TDEE vs. MFP Goals

beemgrace

I'm sure people are tired of reading these posts, but I am looking for some well informed advice as to which of these I should be following for fat loss.

MFP has given me a calorie goal of 1200 per day - I don't feel to bad, but find myself tired and taking a multivitamin to keep my iron, A and C etc. levels up.

I, of course, have read posts talking about TDEE and the debates as to which is better to follow - this is not even close to my area of expertise so I guess I'm asking which should I be using for the most productive weight loss?

I am 23 years old, female, I am 5' 6" and currently weigh 164lbs. My goal weight is somewhere around 130lbs.
I try and exercise every day of the week - alternating between cardio and body weight strength training.
As I said, MFP has me at 1200 calories and when I calculated my TDEE - 20% it gave me 1669 calories per day. I am loosing weight at 1200 cals per day but am worried it's not the correct way to be doing it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

ladynocturne

If you're using the MFP tool to lose weight, you eat your goal plus exercise calories so it looks like this:

1200(goal)+400(exercise calories)= 1600 gross calories to eat. This works because:

1600(eaten)-400(exercise)=1200 NET calories, the same as not exercising and eating 1200 calories.

If you follow the TDEE -20% method, you would eat 1669 gross calories, which is really close to what MFP has you already doing by eating your exercise calories.

Morninglory81

TDEE and MFP should give you about the same cals weekly if you are doing it correctly. With TDEE your exercise cal needs are already in your daily goal. With MFP you have your goal and add cals every time you exersize. The question is do you want to change how much you eat daily depending on your activity for the day, or have a set cal goal that averages everything out over the week?

beemgrace

Thank you both so much - these explanations make it much more clear to me. I will likely continue using the MFP goals since, when the math is done, they do seem pretty much the same.