All you success stories...did you use TDEE or BMR?

BMR, or actually RMR, is a component of TDEE. Other components include: planned exercise, thermic effect of food and non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

MFP uses a unique approach in that it only considers RMR, TEF and NEAT, not planned exercise, when telling you how much to eat as a baseline. Thus, the goal to eat goes up once you add exercise which you are then given an option to eat them back. Thus, eating those exercise calories is the same as following the Mifflin-St. Jeor TDEE prediction which MFP uses.

I knew what my actual TDEE value was needed to maintain weight, but it was the exact same as the prediction I obtained from the Katch-McArdle TDEE formula. With that said, I custom entered all my data to reflect my actual TDEE and did not go by MFP's calculations.