NEAT is your key to burning more calories without even thinking about them. Bonus: you’ll start leading a healthier and more active life as well. No extra hours of fitness needed.

What Does NEAT Actually Mean?
When we’re talking about your metabolism, NEAT stands for “Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.” It’s a quick way of labelling the calories you burn by moving throughout the day when you’re not at the gym or otherwise exercising. Things that contribute to your total NEAT non exercise activity include going to the office, cooking, shopping, walking the dog, housework, and basically any other casual movements you do without the explicit goal of training.

How many calories NEAT burns isn’t easy to calculate with a formula. After all, your NEAT depends on how much you move throughout the day. Age, gender, and your overall fitness and health will also contribute to your total energy expenditure.
To get an idea of the NEAT part of your daily calories burned, look at your daily physical activity. How many steps do you walk per day? How much do you ride your bike? Do you stand a lot? How many ways do you move that have nothing to do with the gym?
The percentage of total calories burned through NEAT varies between about 15% and 30% depending on your lifestyle.
Every movement counts with NEAT. No matter how small! Fidgeting in your desk chair, getting off the train one stop earlier, or those 10 minutes of standing in place instead of sitting.

The following tips will help you to increase you NEAT activity daily, taken by themselves, they don’t seem like much. But these ways to increase your NEAT add up throughout the day to a significant total.

1.Add Exercise to Your Breaks

How often do you catch yourself a) checking your social-media feeds or b) getting up to grab a snack while working at your desk? If you’re like most of us, the answer is probably “too often.” Every time you think about whipping out your smartphone or grabbing a snack stand up and do a little stretch instead take 10 steps away from your desk a little walk around the office, you can even do your stretches while sitting on your office chair. But you’ll boost your NEAT levels more by standing up

2. Go By Bike or Foot

The classic solution for anyone who wants to move more: Take your bike instead of public transport or driving a car of course more movement is better, but baby steps add up too: Get off the bus one stop earlier or walk up and down the street after parking. Whatever works for you! And that way you get to decide what physical activity levels are right for you every day.

3. Stand up more

Whether you’re on the train, on the phone, in a meeting, or in the office, just stand up instead of sitting whenever possible. Standing burns more calories than sitting, increasing your NEAT. Plus, your cardiovascular health and your muscles will thank you for the change of pace Stand when you can

4.Take the Stairs

Climbing stairs for 15 minutes burns an average of 120 calories. Think about how many show up in your daily routine. If you take every chance to take the stairs, you’re sure to get to at least 15 minutes.
A nice side effect: taking the stairs is a great lower-body workout. If you mostly use the ball of your foot, your calf muscles have to work. Meanwhile, ff you concentrate on evenly distributing your weight over the whole foot instead, you also train all your thigh and gluteal muscles. Win-win!

5.Walk your food shop home

Carrying shopping bags is Functional Training par excellence, it’s completely free and doesn’t take up any extra time.
Pack your bags to distribute the weight of your groceries evenly between them and carry them home from the grocery store instead of loading them into your bike basket or car. A fully loaded backpack also counts.

6.Clean Clean Clean

Household chores, especially vacuuming, mopping, and ironing, increase your NEAT

7.While You’re Waiting… Walk!

Whether it’s passing time at the bus stop, or if you’ve just arrived somewhere too early, take another walk around the block instead of sitting down right away. Phone calls, podcasts, chats over coffee. Almost everything can be enjoyed on a walk instead of sitting. And exercise in the fresh air also strengthens your immune system and is good for your over health and wellbeing.