N.E.A.T

You may have heard this acronym thrown around in the health and fitness world but what does it mean?

N.E.A.T stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

Okay cool now what does that mean?

First let's talk about thermogenesis. This is the generation of heat (or calorie burn) in your body. There are a few different things that contribute to calorie burn, or thermogenesis in our bodies.

60-70% from BMR - Basil Metabolic Rate. What we burn just maintaining life, no exercise or activity added in.

10-15% from Exercise

10% from Breakdown of food

15-20% from NEAT

Notice that NEAT contributes to more calorie burn in your body than actual exercise does. So what exactly is NEAT and how can we get more of it to burn more calories?

NEAT is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise. Daily activities like cleaning the house, walking to the grocery store, mowing the lawn, or even fidgeting while waiting for your doctors appointment. All the movement that you do through the day adds up and can increase your calorie burn. It's no secret that in order to lose fat you need a negative energy balance. You need to burn more calories than you take in. While many think that this means you have to kill yourself in the gym you can easily make this happen by just increasing your daily NEAT.

So how do we increase our NEAT?

Take the stairs

Park further away from the grocery store

Walk the dogs

Play with your kids

Set timers for mid day breaks to get up and move

Ride your bike

Go for a swim

Clean the house

Cook more

Grocery shop instead of having it delivered

Go to the mall and window shop

Do some yoga

Stretch while watching T.V.

Get up and do 10 jumping jacks, 10 squats and 10 push ups at each commercial break

Pause every 15 minutes of a movie or DVR'd show to get up and move

Dance

Play a game

Garden

So many ways to increase your NEAT!

Bottom line, don't disregard the effects that all your daily movement can have! Add in more where you can to assist your body in burning calories and feeling good!