Stop Blaming Your Metabolism: It's "NEAT" Stopping Fat Loss



Stephanie Gillam

How many times have you or someone you know complained about a slow metabolism? The phrase “I can just look at food and gain weight!” is something I’ve heard many times. While it is true that many people do have endocrine problems that make weight loss harder, the vast majority of people who complain about slow metabolism don’t have a metabolism problem at all. They have a movement problem – or, more accurately, a lack of movement!

So what about those that are thinking, “But I work out every day. I’m super active! I definitely have a slow metabolism”?

When it comes to weight loss, or gain, we are playing a game of numbers. To put it simply, too much food and not enough energy expenditure cause you to gain weight (be it fat or muscle). The opposite is also true. Eat less and move more and you will lose weight. This means that if you do not have diagnosed endocrine problems, it is time to address the real issues.

NEAT and What It Means

Your basal metabolic rate (BMR), plus the thermic effect of the foods you eat, added to something often referred to as Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) makes up your energy requirements for each day.  Simply put, NEAT is basically energy expended for everything we do that does not include sleeping, eating, physical activity or exercise. This is anything ranging from fidgeting, to standing or just moving about. NEAT is a big part of that equation.

BMR + thermic effect of food + NEAT = daily energy requirement

BMR, or Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), is the energy requirement of your body either without any activity or while lying motionless. BMR/RMR accounts for about 60-70% of your total daily energy requirements. The thermic effect of food (the amount of calories needed to digest food) accounts for about 10% of your energy requirements. The rest of your energy requirements are dependent on how active you are in both intentional exercise and NEAT activities (normal life activities like cleaning, shopping, walking, etc.).If a woman has a BMR of around 1,000 calories, she’ll burn about 150 calories digesting the food she eats each day. She may also burn anywhere from 150 to 500 calories more per day depending on whether she has a day full day of walking around, shopping, and cleaning or if she spends the day sitting and working on the computer.

We’re also going to say our person didn’t engage in any intentional exercise on this particular day. So, on the low end of things, she is going to burn approximately 1,300 calories. If her NEAT activities are on the higher end, she’s going to burn 1,650. That’s a 350-calorie per day difference between those activity levels. Now, I don’t know many people who eat only 1,300 calories per day, but I know plenty of people who have office jobs and don’t exercise. Couple sedentary lifestyle with a daily surplus of calories beyond your basic energy requirements and over time you have weight gain.

The Truth About Your Activities

Many people think they workout and they are incredibly active that they are covered. Consider this, the average number of calories burned during an hour of intentional exercise is about 328 calories for every 100 pounds of body weight, as a general rule of thumb. Then consider that most of us aren’t engaging in a solid hour of nonstop exercise every day.

If you’re a 150 pound women and you’re doing thirty minutes on the elliptical then you might only be burning 246 calories. That’s about the amount in two-tablespoons-plus-a-smidge of almond butter (which isn’t that much!).

If you’re working out like a fiend and are still not where you want to be physically or in terms of body fat percentage, then consider the following. Multiple studies have shown that people who engage in intentional exercise either unconsciously either ate more to compensate or overcompensated for the calories burned by moving less after the exercise and thus negating their efforts to a degree. Translation: you can’t workout and then sit around all day, and you also cannot account for that post-workout snack.

What "Naturally" Lean People Do

It’s easy to lose sight of all this information when we compare ourselves to others who seem to effortlessly lose weight or stay lean. We often compare how much we are working out and how much we are eating, and then we blame our genetics for us hanging onto fat.

My guess would be that your naturally thin friend quite possibly has a very active job, as opposed to sitting at the computer, in meetings, or answering the phone all day. “Naturally” thin people may also workout on top of their active jobs, adding to their daily calorie burn. Their metabolisms aren’t any better, they just move more. This daily surplus of movement and expended calories adds up over time, just as non-movement and surplus calories can.

The subtle but consistent differences in activity and lifestyle make it appear that we have two camps: those who stay thin effortlessly and those who do not. In reality, it’s a case of those who are active in an effortless or routine way and those who are not active. So, maybe you don’t have a slow metabolism at all. Maybe you just need to get up and MOVE more?

References:

1. Levine, James. "Nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): environment and biology." American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology and Metabolism. no. E675-E685 (2004). 10.1152/ajpendo.00562.2003 (accessed December 15, 2013).

Vanessa Bennington, Contributor - Nurse Practitioner

Fabio Comana, M.A., M.S., director of continuing Education for NASM