It is that part of the year where the lights have come out, hard work has paid off and you are out showing your abs and slim waistlines. But, wait, is that the case? No, obviously not! While the part of lights coming out stands true, this is definitely the period where we all lose track of what and how much we eat.
So, here is something about burning fat without much of a workout which might help you. Not a lot of people know about this…let this be our secret!
Breaking the myth of ‘Slow Metabolism’
Most of us have heard that when you significantly reduce your calories, your metabolism slows down. We’re warned not to diet too hard so our metabolisms aren’t ‘downregulated’, in effect, harming our progress.
But the truth is, our metabolisms don’t downregulate when we cut our calories. Our bodies don’t recognize that we’re eating less and immediately catapult into “starvation mode”.
The reason that our progress may eventually slow when we reduce calories is NEAT. We tend to expend less energy when we’re getting less energy from food. It’s a natural behavioral response to dieting.
When we’re eating fewer calories, we tend to move less. Physiological studies have demonstrated that NEAT increases with overfeeding, and decreases with underfeeding. t’s not hard to spot someone who is knee deep in a dieting phase. You’ll find them seated, motionless, without a tap of a finger or swing of a foot.
When dieting, we tend to move as little as possible, other than when we’re exercising. As a result, our fat loss slows down. If you want to keep up your progress, keep up your NEAT.
INACTIVITY: A wrong key to fat loss
Our sedentary lifestyles are detrimental to our health. Sitting is the new smoking. Obesity was rare a century ago. Today, nearly one third of the world’s population is obese or overweight. And since our genetic constitution hasn’t undergone a complete overhaul, there must be other reasons we’re getting plumper and plumper.
Sure, the foods that we’re eating are causing the numbers on our scales to creep up. But the fact that we’re too lazy to even get in a car and drive to a fast food restaurant is certainly not helping.
You will struggle to out-exercise a sedentary lifestyle. No matter how many times a week you make it to the gym, it will not make up for being seated for the remainder of your waking hours.
Focusing solely on the energy you use while exercising is one of the biggest fat loss mistakes you can make. Exercise will never make up for the energy you could be using living an active lifestyle. If you want to effectively lose fat, you need to move. When you’re dieting, ensuring you’re active throughout the day becomes that much more important.
Neatly implementing N.E.A.T is a quick fix solution!
It’s obvious that your calories will burn more during a strenuous activity rather than while at rest. Nevertheless, it is always expending energy even during rest. The calories you burn during this rest period apart from a structured exercise are termed as Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). It can involve any trivial activity such as getting out of the bed, walking around the house, fidgeting, sitting and standing etc.
Let us first understand how our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is organized into three distinct categories:
1. Basal Metabolic Rate (Resting Metabolic Rate): It is the amount of energy used up by the body for its main physiological functions and organ support. It approximately constitutes for 60-75% of the TDEE.
2. The Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): It is the energy used to convert food into more energy or to store it in the form of fat. It accounts for around 10% of the TDEE.
3. The Thermic Effect of physical Activity (TEPA): It makes up for the remaining 15-30% of TDEE owing to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (the energy which the body burns after one exercises, to return to its normal state).
Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is an enzyme that plays a critical role in converting fat into energy. Remaining sedentary for long periods of time can reduce levels of LPL. Conversely, using NEAT to move consistently throughout the day can help sustain LPL levels and help the body maintain its ability to burn fat.
While exercising is very important to burn hundreds of calories in one go, Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) can play a significant role in maximizing the total amount of the calories we burn each day. NEAT is one of the many ways our bodies manage weight and therefore is directly proportional to our weight. If our weight increases, NEAT will increase, and will decrease with weight loss.
Source: The South African Medical Journal
Here are some habits we can incorporate to properly implement NEAT and help us reach your health and weight loss goals:
1. Regular walking is an important aspect of NEAT that burns calories. The U.S. Department of Health has been promoting 10,000 steps a day to increase physical activity among adults. In addition, by choosing to walk or cycle for a daily commute, one can burn significant calories compared to people leading a sedentary lifestyle.
2. Standing can make a whole lot of difference to help you increase our daily calorie expenditure. According to a research study by Mayo Clinic, it was observed that the adults who stood burned more calories than those who were sitting.
3. Play with your kids: In this modern era of having an app for everything, there is no app for spending extra time with your kids. If you can carve out even a few minutes for playing catch, kicking a ball or walking down to your neighborhood park, you will be spending precious time with your offspring while racking up NEAT. An additional benefit to playing is that it can also help boost neural activity and cognition, so not only are you burning a few more calories, you could actually be increasing your brain function as well.
If losing weight is your primary concern, implementing NEAT is an essential component. You can incorporate NEAT into your day-to-day lives in various minor but significant ways. At work, at home, stuck in a queue, one should always find ways to stand or move, rather than just sitting. It may not be as effective compared to when you go for a jog, but even so, minute movements can help take advantage of NEAT. Therefore, while seemingly small, the effort to change our daily habits along with healthy nutritional choices to reduce caloric intake and activate NEAT, creates a foundation for a long lasting weight loss success, even in Diwali!
Story contributed by Aditya Chaudhari (Editorial Team, Fitnastic).
About Fitnastic: Fitnastic was founded in January, 2020 with the aim to help individuals go through their fitness obstacles and transform them into a stronger, fitter and confident individual. Rishi Nagar being the founder and Ojas Bhatt being the Co-Founder, they believe in the ideology that exercise and nutrition are the utmost priority for a healthy well-being.
At Fitnastic, they craft an individual’s well-being by not only providing customized diet plans and live training/training routines, but also provide conversations with doctors on various health issues, easy-to-make healthy recipes & also educate people by providing scientific knowledge about different dieting patterns, herbs, and physiological functions of the human system.
Because, Fitness is not a joke!
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