise...sometimes more, sometimes less, but it all nets out in the end...at any rate, lets say I burn 500 calories...with MFP, my goal would now be 2,500 calories to lose 1 Lb per week which is in line with the TDEE calculator's target of 2,500 calories. 6 of 1, half dozen of the other.

deannalfisher

the whole "eat your calories back" is part of the reason why I don't track that on MFP and IMHO is part of what contributes to some of the less than healthy eating decisions people make - just because you burn 2000cal working out, doesn't mean you need to eat that back