“Human Beings evolved as a walking entity, exploring the world on our feet,” says James Levine, MD, author of “Move a little, Lose a lot.” Technological advances taking place across the globe and with increasing culture of work from home during Covid, physical activity has decreased in the global population. This has led to a sedentary lifestyle much more than before. Sedentary lifestyle is affecting our health which we do not realize. Various researches have shown that an inactive person can suffer from obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer.
The most common excuse that people give for a sedentary lifestyle is that they don’t have time. Some say that they can’t afford a gym. Even those who work out for an hour spend their entire day on the couch with the excuse that they have already completed one hour of workout and now they can relax in a chair for the remaining 23 hours. People still believe that exercise is the only way to spend a lot of calories without knowing the fact that besides Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT), there is something called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), also called as Non- Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA). The calories spent outside of exercise, sleeping and eating is a part of NEAT.
NEAT can help in making your weight loss and weight management journey easier. Throughout the day, we do several NEAT activities but have never realized the effect it has on calories. Keeping active throughout the day helps in increasing NEAT which not only helps in losing weight but also in maintaining weight.
One-hour workout is only 4% of our day but NEAT constitutes around 63% (sleeping time is 8 hrs) if we are active throughout the day. As the majority of the time is spent on a desk job, incorporating NEAT in the entire workday will help in burning some extra calories.
Change your mode of transportation – Try to walk to the office, to the market, etc instead of going by car or public transport. If your office is far away and you use public transport for the same, then how about walking at least a kilometer or two before the usual stop?
Don’t sit all the time – Sitting for hours is the most damaging element and the main reason for a sedentary lifestyle. Try to stand up if you are on the train or talking on the phone, in the office. Sitting for a prolonged period of time can lead to severe damage to the body posture and muscles. It also affects blood circulation. The easiest way to increase NEAT is to stand. Standing burns more calories than just sitting. People spend a lot of time on phone calls, so to add up to your NEAT, it’s better to walk while talking on the phone.
Take the stairs – Ditch the elevator and try taking the steps. For example, if you climb just a 15 m high stairway five times a day then your energy expenditure on average is 302 kcal per week. Stair climbing engages more muscles than walking. Healthy bones, muscles, and joints can be maintained by climbing stairs. You can make it challenging by carrying a bit of weight.
Grocery shopping – It can be a great way to add to your walking cardio and instead of using trolleys to carry groceries, carry your shopping bags in your hands by distributing the weight equally or carry the bags on your back. It will add to your functional training. It’s completely free and doesn’t need extra time for the same.
Play with your children – If you have kids at home, then you can get in movement with them by playing their favorite outdoor sports. It will serve two purposes, firstly it will add to your NEAT, and secondly, you can spend some quality time with your kids. It will also pass on the message to them that staying active is important for everyone.
Walk your dog – After kids, pets can add to NEAT in a fun way. Set a walking routine with your fur baby which will in turn help to set your body routine too. On some gloomy days, when you don’t want to move from the couch and are not able to motivate yourself, your fur baby will come to your rescue and encourage you to go on a walk and play active games.
Get an app – Install an app if you need some encouragement and want to give structure to your walks. You can get enrolled for LIVE walking programs which these apps keep organizing from time to time.
Cleaning the house and washing your car – With the introduction of vacuum cleaners and labor-saving devices, household cleaning still contributes a lot to NEAT. Vacuuming, dusting, mopping is high-energy chores that can be compared to brisk walking. Instead of taking your car to the car wash, try washing it yourself. Besides working your arm, it will give you a good cardio workout.
Fidgeting Helps – Fidgeting may not help in weight loss but is a great way to increase NEAT in case of people who spend most of their time sitting. Research shows that fidgeting adds up to NEAT whether you are standing, sitting, or lying down. Though you may not feel, these little movements will add to a big difference in calorie expenditure.
There is a saying that humans are designed to walk, to run, to carry, to lift, and to be active, if that wasn’t the case then we would have been given roots and could have stuck to a single place. So just hitting the gym in the name of exercise 4-5 times a week and not getting up from the couch for the rest of the day makes us ‘active’ with our workouts but inactive as a population.
So NEAT can have quite a substantial impact on our metabolic rate and calorie expenditure. NEAT-related changes mentioned above are some of the important changes that we need to bring into our routine. You may find it difficult in the beginning to incorporate them into your schedule but if you try, slowly, it will become a part of your lifestyle.
Author: Sonali Kanchan
REFERENCES
Nonexercise activity thermogenesis in obesity management – PubMed (nih.gov)
The validity of the non-exercise activity thermogenesis questionnaire evaluated by objectively measured daily physical activity by the triaxial accelerometer (nih.gov)
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (ahajournals.org)
Levine JA, Schleusner SJ, Jensen MD. Energy expenditure of nonexercise activity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000;72(6):1451–1454. Available at: https://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/6/1451.long.
(1) (DOC) Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) Weight Loss by Walking Your Dog | Evelyn Enriquez – Academia.edu
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051213
What is N.E.A.T?
This is basically a term for calories burned through movement but outside structured exercise. For example, standing, fidgeting, moving, etc.
