NEAT

I wish I was talking about being neat and tidy. Unfortunately, keeping your room and handwriting neat won’t help you improve your health.

When it comes to your health and fitness, NEAT takes on a whole new meaning. I’m talking about Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Now, you‘re probably thinking wtf is a thermogenesis? If you are, then I’m really glad you’re reading this. I promise by the end you’ll have a clear understanding, AND a clear direction in mind when it comes to your health.

NEAT isn’t a potion, or a magic 'teatox' that makes you shed weight. However, it is one of the most vital elements of calorie burning. It's also one of the most misunderstood elements of calorie burning, and is often overlooked when people attempt to change their physique. So what is NEAT? Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis can be described as exercise that is incidental in your day. It is not planned blocks of training, but rather activity that occurs from various activities; walking from the lounge to the fridge, going to the toilet, standing at work etc.

NEAT is responsible for burning around 15% of your calories. This may not seem like much, but it's important to keep in mind that the average Joe will only burn around 5-10% of calories from a planned training session or sport. I'm not at all saying that exercise isn't important, I'm a personal trainer - I am saying that creating a healthy & active lifestyle comes down to more than running for 12kms or doing a 90 minute weight session.

So why is increasing our NEAT so beneficial? The benefits of NEAT extend further than burning 15% of your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, as it can also contribute to an increase in your BMR. Now, this is not to be confused with a commonly used term 'BMI'. Your BMR stands for your Basal Metabolic Rate, which is responsible for burning around 65-70% of your calories. These are the calories that are burnt from doing absolutely nothing like; sleeping and laying on the lounge. So you're not wrong in thinking that by creating an active lifestyle, we can increase the number of calories we burn while doing not much at all.

To sum it up, before I give you some tips, I'm not saying that you shouldn't participate in exercise, and I'm not saying that increasing your NEAT can make up for frequent high calorie feeding. A calorie deficit will always trump everything else when it comes to fat loss, but increasing your NEAT will have a long list of positive impacts on your health.

How to increase your Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis:

1. Aim for 10,000 - Aiming for 10,000 steps is not a golden rule, and I hate people who have made money off of such a simple concept. Aiming for this step goal isn't about reaching a specific number, but more about the things you will implement in order to reach that goal. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to go for a 10k step walk in one hit, but it may mean that grocery shopping in conjunction with walking the kids to school instead of driving creates a healthier environment for you and your family.

2. Stand at work - Standing at work is a pretty obvious one. It may seem boring and unnecessary, but you might surprise yourself at how tired you feel after an 8 hour day of standing opposed to sitting. Standing at your desk will promote more movement around the office, and you never know, it might lead to you walking over to a colleague instead of shooting an email 10 meters across your office.

3. Take the stairs - If you're an office worker or work in a shopping centre, the thought of taking the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator probably makes your blood boil. Think about it for a second though, if you're trying to create an active lifestyle for yourself, imagine how beneficial those few extra steps in your day could be? By allowing yourself 5 extra minutes to get to/leave work, you could take the stairs to your office and even get an extra 5 minutes from your podcast.

4. Park that little bit further away - Not everyone takes elevators and escalators in their day, but most of us have a commute to work. Try parking a little bit further away from your office, or the station and give yourself an extra 5-10 minutes of steps each way. If you get the train or bus to work, try getting off a stop earlier and walk the last 400m.

It might not seem like much, but creating an active lifestyle really does come down to the little things. Everyone can put on their activewear and hit the gym after sitting on their ass all day. It takes a lot more willpower to make things more inconvenient for yourself. So try it out, task yourself with a week of more incidental activity; take the stairs, get the kids to help you do the gardening, walk to get your morning coffee.

Feel free to get me a coffee while you're at it.

Your coach & friend,

Maddy