When you’re working on creating a calorie deficit with the goal in mind of losing some weight, regulating your food intake is a great tool, but tapping into different aspects of your metabolism can have added benefit. It’s important to know how your metabolism works, so you know where your efforts can have some unexpected influence. It might not be where you think!
There are four notable metabolic processes. The first is your RMR or Resting Metabolic Rate. This is the amount of energy expended at rest, in combination with what’s used to maintain life within your body. RMR fuels your organs and encompasses the energy it takes to keep you breathing, your heart thumping, your hormones flowing, your brain computing, your digestive system gurgling, and anything else your body does to keep you alive.
RMR uses the greatest proportion of energy and is influenced by several factors, most specifically the size of your body. For example, a 100lb person will burn fewer calories at rest than a 250lb person. Your body composition will also impact your RMR. People with more muscle mass (think Dwayne Johnson) will burn more calories than someone with a lower lean mass to body fat ratio. Genetics will also affect the rate, as will your hormones. Generally, RMR accounts for greater than 70% of calories burned in a day!
Muscle is about the only way we can significantly influence our RMR and that’s why building muscle is so important. Pound for pound, muscle burns about 3x more calories than body fat. To increase your muscle mass, you have to do some resistance training, while also eating adequate protein to rebuild muscle tissue that has been broken down during said resistance training.
Next up, we have the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). This is the energy you burn digesting food throughout the day. Depending on your diet, TEF can account for about 10% of calories burned. Interestingly, protein takes the most energy to digest, while also keeping you the most satiated.
Winner-winner-chicken-dinner?
The third metabolic burner occurs during exercise and is called Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (ACT). If you wear a fitness tracker you know that you burn more calories per hour when you’re working out. Depending on what you do, you might clock in between a couple hundred calories per hour to 500-600 depending on the intensity within that hour.
Exercise activity is variable and usually accounts for roughly 10-30% of calories used in a day. Most people know this is where they have to kick things up a notch when they’re trying to create a calorie deficit.
The final energy burner is something super NEAT – Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. NEAT is the movement we don’t really think about because it doesn’t feel like exercise. It’s the movement where our heart rate doesn’t really go up, we don’t necessarily get sweaty, and little-to-no special equipment is needed.
It’s the energy expended cleaning bathrooms, folding laundry, washing the floors, walking from the parking lot to the office building, walking around the grocery store and then standing in line, fidgeting, taking the dog out before bed, and even the energy expended doing food prep!
This is an area that is typically under exploited because people don’t think it’s intense enough to make a difference. Don’t be fooled - not only is NEAT a good calorie burner, but it’s low impact, less time-consuming movement that can stack up significantly to increase your calorie deficit.
Plus, it just feels good to move more throughout the day. It will help with circulation, your mood, and your focus – humans are not meant to be the sedentary creatures that we often are due to work environments and other pressures and priorities.
Here are 11 great ways to make your day a little NEAT-er:
Every time you have to pee, walk to the furthest bathroom in your house OR office building; use the stairs if you have bathrooms on multiple floors
Park in the corner of the parking lot furthest away from your destination (grocery store, office building, etc)
Walk to do errands – either from home or park in a central spot and walk to your various destinations
Take the stairs any chance you get instead of using elevators or escalators
Mow your own lawn; shovel your own snow; do your own cleaning (if practical, of course!)
Walk to the grocery store from your house if doing a small shop – carrying your groceries in a backpack will increase the energy expended on your walk
Take a five minute walk every hour or a 10-minute walk after every meal
Walk around the field or building while your kids are doing their extracurricular activities
Get off public transit one stop earlier than is geographically closest to your destination
Do hobbies like knitting, woodworking, painting, and similar things to build in some extra movement (and joy!)
Walk around the house, office building, or outdoors while on phone calls or phone meetings (when only occasional notes have to be taken, of course)
While purposeful and vigorous exercise is a time efficient way to increase your energy expenditure, less intense movement sprinkled throughout your day can significantly contribute to your overall calorie burn AND sense of wellness.
The greater calorie deficit will help you accomplish your body composition goals more quickly. Look for opportunities wherever you can and challenge yourself to move frequently and continually throughout the day!
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