Hey Strong Fam. Here’s something to consider when we want to stay active.
What does ‘being active’ mean to you? You might be thinking of running for hours until you’re out of breath or doing any physical or strenuous activity that keeps your heart rate pumping. There are definitely a lot more ways to be more active other than that and that’s what we’ll be talking about here.
For pro athletes and your favorite fitness enthusiasts, being active could be any form of training, playing sports, working out, jogging or running, and other activities that keep your heart rate up. But what are the other things you can do to consider yourself active? It could even be the simplest things we do daily like commuting, all sorts of chores, errands, and other non-sports like related activities where we use our non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT.
NEAT is the energy spent on activities that aren’t intense or considered a heavy workout, yet still spends the energy from the calories we consume daily. So it’s something we can still consider, especially if we’re a sedentary person who has limited time to work out. It can even be considered a good way to kick start your fitness journey if you’re looking for ways to start, and then eventually progress to something more challenging.
What are the examples of NEAT? There’s a lot to mention actually, but here are some to name a few:
- Washing the dishes
- Cleaning your room
- Throwing out the garbage
- Walking the dogs
- Getting your groceries
- Playing with kids
- Commuting to and from walk
The list can go on and on, but you can imagine that you’re already doing them on a regular day. Now, they don’t exactly increase your heart rate to break a sweat like how it feels when we do cardio – unless we’re walking uphill or up the stairs for a long duration.. but they still get you moving and help you avoid being sedentary at any point.
One thing to help you with your NEAT is by measuring your steps from things you do daily. You can measure it by using a smartphone’s health app by keeping it close to you like in your pocket most of the time as it’ll be able to monitor your steps as you move. Another option is to wear a fitness tracker or smart watches like Garmin, Fit bit, G-Shock, Xiaomi’s Mi band, and other brands.
You’ll hear a lot of people say “10,000 steps daily”, but not a lot can do that much based on their lifestyle. For starters, you can probably start with a minimum of 5,000 steps daily and increase the amount of steps later once you get a hang of it. If you plan your day ahead with a steady routine with all the activities that you do, you can probably hit 10,000 steps easy on a daily basis.
Set your own goals that would best suit your lifestyle and fitness goals, then progress from there. Once you make it a habit to keep yourself active by increasing your NEAT, then you’d be active in no time.
Keep progressing and enjoy the journey.
If you want to learn more fitness tips follow me on IG, Youtube, and Tiktok @cashfuerte or subscribe to my online coaching by messaging @Configains on IG / FB or email at [email protected].
Source: https://blog.nasm.org/exercise-programming/neat-approach-weight-loss
