Long walks or walk meetings, I read, can add to your overall fitness and health goals. It’s called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) and it isn’t a pass to eat more, because you cannot out walk or out exercise your unhealthy eating patterns, yet NEAT is attracting a great deal of attention lately, and all for the wrong reasons.
Dr. James Levine (Sitting is bad for you guru) is credited for his research and findings on NEAT.
According to Dr. Levine, “You can expend calories in one of two ways. One is to go to the gym and the other is through all the activities of daily living he termed NEAT. The basic theory is that all this movement can add up and the amount of everyday activity you get out of the office may benefit you more than your traditional investment at the gym.
These activities are what Levine says renders us vibrant, unique and independent beings. So walk, dance, shovel snow, play the guitar, swim or bike ride with a friend. Take the stairs, walk your kids to school, have “walk” meetings, are just a few recommendations.
There is no argument about moving more but if more body locomotion were as simple as it sounds we’d all be healthy and fit, right? Obesity might not be a word in the dictionary and we might not be suffering from high death rates from diseases related to excess weight.
There are two general problems with NEAT.
First, many of us are mentally fatigued early in the day and we may be so busy we that we don’t count calories. Further, in many cases the mid day foods we choose are nutrient lacking. So how much NEAT activity do we need to do now? We’ll never know, unless one is accurately counting calories and even then we traditionally underestimate calorie intake.
Second, a plethora of studies have shown that people who take that lunch hour walk either ate more to compensate or overcompensated for the calories burned. How does this happen? They went back to their desk and returned to grab-n-go, unchecked and unhealthy eating.
NEAT can be integrated into an overall health, fitness and well-being strategy. This includes a healthy diet, an exercise regime and a little NEATness to boot.
Richard is a certified individual fitness coach, a tai chi teacher, a journalist and the Executive Director of the Quebec Community Newspapers Association. You can reach him at tardifrichardg@videotron.ca, or at www.richardtardif.com
