Not Just S.M.A.R.T. But N.E.A.T. As Well.

Ok everyone : hands up anyone that has heard of NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).

Don’t stress if you haven’t – I hadn’t heard of it until today. Before I explain NEAT though please allow me to tell you about today, why it started out with great expectations and yet ended with failure.

This morning we were up early as it looked like the only dry weather slot would only last until mid morning after which the whole south west would be socked in with rain and high winds : it’s blowing a good 40 right now and I can barely see across the valley. Anyway, we were up early and my partner drove us towards the nearby town and then dropped me about halfway there at which point I walked down a muddy track to join the outer end of the Tavistock canal path. It’s a much longer walk than I usually do and today I remembered to wear my brand new pedometer and that tells me that the canal walk is almost exactly 7000 steps between the entry point and the front door of Costa in Tavistock. I was well pleased with my longer walk as that’s now the second time that iv’e done it and that bodes well for my outdoor walking even though it’s basically flat as.

I was really hoping to get home, have some rest and then get on with some writing and only then to head out for my second walk of the day with my overall plan being to finish the day with 10.000 steps total – I would have been unbearably smug had I achieved that but instead iv’e spent the rest of the day as a couch potato – something iv’e perfected the art of. When I watched the embedded video and did a few minutes of reading I was determined to go out for an early evening walk except that it’s gone from grey and minging to grey and dark so iv’e lost the day in terms of exercise.

For the video explanation of NEAT jump to 19.55 but if you can spare the time then watch the whole thing,

For those that just want the TLDR (Too long didn’t read- or didn’t watch) here’s the short explanation : firstly there is exercise and then there’s the stuff that we do that isn’t exactly exercise but somehow uses a lot of energy and comes with a caloric cost. That for instance might include everyday things such as doing the housework or working in the garden. In my case there’s the stuff in the middle such as my start to today : to beat taxi time I left the house before they were due and did a quick circuit up to the first junction and back – to me it doesn’t quite count as exercise because I wasn’t carrying any exercise weight and didn’t carry on into the sections of lane that give me a stage 2 cardio workout.

The study that Dr Alex refers to seems thoroughly Kosher as it turned up a quite surprising result : that early long exercise followed by a longer period of sedentary behavior – sitting and doing nothing – had a weaker effect on variables such as blood sugar than did a routine of getting up regularly and just moving around and/or doing something physical for a few minutes.

This week i’m giving that a deliberate test.