2937: [Part 2] Calories Out: How Does Your Metabolism Burn Calories? by Rachel Trotta on NEAT

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Health Daily, Calories Out. How Does Your Metabolism Burn Calories? Part 2 by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com and I'm Dr. Neal, your host and narrator. Hey there, happy Tuesday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free. I cover fitness, nutrition, stress management, weight management, and lots more, just like an audiobook, but from a bunch of different authors and always with permission from the sites.

[00:00:29] Now, today's post is part 2 from yesterday. So, if you're new here or skipping around, I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first. But, if you're all caught up, I'm going to keep this intro nice and short, so let's jump right in and hear part 2 as we continue optimizing your life. Calories Out. How Does Your Metabolism Burn Calories? Part 2 by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com.

[00:00:58] Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis Again, this is nothing new in terms of my blog posts, but if you haven't been convinced before, I hope to drive home today the importance of staying active outside of exercise. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT for short, is the mostly unconscious moving around that you do throughout the day. I say mostly unconscious because many of the behaviors are beyond your conscious awareness.

[00:01:25] For example, bouncing your foot when you cross your legs. But, a few are somewhat within the realm of control. One of these factors that you can control is not sitting as much. This is why my online coaching clients, whether they're one-on-one or in a group, track steps consistently and make step goals a huge part of their program. If you can resist the overall impulse of 21st century American culture to sit all day long, you will make huge inroads in speeding up your metabolism.

[00:01:55] We sit in the car on the way to work. Many of us sit at a computer at work. Then we drive home and sit and watch TV at night. If we can replace some of those periods of sitting with conscious periods of low-intensity, non-exercise movement, we will harness the power of NEAT to drive up metabolic rate by as much as 2,000 calories per day. Does this number sound unbelievable? Well, believe it.

[00:02:20] Unlike 1,000-calorie-torching bootcamp classes, which are completely false, NEAT has the potential to vary your metabolic rate in the quadruple digits. And I'm not even talking about exercise yet. The extra energy that it takes for your body to maintain itself while you're in motion compared to sitting still is tremendous. Since most of us can't exercise for hours a day, as most of us aren't professional athletes,

[00:02:43] we can still reap the benefits of this increased metabolic expenditure by simply moving a bit every time we think of it. This adds up dramatically over hours every day. For example, some professions tend to move more than others. Letter carriers who walk on foot, as well as teachers, tend to burn more calories per day relative to other professions. It's so simple it almost seems unbelievable.

[00:03:07] The extra energy spent over 8-10 hours of activity throughout the day significantly outpaces what we can do with formal exercise. So, take more breaks at work. Get up to go for a quick walk. Change positions more frequently while sitting. Try to work in a standing position when you can. Pace in your office as you take a phone call. Basically, anytime you realize, Hmm, I've been sitting for a while. Get up. Exercise.

[00:03:34] In terms of metabolism only, exercise is not a heavy lifter. Relative to NEAT, it burns fewer calories and does not exert as much influence on metabolic rate. However, and this is a very important however, exercise is incredibly important for a myriad of reasons. Strength training can blunt many of the acute experiences of aging by building and maintaining lean body mass and can ameliorate the slowing of our metabolism with each decade.

[00:04:03] In fact, the National Weight Control Registry has noted that many of its successful weight loss participants exercise for an hour per day to help maintain weight loss. This is a significant time investment and well worth the effort. Suffice to say, there is a cascade of benefits that we receive from exercise that can't be limited to a discussion of metabolic rate. So, you should have a daily or most days exercise habit that is oriented around building strength and getting your heart rate up, not focusing on burning calories.

[00:04:34] To summarize, you burn calories by living. This is again based mostly on height, weight, age, and sex. You burn calories by moving around. This is somewhat unconscious but can be leveraged. And you burn calories exercising. This is conscious and intentional. When you move more and exercise more, your metabolism is technically faster because you are burning more calories per day. You lose fat when you need to recruit extra energy from stored fat

[00:05:03] because your food intake is not sufficient to cover your energy needs. And note, there are other thermic effects of body processes like digesting food that I'm not exploring as part of this topic because these are inconsequential factors. They are mostly interesting factoids, but not material for impactful lifestyle changes. Pro tip, don't get hung up on teeny tiny details like these, which ironically tend to be the ones that make headlines. A few notes on hormones.

[00:05:33] If you're a woman hearing this and you're over 40, you may intuitively know that your metabolism has slowed as you have aged. I want to point out that for many women, the change is likely not so much age, but hormones. I've written about hormones before, specifically the idea of control versus influence. But it's important to point out that the changes of menopause are more significant than the idea of aging itself. The changes in thyroid function and hormone production that happen during perimenopause

[00:06:02] and menopause can downshift your metabolism. And this can also happen to a degree with some hormonal medications like birth control and hormonal disruptions like polycystic ovary syndrome. Hormones are so powerful, in fact, that they can change a woman's metabolic rate throughout the menstrual cycle each month with periodic increases and decreases in rate. In other words, if you're a woman, you do not have a fixed linear metabolic rate.

[00:06:28] This is something that you'll have to dance with in your efforts to get leaner. You must work with yourself, not against yourself. You just listened to part two of the post titled, Calories Out, How Does Your Metabolism Burn Calories? by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:09] Dr. Neil here for my commentary. Let me ask your opinion on something. During which activity is our metabolism, or resting metabolic rate, the slowest? Meaning, which of the two activities I'm going to mention lead to the fewest calories burned? Does sleeping lead to the fewest calories burned?

[00:07:39] Or does watching TV? You ready for the answer? Watching TV. Researchers have discovered that, for some reason, we burn even fewer calories when we, say, binge watch Netflix than if we had taken a nap instead. Now, I'm not saying that every time you have the urge to catch up on your favorite show, you take a nap. Instead, what if during those shows, you take a moment to boost your metabolism? You take a moment to stand up and stretch.

[00:08:06] Or take a quick walk to your mailbox to check your mail. Or did some bodyweight squats or sit-ups or crunches. Because somehow, when we're laying down on the couch watching TV, our metabolisms are so slow that even sleeping would burn more calories. So, instead of allowing your metabolism to lull itself to sleep while you watch TV, forcing yourself to move will wake up your metabolism again.

[00:08:32] And remember, even these small movements, when performed consistently over time, can lead to a lot of calories burned. All right. That'll do it for me for today. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening every day. I hope you're having a great week so far. And I'll see you back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits. Thanks for listening! Bye! Thank you.