For all of the people who hate exercising, going to the gym, pumping iron or doing any form of physical activity that makes you sweat in order to stay healthy and thin should rally around this article…
Like most I don’t like to exercise but I do believe in staying healthy, and watching my weight but I don’t exercise. Not in the typical way that most think…
I’m the type of person that prefers to drive the half mile to pick up my coffee instead of taking a 15-minute walk. For me using the drive thru sounds infinitely more appealing than actually getting out of my car. And you’d rarely spot me choosing to trudge up the stairs at the end of the day. But, on the daily I do make a point of carving out time to sweat, get my heart pumping and move around.
“How do I do it?”, you ask. It’s a concept that goes by the name non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, for short.
This is essentially all the calories that a person burns through their daily activity excluding purposeful physical exercise. Think of the low-effort movements that you string together over the course of your day – things like household chores, strolling through the grocery aisle, climbing the stairs, bobbing your leg up and down at your desk, or cooking dinner.
It works by leveraging the advantages of completing common chores or making minor behavioral adjustments that may either increase or decrease the amount of NEAT you achieve during the day, and shaping your health in profound ways.
According to research, individuals of the same size might have significantly varying levels of NEAT depending on things like their profession and where they reside, as well as their biological desire to get up and move around.
What is obvious is that many of us who live screen-based lifestyles have the ability to incorporate more NEAT into our daily routines, not necessarily through large-scale lifestyle adjustments, but rather through small-scale ones that largely need a mindset shift.
Here’s all you need to know about NEAT and how to obtain more of it.
NEAT FILLS IN THE SLACK IN ENERGY EXPENDITURE
Much of our daily energy expenditure is rather constant. More over half of those calories are used to support fundamental body activities, which is referred to as our metabolic rate during rest.
There are several things that may affect your metabolic rate during rest, although not much, because it is not changeable in most cases.
Metabolization and food digestion consumes another portion of our daily energy, around ten percent. There’s a slight chance of this being altered.
NEAT comes into play for the remaining thirty to forty percent of our activities daily. Moving around, gardening, parking far away from the grocery store entrance, or using the stairs instead of the elevator can all help to reduce the leftover energy cookie.
Digesting and metabolizing food takes up another sliver of our daily energy, roughly about 10%, and likewise cannot be changed significantly.
And guess what? For those of you who do exercise regularly – NEAT usually plays a bigger role in calorie burning than working out!
NEAT should not be mistaken for more organized periods of rigorous physical activity, which have their own well-established health advantages. However, cranking up NEAT can make it more accessible to some people, particularly those who don’t exercise much, if at all.
As a busy mom, it’s difficult to cut out 30 to 60 minutes of my day for an exercise program. However, over time, even little actions add up to a significant amount of energy consumption.
COMMON DAILY ACTIVITIES CAN INCREASE YOUR NEAT
Let’s talk about how to increase your NEAT by making small simple changes throughout your day. I’m going to offer a few suggestions that may be helpful to add into your day, so let’s go…
It has been said that sitting at a desk using a computer only burns five to seven percent more calories than if you were lying down at rest. But, what if you were doing leg lifts under the table while giving your eyes a break, instead of sitting motionless. That would increase your NEAT
What about moving around the house? Folding clothes, washing windows, sweeping the floor are activities we all do during the weekend. It doesn’t seem like much but the great thing about NEAT is the moment you start to walk you are expelling energy towards greater health. Just strolling about one and a half to two miles an hour — the speed people tend to go while shopping — can double your metabolic rate.
All of this starts to give a sense of how seemingly travail moments, like walking the dog around the corner store, or raking leaves out of the lawn, can add up to make a big difference over the course of the day. Even chewing gum can go a surprisingly long way, lol. It’s about movement! The more you move the more you increase your resting metabolic rate..
Do you normally watch TV after eating dinner every night? Making small little changes while keeping the same habits can bring you joy and better health. So, instead of being a couch potato from 8pm to 11pm nightly what can you do? Taking up household projects that force you to move around when you get home could alternatively bring up your NEAT by 700 calories or more in the same time frame while watching your favorite sitcom or movie.
It’s a simple idea at its core: Inject mobility — ideally whatever gets you walking around — into what would otherwise default into sitting time.
BIOLOGY MAY AUTOMATICALLY DRIVE HABITS TOWARDS NEAT
Everybody is different. Some people have a better ability to sense when they take in extra calories and this may set in motion an unconscious drive to move more. Keeping yourself moving to increase NEAT is the name of the game. However, results may vary… Just as men burn more fat easier than women
But, it’s not all about weight. Being sedentary is associated with a range of health problems independent of obesity, from heart disease to joint problems to mental health issues. So, the bottom line to it all is, it’s important to keep the body moving especially as we mature.
So, the bottom line to it all is, it’s important to keep the body active regularly and throughout the day.
As we mature, avoiding the desire to be sedentary is very important since it increases risk of heart disease, joint problems and mental health issues. Movement keeps us young!