Have you ever been around those people who just cannot stop moving? The people who tap their toes, gesture with their hands, get up and down from their desk constantly? Well, as it turns out they are all burning extra calories throughout their days!
The acronym for this kind of movement is NEAT, which stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Though it sounds like a mouthful, it basically means that when you are tapping, jiggling, waving or walking all over the office, you are burning extra calories in a non-exercise setting.
According to Dr. Levine at Mayo Clinic, there are three components of energy expenditure in human beings.
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The first is your basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is the energy your body uses just to lay down and sleep. People with sedentary jobs have BMRs that account for nearly 60 percent of their daily energy expenditure!
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A small percentage of our daily expenditure is burned (10-15%) through the thermic effect of food. This is the energy your body uses when you eat food.
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The rest of the energy expenditure is split between two categories, exercise and non-exercise activity.
Exercise-related activity thermogenesis accounts for the number of calories burned throughout structured, intentional exercise. Unfortunately, there is a large number of Americans who do not exercise and therefore, do not burn those extra calories during the day.
That brings us to NEAT. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis is highly variable. In people with sedentary lifestyles it only burns 15% of total calories consumed during the day. However, very active people - those people who can’t seem to sit still - it can account for nearly 50% of total daily energy expenditure!
After learning this I wanted to know how I could increase my own NEAT! If you are like me and do most of your work from computer there are ways you can increase your NEAT. Next time, take the long route to the bathroom or walk to your coworkers’ offices instead of just calling them from your desk.
There are things you probably already do at home that qualify as NEAT. By washing your car or dishes by hand, raking leaves, vacuuming the carpet or mowing your lawn with a push mower you are contributing to your daily non-exercise activity thermogenesis. In fact, by not relying on all the machines we use now, we could potentially burn 100-200 extra calories a day- that’s 10 pounds a year!
What do you think of NEAT? What kinds of things do you during the day that burn extra calories?
Source: http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/mayo/research/levine_lab/about.cfm
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