The number of calories you burn on a daily basis is known as Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) within which you have something called Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is kind of like your body’s cost of living. For example, when you are asleep, your body is still breathing and maintaining organ function. So your body is still burning calories even when you are at rest or sleeping.
Now what you are in control of is non-resting energy expenditure i.e. how many calories you burn per day through movement. N.E.A.T is commonly neglected when someone wants to lose weight, they tend to think of things like joining a gymnasium or taking up running. However, N.E.A.T tends to be a far bigger contributor to total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).
Due to evolving changes in our lifestyle such as increased commutation options and an increase in the number of sedentary jobs, it shouldn’t come as a massive surprise to anyone that we are probably burning fewer calories on a daily basis than we used to.
On average, people who are exercising are only likely to be doing it a couple of hours a week which only accounts for approximately 100 calories per day. 100 calories per day obviously is not going to make or break your weight loss regime. Now if exercise activity thermogenesis represents a very small portion of total daily energy expenditure; non-exercise activity thermogenesis is where we should be looking. N.E.A.T is actually the highest variable in total daily energy expenditure.
So in sedentary individuals, it is estimated to account for 6 to 10 % of total daily energy expenditure. But in active individuals, it can account for a whopping 50% or more of total daily energy expenditure. N.E.A.T can account for a difference of 2,000 calories in people depending on how active their lifestyle is. [1]
Now we know how vast an impact NEAT has on Total Daily Energy Expenditure. The question is what can you do to capitalize on this? So we present to you something called the egocentric versus the geocentric model [3]. The egocentric model is what you are personally in control of. The geocentric model is what can be done on a population level. For example, if you look at your city or your local town, are there walk-ways and cycle-ways? Are people using public transport to work? Are there lifts and escalators in your workplace? Are there sitting desks versus standing desks? Things like this will help more people move on a daily basis.
So this is the geocentric model. The egocentric model is what you personally are in control of. So here are some questions you can ask yourself – How active is your job? Are you spending more of your day sitting or more of your day standing? How much are you walking around your place of work? Are you using the escalator/elevator or are you walking down the stairs? How close to the supermarket do you park your vehicle? and do you have to walk or cross the car park?
Things like this will have a significant impact on the number of calories you burn on a daily basis. All of these things can be thought about so you can maximize the number of calories you burn per day.
How can we keep our N.E.A.T up?
There are three different categories of N.E.A.T that you can include:
- Body posture variations
- Ambulation or locomotion
- Fidgeting
Body posture variations – One of the most important things that we should all consider as it relates to our workday or even just our day is to assume as many different positions and postures as possible. It’s about you getting up and moving throughout the day. Are you sitting? Are you standing? Are you weight shifting? Are you walking? Are you moving? Are you able to sit down onto the ground and get back up? Talk with your hands more so you can keep your N.E.A.T boosted. The more we assume different variations of postures of sitting and standing and moving postures the better our body craves movement. So it is necessary that we constantly change these throughout our day.
Ambulation and locomotion – Here you want to think about how you can increase your steps throughout the day. So if you want to use a Fitbit or something for 10,000 steps a day…awesome. Use that as a monitor but think about how you can begin to add steps to your day and let’s not forget about other locomotive patterns like crawling for example. There are lots of different variations of crawling that are really powerful. For example, consider skipping as a locomotive pattern. Use the staircase and keep increasing your staircase use. Add jogging on the spot or high knees to your workout. Get involved in household activities like cleaning, washing, laundry, dusting, learning to dance through YouTube videos; play games that make you get up and move about, and most importantly do not spend half your life watching Netflix. Anyways begin to reinforce one of the most powerful movements in our body which is walking. So the more you increase steps and dynamic movement throughout the day the better.
Fidgeting – This can be twirling your hair, rubbing your head, tapping your toes/ foot. Through fidgeting, you can burn around 300 calories a day [4]. It can be so simple but just think about every time you’re in your chair or you’re standing at your work desk. Think about how you can just add a little bit of extra movement in and this will increase your NEAT. It can really benefit your metabolism and your weight loss or maintenance goals. Standing versus sitting calories can be quite significant. And when it comes to Non-Exercise Activity (NEA) in general, don’t think that it doesn’t matter. Some evidence has shown differences upto 2,000 calories a day! That is an entire 24-hour window of nutrition just because you were fidgeting.
High levels of N.E.A.T can help mitigate fat gain during periods of overfeeding and can also serve as a useful strategy for weight loss maintenance. On top of this, moving more is free and simple for people to do. It doesn’t require any special equipment or a gymnasium membership.
Once you begin to really incorporate these things, you can make such a huge profound difference in your movement, in your overall health as well as just how you feel because your bodies crave movement. They do not crave sustained positions.
By following the above-mentioned 3 simple ways, add some more N.E.A.T and burn fat faster, or eat more, weigh less. It is often said that you can’t out-exercise a poor diet likewise it’s very difficult to out-exercise a sedentary lifestyle. So follow these N.E.A.T ways to lose weight!
Author: Reetu Verma
References
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279077/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30149423/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16026422/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15387473/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30370831/
