NEAT is the secret to being healthier and getting in better shape without going to the gym

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 is...