Talk About NEAT!

I'm writing this from my daughter's house, where I'm staying to care for our granddaughters (and granddog) while my daughter and her husband spend a long weekend in New York City.  Our two oldest granddaughters are 7 and 5-1/2 (in second grade and kindergarten, respectively), so they are at an easy and fun age to watch.  This is also a busy age and I found myself on a very different schedule yesterday, as well as today.  Thankfully my daughter left me a detailed list of each girl's schedule and also arranged her carpool so I don't have to get the girls to and from school.  Whew!  However, soccer practice and homework and practicing the piano are all on the girl's schedules, and when I throw in their three-story house - and the dog - yesterday late afternoon and evening was busy!

This is when I love the fact that Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen (Take Shape for Life/Medifast's medical director and Take Shape for Life's co-founder) spends time in his book, "Dr. A's Habits of Health," talking about NEAT points.  NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  Basically, NEAT points are the calories we burn being active in our daily life, outside of formal, focused exercise.  He spends the better part of an entire chapter in his book talking about the importance of NEAT points as well as giving very practical ideas on how to increase the number of points in a day without taking any additional time.  I didn't have time today for a formal workout, but my activity level stayed pretty high.  I try to burn about 1,900 calories a day through my regular activity level (I track this with my BodyBugg), and I didn't have any problem hitting this target yesterday (and I'm pretty sure I'll do well today, too!).

Dr. Andersen writes about increasing our NEAT points by doing simple things like parking way out in the parking lot at the mall, taking stairs instead of the elevator, standing (or even walking) while we talk on the phone.  He give an example of tapping his foot in time to music on his iPod while he works - even that simple movement counts at NEAT points.

NEAT activity certainly doesn't replace EAT activity (Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), but it absolutely complements it.  EAT activity is relatively short-lived - most of us do "official" workouts for an hour at the most per day, 3-5 days per week.  That leave a lot of untapped hours, which is where NEAT comes in.  By making small changes in the way we do things, we can increase the amount of calories we burn every day.  Even simple things like using a hand-operated can opener instead of an electric one, or washing dishes by hand instead of loading the dishwasher (I know that sounds like heresy to some of us!) are all ways to burn a few extra calories.  When we look for opportunities throughout our day to move just a bit more, those bits of expended energy really add up! 

So every time I ran up and down the stairs at my daughter's house, I reminded myself that I was earning NEAT points.  At the soccer field for last night's practice, I parked in the far parking lot and we walked a good block to get to the field (true confession: I missed the turn for the closer parking lot!) - more NEAT points!

You may be facing a busy weekend that won't allow time for you to get to the health club for a good workout.  However, you can still find ways to incorporate movement and activity into your day.  Be creative!  The choices we make to stay on plan and stay active will make all the difference over time, so choose wisely :-)