Frob, I'd be interested in what your results and/or experience is regardless. My ratio of food appears to have a greater effect on my TDEE as well. I use to exercise like crazy, but could never lose a pound or inch until I started eating low carb.

I learned last year while keeping my carbs under 50g, I need 40%-30% protein in my diet for aggressive weight loss. If I eat under that and have more fat, my rate of weight loss slows. I need to lose a total of 50lbs this year to be a skinny mini again.

I ran calculations this time around. I typically eat between 1400-1500 calories a day, my BMR is around 1380, I haven't been exercising and have a desk job. I average a 1.5lb to 2lb loss each week, which is a 5,250 to 7,000 weekly calorie deficit. Based on that, my body appears to be burning between 2,150 to 2,500 calories daily without exercising. According to body fat% TDEE calculators, I should only be expending around 1660 calories daily. Other factors into my TDEE is that I fast daily for about 14 hours from about 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. the next day, I only get about 6 hours of sleep daily during the week and about 8-10 on weekends. I make an effort to choose whole foods that are nutrient rich and drink all my water. Work and life has been steady and for the most part not stressful.

I would be curious to see how our results compare; and if anyone else has done a similar experiment with their food and what their results were. It would make for an interesting thread at least seeing lots of experimental results in one place. It may not be a controlled scientific study, but life isn't controllable regardless. I think any emerging patterns would still have some weight.