What is NEAT, please?

Thanks!

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)
http://exercise.about.com/od/weightl...tweightlos.htm

indiblue - Thanks so much for pointing me in the direction of this thread! Standing at work would be complicated because I'd have to get a new desk, which would come out of my travel funds so it's not going to happen (I'd much rather go to the US or Europe )! That being said, I love the idea of a stability ball and have always found those things fun, so I'm going to see what the cost would be to pick one up.


It's funny, I'm normally a REALLY fidgety person so I guess that does go to my advantage! We also don't have a car and take public transit so I do a lot of sitting/walking when I'm not at work. Actually, I'm technically doing work right now and am sort of swaying/dancing back and forth because the neighbor's playing read loud dance music, I'm such a dork!

Oh, and I LOVED the idea about the Kindergarten. Actually, we're sending my DD to a Montessori school because I feel really strongly about including motion with learning (there's actually some great research there if anybod'y interested!) and the thought of sitting at a desk all day makes me cringe. I think I drove my teacher's nuts too because I was constantly fidgeting. I still do in meetings!

I was thinking about this more when I was doing the dishes and realized that since I've started losing weight I've been MUCH more active when it comes to little things. I clean the house more, I'm more willing to go to the grocery store on a daily basis (I have to walk to the store), and I do more active things with DD. It's funny too because many of my skinny friends tend to have cleaner houses than my overweight friends. Now there could be a lot of reasons for that but I do know some of them turn to cleaning when they're nervous NOT food, which seems to help for a lot of reasons!

Maybe I could sit on a stability ball while typing my stories? I wonder if that would mess with my concentration or increase it?

There's a great bit of freeware called Stretchclock (stretchclock.com) which I use to avoid getting too stiff and cramped when I'm sewing. You set a little alarm for however often you like, say 30 min or 1 hourly intervals, and when it goes off, it takes you to a video that walks you through a 1-2 min stretch. There are about 15 stretches in the database, all designed for sedentary office workers, so that they target exactly the areas they need to (upper body, pretty much). The videos are a bit amateurish, it's a bloke standing by a lake and a home camera, but they're perfectly usable and they're good exercises. I find that when I use them, I can quilt for hours on end without getting stiff, and if I try to do that much sewing without using the exercises, my shoulders and such are killing me by the end of the day.

Esofia that's a great resource. Thanks for sharing!

Serval yes, try the stability ball! It takes some getting used to, but it's worth it for the benefits you'll reap with regard to your back, joints, and heart. One thing I often do is use a regular chair and sit if I have to write for long periods of time and stand up if I'm doing stuff that doesn't require a lot of concentration (Facebook, 3FC, reading the news).

I have to remind myself of this often! I work at a desk 8 hours a day, then tend to go home and sit some more... but I do at least 40 minutes of high intensity exercise daily, too.

I have seen lots of results doing this, so I guess that the article isn't necessarily true, otherwise my exercise hasn't really helped as much as I thought it did. Sad article for me! I guess that I should walk around the office every now and then, but in my position I pretty much have to stay glued to the phone.

Well, the article definitely doesn't say exercise is bad and can't help- exercise is so important for so many things and yes, it can help you with weight loss, muscle building, etc. What the article, and many other similar studies find are the other kind of damages caused by sitting that can't be counterbalanced by exercise. These include circulation, joint, cardiovascular, lower metabolism throughout the day (which can make people gain weight if they don't watch carefully what they eat, or make losing weight more difficult), lower back problems, etc.

If you are on the phone, can you stand at your desk when you are on calls? Or yes, getting up and walking around between calls is a great idea!

Interesting(ish) article. When I read that inactivity damage was "Irreparable" I decided to go have a looksy at the studies. AH. NO.

But something I think we can all agree on - because it just makes sense and we do not need a study to tell us what we can see in our own real life study: Exercise is better than sitting. Anything is better than nothing.

There are many things irreparable, but saying you cannot reverse bad sedentary lifestyle ramifications by getting out there and pumping your heart and using your muscles and breathing fresh air is, on its face, poppycock.

I'm not sure where am I going with this post:P
When we were kids we would just run around for the fun of it. We would bicycle just for the sake of it. We would climb trees because it seemed like a challenge. We played physical games because it was entertaintment.
As adults, we never do these types of 'random' physical activities. All our physhical outlets are done at the gym or in front of screen following videos. It's all meticiulously planned into our day. We have stopped as a community to do these type of 'random' physical activites, thus leaving it to not be considered a natural state for us to be in activity.

I remember a similar study showing that fidgety people burn more calories than those who don't (heh, duh). I am extremely fidgety. When I'm sitting down, I'm always tapping my feet, my fingers, any kind of movement. It irritates people at times, but I do it subconsciously. I never knew about NEAT, or at least the term for it, but I do squeeze my glutes when I sit! That I do consciously, haha.

It helps that I work in a direct care profession, so while there is down time for sitting, a lot of the time I'm showering people, cooking their dinner, doing their laundry (downstairs!), passing meds, cleaning, etc. The past weekend I actually had a lot of energy and didn't sit much at all. I can imagine it would be so tough to work an office job and keep moving!

Interesting study!

I have a sedentary life but I am working on it my strategies are currently:

Walk to and from work, walk at break times (morning and afternoon) walk to the store, carry groceries home or back to work. Find excuses to check downstairs at work afew times a day, (check the mail, go down to greet a client instead of having them brought up etc). Chair dance and throw air punches when no one else is looking while I'm waiting for modifications to save etc etc.

Where I need to do the most work is outside of work, I need to focus more on housework, and house maintenance, goodness knows my quality of life would be better if I did that.

Its just keeping that up, and sticking to structured excercise programs at the same time, I find hard to manage. :-|

Well...time to get off this computer

Thank you for the information...really helpful and inspiring

I hate being sedentary, this office job i'm sure is giving me cellulite and varicose veins.

I hate sitting on my butt all day.