Weight Management: NEAT

Exercise is often viewed as a chore rather than an enjoyable activity but for humans to maintain optimal homeostasis it is one of the foundational pillars we should all strive to maintain. Flipping the script might help in this situation, rather than exercise think of movement instead. You can introduce a lot more movement into your day by simply changing up how you do things and we have seen this in things such as standing desks in offices. This idea is known as NEAT:

Non Exercise Activity Thermogensis.

One of the best ways to increase the amount of movement done daily is to try and walk for ten to fifteen minutes after each meal, this is a gentle stroll around the house, office or outside with no goal to get your heart rate up. If you move at a standard pace then fifteen minutes of walking will be about 1500 steps; 1500 steps multiplied by 3 is 4500 steps. Ideally you want to be doing between 4000 – 6000 steps a day depending on your health goals so doing this activity puts you in the active range with minimal effort; it also has the added bonus of regulating blood sugar levels.

Now you might be wondering, “Isn’t it 10,000 steps a day?”, and that is a great question. 10,000 steps a day was a marketing campaign set up during the Tokyo Olympics in the 1960s to sell pedometers and it somehow got into the modern zeitgeist. Is it bad to do 10,000 steps a day? Not at all, as long as you have the energy and time for it but doing the NEAT exercises will help you with your weight goals in the long run over setting a exercise goals you may not reach.

Best results are seen when combining NEAT with your usual exercise routine but if you are unable to exercise regularly then just doing NEAT will still show good results.

So remember on your weight management journey that setting movement goals are much more practical and achievable than setting exercise and weight goals, if you can combine NEAT with regular exercise then you’ll be doing even better.

Questions? Contact us.