The Fitness Hack That I Have Ignored For Way Too Long

It’s officially Spring, and a great time to shed winter layers, as well as habits that don’t serve you that may have developed over the past few months. 

Today, I want to shift gears and talk about a new concept that I am heavily promoting in my coaching programs. Before I tell you, I want to first remind you of my philosophy. I think the most important factors that will predict long-term health success are consistency and sustainability.

So often we pick goals that we are unable to be consistent with, therefore we are unable to sustain our results long-term. I always say, before you are willing to commit to something… ask yourself, “can I sustain this for at least 18 months?” While many say that we can change a habit in 21 days, I don’t necessarily agree. I believe that we can discover a new habit in 21 days, we can realize that it is sustainable in 6 months, and it can become a lifestyle in about 2 years.

I am talking about your habits becoming a lifestyle to the point that you don’t even have to think in order to make great choices.

Ok, getting back to the fitness hack that I want to share with you today. As we age, our metabolism slows mostly because we lose lean muscle mass if we are not using it. Our total energy expenditure is dependent on our basal metabolic rate + exercise activity + thermogenic effect of digesting food. 

I want to now focus on the exercise component. Exercise consists of planned activity and unplanned activity. The planned activity is called EAT (exercise activity thermogenesis). The unplanned activity is called NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis).

NEAT comprises the activities such as walking the stairs, carrying laundry upstairs, cleaning the kitchen, etc. EAT plus NEAT comprises about 30% of our daily calorie burn. Experts believe that the difference between a naturally thin person versus someone who struggles may live in our commitment to NEAT.

Now, NEAT is not a fast strategy to improve fitness… but it is an effective and sustainable one. Other experts believe that NEAT may actually be more important than EAT.

My mother has maintained her weight her entire life focusing completely on NEAT… she never had a planned exercise program. NEAT also allows us to be more intuitive. If we begin to commit to NEAT now, in a year’s time - I believe we will see a huge difference in our fitness. 

One month ago, I started wearing my pedometer. I wanted to see how many steps I was achieving outside of exercise. I was shocked when I saw that most of my activity was coming from planned exercise. Some days, I was getting less than 5,000 steps per day which is considered sedentary.

This data motivated me to make a commitment. I am committing to 10,000 steps each day. I will follow my progress over a year’s time and see if this intervention alone can improve my fitness and body composition. This is a long-game strategy, but based on the evidence - I believe that it is worth committing to. And - this is sustainable for me.

All-or-none thinking makes us think that NEAT is not an effective strategy because it doesn’t seem hard enough. I am busting out of this way of thinking and committing to this strategy.

What do you think? Willing to give it a try?