Metabolism and NEAT

These notes combine advice from 28 reviewed passages across 9 workouts.

Overview

NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis, is the energy the body spends on everything done outside formal exercise, such as sitting down and standing up. How quickly those everyday actions are done is related to how much energy they use.

Coach’s advice

The body keeps spending energy at rest through basal metabolism, and everyday movement adds substantially to total calorie expenditure. Weight control depends on calorie intake together with the whole expenditure side, with formal training as only one part.

How the body uses energy

Coach’s advice

The body draws on carbohydrates first, then fat, then protein as energy sources.

Coach’s advice

Basal metabolic rate covers the calories used at rest for breathing, heartbeat, and body temperature. For a person around 70 to 73 kilograms and 25 years old, this generally comes to about 1,500 to 2,000 calories per day, even with no physical activity.

NEAT and daily energy expenditure

Coach’s advice

An active person can burn around 700 to 800 calories per day through non-exercise activity, while a sedentary person’s NEAT can drop to around 100 calories, a difference of 600 to 700 calories.

Coach’s advice

People who seem able to eat anything without gaining weight tend to move constantly outside formal exercise, so they burn calories throughout the day.

Coach’s advice

People who move slowly through the day are more prone to weight gain, while active people with high NEAT burn calories faster.

Coach’s advice

Someone who does two hours of strength training a week but is otherwise inactive may still burn few calories, especially if food is also reduced.

Coach’s advice

Cutting food out too aggressively lowers energy and training quality, and daily activity drops, so the intended calorie deficit may not form and weight can rise.

Adults often suppress children’s spontaneous movement by telling them to stop climbing, getting down, playing, and rolling on the floor, and that suppression lowers their NEAT.

Raising NEAT

Keep your NEAT high in daily life, because formal training is only one part of total daily expenditure.

Increase walking, which is a good option for daily activity.

Coach’s advice

Uphill walking burns quite a lot.

Plank transitions, and the way movement transitions are arranged inside a workout, count as a small NEAT practice.

Speeding up metabolism

Coach’s advice

Metabolism is influenced by what you eat, how you sleep, and the training you do.

Coach’s advice

Coffee can raise metabolism slightly, which is why some athletes use it, and several other foods can speed up metabolism as well.

Coach’s advice

For women, metabolism can begin slowing noticeably around ages 29 to 32, and regular sport helps balance it.

Coach’s advice

You can start resistance training with small, light weights, and as muscle increases, the rate of fat burning rises.

Coach’s advice

Metabolism can speed up, and the nervous system can work faster at the same time.

Coach’s experience

In his own daily life, he always jumped from places and climbed walls when he could, treating this as movement outside exercise.

In his own experience, he deliberately slowed his everyday movement for a while and saw his weight increase because the continuous non-exercise movement was gone.

In his own experience, a period of hunger lowered his NEAT and other daily functioning, so he avoided repeating that situation.