5 Easy ways to increase your N.E.A.T Activity
5 Easy ways to increase your N.E.A.T Activity – [Last Updated – May 2024]
Everyday we move our bodies to do daily tasks without batting an eyelid at it, but those movements are actually really important to our health.
Getting in enough daily movement is imperative to keeping ourselves in good health.
So, I’m sharing some easy ways you can increase your daily movements that help with your N.E.A.T.
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What is N.E.A.T?
N.E.A.T stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and in basic terms, it means all the activities we do daily that aren’t considered exercise or working out that burn calories.
It’s all the energy we expend doing day to day tasks except for eating, sleeping or planned workouts.
These daily activities include the likes of walking around the house, cooking, doing laundry, fidgeting, gardening, doing grocery shopping and more.
Although working out and getting in physical exercise is great, N.E.A.T is actually super important and accounts for 15% of your total daily expenditure of calories whereas workouts only account for 5%.
So, how can we easily increase our N.E.A.T each day? Let’s take a look!
5 Easy ways to increase your N.E.A.T Activity
Take the stairs
Opting to take the stairs more often is a great way to increase your daily activities.
It’s become second nature to take the elevator or escalator to get places, but opting to take the stairs more often helps improve our overall fitness.
Not only is taking the stairs great for increasing your N.E.A.T, it also helps to strengthen leg muscles and keep us fit.
So next time you have the option to take the stairs or an elevator, why not give the stairs a go, your body will thank you for it.
Oh, and a little tip I have is to invest in a good pair of trainers to help you on your journey of increasing your N.E.A.T!
Park further away from your destination
Choosing to park further away from the store or wherever you are off to is a great way to up your step count.
By doing this we add in a bit more of a distance forcing us to walk further to get to where we are going and this in turn helps us increase our N.E.A.T.
Try parking 10 or more bays away from where you would normally park to start with and build it up from there.
10 minute walk around the house
It may sound strange to some people, but walking around the house for 10 or more minutes is a great way to not only increase our step count, but also our N.E.A.T.
This is a great way to increase our daily activity without having to leave our house.
Put on some music or stick on a podcast and start walking!
I used to do this before I got myself a treadmill and it was a great way to keep my step count up and keep me moving.
Move your body when sitting
You don’t have to be up and walking around to increase your N.E.A.T, you can also do it sitting down!
All those fidgeting movies you do such as bouncing your leg or having a little dance in your chair counts towards your daily movement.
Try doing movements like leg raises, glute squeezes, leg bouncing, swaying side to side, mini dance more etc.
There are also certain exercises you can do sitting down such as seated leg extensions, seated flutter kicks, torso twists and more!
Check out this post Discreet Exercises You Can Do At Your Desk by Fitbit, it’s one I came across a few years ago and now use regularly.
Dance while cleaning
Doing house chores such as cleaning can feel boring and I’m sure at some point we have all skipped it for something more exciting.
But, it doesn’t have to be boring!
Using music while cleaning is a great way to make it a little more exciting as you can dance away while dusting, mopping, hoovering etc.
This is a fantastic way to increase our N.E.A.T as we are moving our bodies already and adding in some dancing just increases that.
So, get yourself an upbeat playlist and get moving!
Cleaning Playlist
Need a good cleaning playlist?
Then this one I have on Spotify is perfect!
10 activities to easily increase your N.E.A.T
Looking for more ways you can easily increase your N.E.A.T each day?
Then check out these 10 activities that you can incorporate into your daily routines which will help you increase your N.E.A.T.
- Add 5 to 10 minutes onto your dog walk routine
- Take a trip to the park with children
- Walk to the shops if possible
- Take a stroll around the office
- Stand more than you sit if possible
- If you work from home, walk around the house for a couple of minutes every hour
- Walk children to school
- Cook at home more often
- Do some gardening
- Play with pets
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I can’t believe I never knew what neat was! This is very informative Jordanne, amazing that 15% of our calories burned actually comes from this and exercise only account for 5%.
These are great tips and activity suggestions. I’ve started taking the stairs more and I can feel a difference in that, going to try adding more time onto the dog walks and parking a little further away.
I had absolutely no idea what N.E.A.T was, and my guess was nowhere near haha! These are all such great tips, and I love the look of that playlist, I’m on my way to listen to it. I always used to park further away, and I noticed a difference, and it’s great that something small can really help xx
Hannah | https://luxuryblush.co.uk/
I had never heard of N.E.A.T before. Thank you for explaining this. Dancing whilst cleaning is something I do and hoovering for me can be quite a demanding task on my body. The other activities are definitely somethings that I do, walking around the house alone can be a lot of exercise. Thank you for sharing Jordanne.
Lauren – bournemouthgirl