

"There are some things that can maybe change your basal metabolic rate, but not drastically." "That's for the most part not modifiable," explains Seth Creasy, an exercise physiologist at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. More than half of those calories go toward supporting basic bodily functions, what's known as our basal metabolic rate. Much of our daily energy expenditure is relatively fixed. NEAT fills in the slack in your energy expenditure Here's what to know about how NEAT works and how to get more of it. What's clear is that many of us who live screen-based lives have the capacity to inject more NEAT into our daily rhythms, not necessarily through seismic changes in our lifestyle, but small-scale ones that mostly just require a shift in mindset.

They've also found that people of the same size can have dramatically different levels of NEAT, based on factors like their job and where they live, as well as their biological drive to get up and move around.

They've learned that even small behavior changes can amplify or diminish how much NEAT you get, and this can shape your health in powerful ways. James Levine, an endocrinologist who pioneered research on NEAT while at the Mayo Clinic and now heads the nonprofit Foundation Ipsen.īut researchers have made progress understanding how NEAT works – and how we can tap into its benefits. "The fact there's so many things in part explains why it's so difficult to study, because how on earth do you measure everything?" says Dr. Think of the low-effort movements that you string together over the course of your day – things like household chores, strolling through the grocery aisle, climbing the stairs, bobbing your leg up and down at your desk, or cooking dinner. This is essentially all the calories that a person burns through their daily activity excluding purposeful physical exercise. It's a concept that goes by the name non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, for short. After all, I worked out today, right? But added up these are slowly sapping a sometimes overlooked source of metabolic health. None of these shortcuts on their own feel like that a big deal. Or that you'd rarely spot me choosing to trudge up the stairs at the end of the day. Or that using the drive thru sounds infinitely more appealing than actually getting out of my car. I probably would not mention that I prefer to drive the half mile to pick up my coffee instead of taking a 15-minute walk. If anyone asked if I get enough exercise, my answer would be unequivocal: Yes, I make a point of carving out time to sweat, get my heart pumping and move around.
