
Also, NEAT counteracts the hazardous effect of being sedentary. Moving throughout the day uses up the ATP your mitochondria are producing and minimizes a buildup of that cellular exhaust (ROS) that is a byproduct of energy production. Doing NEAT activities is like opening the garage door to let the exhaust fumes out and taking the car out for a drive. We want our “car” to be driving around (moving, living), not sitting in the garage. We need to use our fuel.
Spontaneous movement isn’t necessarily spontaneous. It’s an instinct based on energy intake. The natural human (and animal) tendency is to move more in response to eating more, and to move less in response to eating less.
The problem is that we have overridden this instinct because of how easy it is to overeat and how easy it is not to move in our current culture, but you can start to counter this mismatch between movement and energy intake by purposefully moving more. If you never sit for long periods of time, moving your body at least every thirty minutes or so throughout the day, you can get back into sync with your appetite cues.
Call NEAT exercise
Walking around the house doing housework, or having a physical job is technically a source of NEAT, but if you think of it as exercise, you may actually get even more benefit, according to research by the Stanford psychologist Alia Crum, PhD. In her study, a group of housekeepers working in hotels were told that their jobs counted as exercise and met the criteria for an active lifestyle. A control group was not told this. The group that was told their jobs counted as exercise burned more energy and got fitter than the control group. Think of your NEAT activities as exercise and you may get even more benefit from them.
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Here are some more simple ways to increase your NEAT. All of these will add to your daily step count and fuel usage, sometimes significantly:
From the book THE SPARK FACTOR by Dr. Molly Maloof Copyright (C) 2023 by Dr. Molly Maloof. Published by Harper Wave, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
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