How NEAT
Walking 2 dogs actually burns twice the calories. Right?
One of my favorite new terms I have learned through my study of fitness is NEAT. It stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, which makes for a super-awkward acronym. In the world of forced acronyms, this might rank near the top with SPECTRE from the James Bond films. (That stands for “Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion”. Right).
Anyway, the acronym non-withstanding, NEAT is actually pretty, well, neat. It’s all the calories we burn just doing stuff. Taking the dog for a walk. Gardening. Mowing the lawn. Vacuuming. You get the idea.
On my exercise days off, I do my best to close all the rings on my Apple Watch just with NEAT. I’m always amazed at how all the little things add up by the end of the day. Calories burned are calories burned and it’s good to know we can help our bodies without having to work up a sweat all the time.
Here are a couple ways to get in some extra NEAT work without a lot of effort: 1) If you are stuck at your desk all day, get yourself a reusable water bottle and drink periodically. When it’s empty, get up and fill it again. That’s some extra steps, and gets you out of your chair. If you drink enough you’ll also need more bathroom breaks, and those also get you moving. And of course water is great for us!
2) when you go to a store, park as far away as you can. It’s an easy way to get extra steps in, and if you end up pushing a full cart that’s even more calories burned. And you will also discover it is so much easier to get out of the parking lot if you are parked far away from the stores!
I’m fortunate that I live near a grocery store so I can walk there if I have the time. Not everyone is so lucky, but there may be something else you can walk to. A friend’s house, a park, the library. We’ll even walk the 2 miles to Oden Brewery to have a beer.
The point is, there are a lot of everyday activities that help us burn calories. And there are ways to add little extra movements, too. Embrace the NEAT, and see if it helps get you more active!
