Are you falling short on fitness?
According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, adults should aim for 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity and two days of muscle strengthening a week — yet only a scant one-quarter of American adults are meeting that minimum.
While it’s clear that we should move more, experts suggest that physical activity can and should extend beyond the treadmill or gym mat.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, or NEAT, refers to the calories we burn through daily activities like cooking dinner, doing chores, grocery shopping, taking the stairs and even fidgeting at our desks.
NEAT is essentially the aggregate of all the low-effort movements we make throughout the day.
Our bodies are built for this kind of steady, low-level activity, and prolonged periods of sitting are, in fact, an affront to our biology.
As University of Houston muscle physiology professor Marc Hamilton noted in 2022, “30 minutes a day of exercise can’t immunize you from what you do the other 23-and-a-half hours.”
“Our bodies were built to move all day,” Hamilton continued. “They weren’t built to be idle and stationary with a metabolic rate similar to a person in a coma.”
But according to NHANES data, 36.1% of the studied US population was categorized as sedentary, reflecting the increasingly digital workforce.
Many Americans sit for eight to 10 hours a day — to the detriment of their back, hips, waistline and heart. Sitting for extended periods can lead to obesity, muscle weakening, spinal stress, poor blood sugar regulation and decreased blood circulation throughout the body.
Estimates show that someone who works from a sitting position might burn 700 calories per day through NEAT; in contrast, a job that involves standing all day would double that burn.
The American Heart Association warns that excessive sedentary time increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and early death.
However, we can combat these sedentary issues by amplifying NEAT, adding more movement into our day-to-day activities and making choices that require some physical effort rather than defaulting to convenience.
A 2024 study of 2,000 US adults found that almost all respondents surveyed (98%) believe they can get a workout in while taking on everyday tasks.
Those tasks include harnessing the power of everyday activities like walking around the neighborhood (74%), taking the stairs (60%), doing yard work (59%), cleaning the home (59%), walking the dog (56%) and bringing groceries into the home (42%).
Other tasks compared to exercises include gardening (40%), taking the trash out (36%), stretching after getting out of bed (35%), doing dishes or laundry (33%), standing on your feet for at least four hours (30%) or even getting kids ready for school (10%).
Our daily energy expenditure, or the total number of calories the body burns in a day, is somewhat fixed. A little more than half of these calories are allotted to the basal metabolic rate that supports essential bodily function.
Another 10% of our energy is dedicated to digesting and metabolizing food.
With these nonnegotiables deducted, we’re left with 30-40% of our energy stores ready to be spent on the remainder of our activities.
While the healthy benefits of regular aerobic activity can not be overstated — it has been shown to lower the risk of stroke, help maintain a healthy weight, keep bones strong and improve mental health — increasing NEAT through simple choices and minimal effort can contribute to total calorie burn and overall wellness.
Experts say that even among those who regularly work out, NEAT usually plays a more significant role in calorie burning than structured exercise. Further, small behavior changes can influence how much NEAT we’re getting and benefit we’re experiencing.
“Sometimes it’s hard to carve out 30 to 60 minutes of your day to do an exercise routine. These little behaviors can accumulate and end up comprising a lot of energy expenditure,” Seth Creasy, an exercise physiologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, told NPR.
Case in point? Fidgeting while sitting or standing increases the amount of calories you burn by 29% and 38%, respectively (as compared to lying still). Consequently, it can account for anywhere from 100 to 800 calories burnt off as heat energy per day.
Chores like laundry, gardening and vacuuming burn a few hundred calories per hour, and when compared to the quick fix of the elevator, taking the stairs triples caloric expenditure.
In addition to fidgeting, chore completing and stair climbing, there are several easy ways to inject more NEAT into your everyday routines.
Experts recommend:
- Walk or bike to work or other destinations whenever possible.
- Park at the farthest end of the parking lot and walk to your destination.
- Stand or walk around during phone calls.
- Take a quick walk after meals to aid digestion and boost NEAT.
- When you’re watching television, get up and move during commercial breaks.
- If you have a desk job, use a standing or treadmill desk for part of your workday.
