LiVe Well
Explore N.E.A.T. (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) for health enhancement through simple daily movements.
By Intermountain Healthcare
Jun 1, 2023
Don’t worry we’re not going to talk about being more organized. In the field of exercise when we talk about N.E.A.T., we mean Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. That’s a fancy way of saying the creation of heat through movement that is not exercise.
We all know that weight management is an important part of healthy living and the number of calories we burn during a day is part of the weight management equation. A calorie is a unit of heat. Anytime we move or complete any type of physical activity we create heat. The amount of heat we produce results in a certain number of calories burned.
We don’t have the equipment to measure every single calorie that we burn throughout the day. Instead, we make estimates based on the activity and its associated intensity that we are completing.
Tracking calories burned throughout the day is not what we’re going to talk about here either though. We just want to talk about moving more than we currently are.
N.E.A.T. includes everything from working in your garden to walking through the grocery store to every little fidgeting movement that we do throughout the day. Every little bit of movement takes energy and creates a little bit of heat.
One of the goals with exercise is to burn calories, but what if we didn’t have to spend so much time in the gym to burn the same number of calories in a day? One way to do this is to move more.
Here are some ideas to increase N.E.A.T.:
You can also think of a few was to increase N.E.A.T on your own. No one knows what your schedule is like more than you. Think about your day and where you can add more movement into things you are already doing.
Research has shown that a physically active person burns more calories from N.E.A.T. than from exercising every day. Up to 30% of our daily total calorie expenditure can come from physical activity and typically about two-thirds of that can come from Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
So the moral of the story is all it takes is a little bit more movement each day to create more heat and you can make a big difference to your health.
Want help moving more? Let us help you by putting together a personalized exercise plan to help you keep improving and reach your goals.
Focus areas include cardio, strength and resistance, balance, mobility, staying active throughout your day, advice on eating habits, and more. Click below to book an exercise prescription appointment.