People tend to think that you only burn calories through exercise, but that could not be further from the truth.
Matter of fact, you actually burn calories in 3 other ways besides physical activity.
In this article, you will discover what these 3 ways are and how to optimize them so you can burn calories when you are not in the gym!
Scroll below to check it out.
1. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)
What is NEAT?
- NEAT can be simply defined as you burning calories doing daily activities such as walking, cleaning, moving your hand to feed yourself, fidgeting, washing your hands and so on.
- Depending on how active you are throughout the day, NEAT can account for 15 to 25 percent of your daily calories burned.
How to Increase Daily Activity aka NEAT to Burn More Calories
Track Your Steps
- By tracking your steps you will get a clear picture of how much you are actually moving throughout your day. Typically, when people start to track their steps they realize they do not walk or move around in general as much as they think they do.
- Aim for 8000-12000 steps a day to assist your weight loss
- If you don’t always like having your phone on you, purchase a FIT BIT or an APPLE WATCH from Amazon by clicking here. By doing so, you’ll be able to stay on top of your steps and fitness goals!
Stand Up
- Yes, by standing up you can burn more calories because when you stand you do tend to do move around a lot more. This is why some people get standing desks so they don’t mess up their posture and can move around more as they work.
- Furthermore, this is why treadmill desks have become so popular lately. For some people, because of their jobs, it can be hard to move around for 8-10 hours, but by getting a treadmill desk for yourself, you can burn more calories while getting your work done!
Take the Stairs
- Another great way to increase your daily activity is to start taking the stairs instead of the elevator. By doing this you’ll be able to burn more calories.
Park Further Away
- You ever go to work, the store, or anywhere really and you try to find the closest parking spot? A great way to burn extra calories is by parking further away. Every step counts and doing this will greatly help your fat loss efforts.
Go for a Walk
- I live across a beautiful park so I get to see people going for walks all the time. I do so myself and it is one of the easiest ways to get your steps in. Clients I train go for 30-45 minute walks a day so they can reach their steps goal and it helps significantly when it comes to losing weight faster!
Dieting and NEAT
- When you begin to diet, you may not notice this but your body tends to slow down movements (daily activity goes down) to conserve your energy.
- For this reason, it is vital to increase your caloric output with the ways listed above. By doing so your weight won’t plateau and you will continue to see results long term!
2. Thermic Effect of Food
What is the Thermic Effect of Food?
- The thermic effect of food is how much energy gets expended trying to breakdown the food you just ate. Each macronutrient is unique when it comes to what percentage of calories get burned by trying to break the macronutrient down. Let’s take a look at each macronutrient below.
Fats
- For fats, only 1-3% & of calories get burned while breaking the food down.
- For example, if you consumed 100 calories, only 3 calories would get lost in the metabolic process maximum.
Carbohydrates
- For carbs, 5-10% of calories get burned when trying to breakdown carbohydrates.
- For example, if you consumed 100 calories of carbs, 10 calories at the most would get lost in the metabolic process.
Protein
- Protein is the highest when it comes to how many calories get burned when consuming food.
- 25-30% of calories get burned in the metabolic process when you consume foods high in protein!
- For example, let’s say you consumed 1200 calories from protein. 300 of those calories would get burned just by your body breaking the food down.
- For this reason, it is vital to consume a high protein diet when looking to lose weight and burn more calories without exercise.
- Check out this article I wrote how protein helps with weight loss by clicking on this link.
3. Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
What Is Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
- BMR can be referred to as the number of calories your body needs just to keep you alive and functioning.
- This often gets confused with your resting metabolic rate (RMR.) Though they are very similar, there is a slight difference and that is that the resting metabolic rate (RMR) refers to how many calories your body burns at rest.
- To conclude, BMR refers to how many calories you need to consume, whereas RMR refers to how many calories your body burns.
How Many Calories Do You Burn at Rest?
- On Average Women burn about 1400 calories, while men burn 1800.
- Remember, this is an average and not where you are at in particular.
Last Words
When it comes to losing weight, what you do outside of the gym also matters.
This is why moving more is so important when it comes to burning more calories.
Simply, by walking more, getting up more, taking the stairs and so on can help you burn those extra calories that will help put you in a calorie deficit.
The most important factor when it comes to losing weight is burning more calories then you are consuming and by following the above-mentioned ways, you can do just that!
All in all, you can burn more calories without exercising, it just requires you to be aware of the situations that you are in so you can burn those extra calories!
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