#26. Managing Weight With NEAT Monday, August 9, 2021 In last week's blog, we talked about sedentary behavior from the perspective of deterioration and disease. This week, let's explore the relationship between physical activity and body composition. Managing your weight is a lot like managing your finances. You have an income (the calories you eat), expenses (the calories you burn), and a bank account to draw from whenever you spend more than you earn (bodyfat). Depleting our bodily banks of their subcutaneous wealth can be difficult if we're strictly relying on diet and exercise. Before we go any further, let's outline the types of caloric expenses: First, there's basal metabolic rate. This is the ongoing cost of being alive. It's like paying rent to live in your body; no one survives eviction, so this payment is always made. Second, there is physical activity thermogenesis. If you do any activity at all (go jogging, pull some weeds, plant those weeds in your neighbor's yard), there's a price to perform it. It costs calories. And third, there is the thermic effect of food. Not even digestion is free, so eating burns calories, too (more or less depending on what you eat). If you add all three of these together, you get your total daily energy expenditure (Levine et al., 1999). Physical activity thermogenesis is the component to focus on here. It comprises the exercise we do on purpose as well as non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). We typically ordain exercise as the great savior of our midriffs, but NEAT may be an even more important determinant of body composition (Levine, 2015). Unfortunately, we don't get as much of it as we used to. Consider the following examples: Are you cold? "Yeah, but not cold enough to slog through the snow and fetch a bunch of wood and coal." Oh, no need. Just press the "up" button on the thermostat. You don't even have to leave your chair; there's a remote. Are you thirsty? "Not thirsty enough for a trip to the well or cow udder." No need; your refrigerator functions as both. It even has a little water udder bult into the door that milks itself. Just hold a cup under it and it'll spit a stream of fresh water into the cup until it's full. Want butter? "Not if I have to churn it myself; my shoulder is a bit tender from splitting so much wood yesterday." No need to strain those shoulders. Just have a scoop of hydrogenated butter-colored substrate on your pre-sliced bread. The only challenge on your end is solving the riddle of the twisty tie sealing the loaf bag! Even hunting became a lazy game. Simply use one finger to move a tiny lever a tiny distance, and bang! In most of our endeavors, both professional and recreational, NEAT is nearly extinct. If you can repopulate your life with it, you may find your body composition improving without so much reliance on treadmills and dumbbells. How might you incorporate more NEAT? With these tips: Tip 1) Be a better budget balancer. The worst budget balancers simply monitor income. They don't care about expenses. A decent balancer pays attention to income and large expenses (e.g., a car payment), but ignores the little stuff (e.g., an appetizer). The problem here is that the little stuff adds up. Similarly, a large bodily expense (e.g., a one-hour exercise session) isn't as important as what you do during the other 15 waking hours. So if you want to manage your weight more effectively, you really should sweat the small stuff. And never use "I exercised today" as an excuse to eat more. "I NEATed today" is a far better justification. Tip 2) Pay attention to your sedentary times. What is your body doing? If it's fidgeting and pacing and annoying everyone who is sitting quietly, you're doing fine. If it is one of the still bodies, make a point of getting up on occasion. At least once an hour. Even if it's just for five minutes. If movement seems impolite, like if you're on a plane, just pretend you have to go to the bathroom every hour. "I have a tiny bladder" as you climb over the increasingly irritated person in the aisle seat. Whatever it takes to keep your body from surrendering to stillness. Tip 3) Prioritize consistency of movement over intensity. Intensity is valuable, but consistency is crucial. One day a week of loungey downtime won't kill you. But a second starts to get homicidal. So get your daily dose of physical activity. As often as you can. If you're just getting started, don't even think about intensity.