Neat isn’t about how organized your house is, but cleaning definitely counts as NEAT.  NEAT stands for

Non

Exercise

Activity

Thermogenesis

It’s basically your amount of activity during the day apart from formal workouts.  It is the largest contributor to your daily calorie burn, even IF you workout. For that reason neat is the biggest indicator of  your body composition and overall weight.  Walking, laundry, cleaning, gardening, painting, carpentry, playing with the kids, riding bikes for fun, roller skating, hiking, walking the dog, bathing the dog, hula hooping….it all counts.  Any movement on your feet adds to your overall calorie burn for the day.

This is important because the amount of fat stored on your body is a direct result of the amount of calories you eat, vs the amount of calories you burn.  Fat is just stored energy and you can change the amount you have stored by using it for energy when the  calories you consume aren’t enough to satisfy the demands of your activities.

It’s important to track NEAT and the best way to do it is with a step counter.   This is the one I have.  Without tracking, most people don’t move around nearly as much as they think they do. Studies have shown that people who do formal workouts get much less NEAT than those who don’t.  It’s human nature to feel like you’ve done your workout for the day, so it’s ok to sit and rest.  It can mean burning fewer calories overall than someone who doesn’t work out at all.

Does that mean you shouldn’t work out?  Not at all.  Working out at a level that increases your heart rate into your target zone (aerobic) also increases the number of mitochondria in the cells.  Mitochondria are the power houses of the cells that govern how many calories they use.  The more mitochondria you have the more calories you burn and the more energetic you feel.  Wish you had as much energy as your child? Move more, move fast, move loads, and challenge yourself.

The other part of energy usage and calorie burn is the number of muscle cells you have in your body.  Muscles are the only cells that burn calories at rest.  Lifting heavy weight is KEY to increasing your metabolism.  While aerobic exercise uses fat for energy during the workout, once you stop working out, you stop burning calories at an accelerated pace.  When you lift weights, the calorie burn isn’t as high as aerobic exercise during the workout itself, BUT you burn at an accelerated pace for the rest of the day.  This results in an overall daily calorie burn that is HIGHER than aerobic exercise.  Plus you build new muscle cells that keep on burning even while you sleep.

You need all 3: aerobic exercise (for increased mitochondria), weight training (for increased muscle cells) and NEAT (for increased overall daily burn) for affective weight loss.

My personal goal is no less than 10,000 steps a day and YES that step count can include my formal workout.  NEAT plus workout > 10,000 steps.

Hope this helps!

Love,

Your Personal Trainer

Angela