Getting older means gaining weight. Your metabolism slows down. Your hormones change. You can’t eat the way you did when you were 25. Eventually, you just have to accept that...
You Work Out, But Are You Actually Active?
If you tell me you work out 5 days a week, that tells me quite a bit.
It tells me you’re consistent. It tells me you’re putting in real effort. Depending on what you’re doing, you’re probably improving your strength, your cardio, your muscle mass, bone density, or some combination of all those things.
And those are great things!
But there’s something it doesn’t tell me: what do you do during the rest of your day?
You might train hard for an hour every morning and still spend the remainder of your day sitting, and that’s where an important distinction shows up between exercising and living an active lifestyle.
In an ideal world, you’re going to want both.
Exercise and Activity Aren’t Quite the Same Thing
Exercise is intentional. You set aside 30, 45, or 60 minutes with a specific purpose in mind. There’s a goal, a plan, and an change you’re trying to create.
If you want to get stronger, you lift weights.
If you want to improve cardiovascular fitness, you train your cardiovascular system.
If you’re preparing for a 5K, you run.
Being active is different. It’s everything that happens outside of that window.
It’s walking the dog, doing yard work, cleaning the house, or walking around the office. It’s playing outside with your kids, taking the stairs, or going for a family walk after dinner. It’s even riding your bike just because you enjoy it.
None of these things necessarily feel like a “workout,” but they still require you to move, and all that movement adds up over the course of your day.
Meet NEAT
There’s actually a name for a lot of this: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, or NEAT.
Put simply, NEAT is the energy you expend through movement that isn’t intentional exercise. It’s everything you do outside of sleeping, eating, and structured training.
I don’t really care whether clients remember the term. I care that they understand the idea behind it.
Over the last eighteen years, I’ve coached people who train several days per week, but when I ask about their daily steps, they might be sitting at 2,000 steps a day or 3,000 steps a day. They’re exercising, but outside of those sessions, they’re not moving very much.
And that’s an opportunity.
Think About Two Different Days
Imagine 2 parents who both train at 6:00 in the morning. They do the exact same workout with the same effort and the same structure.
After that, their days look completely different…
Parent 1 finishes training, drives to work, sits at the desk all day, drives home, eats dinner, sits on the couch, and goes to bed. Outside of that first hour, there’s very little movement.
Parent 2, on the other hand, they also train in the morning, but their day looks different. They walk the dog. They get up periodically during work. They take a short walk at lunch and move around the house in the evening, and after dinner they go outside with their kids or take a family walk.
Same workout. Very different day.
And that difference matters way more than you might think.
Why Does NEAT Matter?
One of the most obvious reasons NEAT matters is energy expenditure. Your body burns energy all day long, not just during your workout. NEAT is one of the major contributors to that total daily energy output.
If your goal is fat loss or weight management, this gives you another lever to work with. You can turn it up, you can turn it down, but that’s another piece of the formula.
That doesn’t mean we go back to the old idea of simply “eat less and move more.” Weight management is more complex than that, and nutrition, of course, still plays a major role.
But if you’re already training 3 or 4 days per week and eating reasonably well, the next step probably does not amount to more restriction or another hard workout. Sometimes it starts with looking at how much you’re actually moving in a day. If you’re averaging 3,000 steps per day, there’s probably room to grow.
Steps Are a Measurement, Not the Mission
This is 1 reason I like tracking steps. Steps aren’t magic. They’re just a simple way to quantify something that’s otherwise hard to measure.
You don’t really know how many times you stood up yesterday. You don’t know exactly how much energy you used walking through the grocery store, doing laundry, or playing with your kids.
But your phone, your watch, or your wearable can give you a reasonable estimate of how much you’re walking.
This gives us a starting point, and I really do mean starting point.
If you’re averaging 2,000 steps in a day, I’m not going to jump you straight to 10,000 steps in a day. That is terribly unrealistic and quite unnecessary.
However, we might aim for 3,000 steps, then 4,000 steps, then gradually build towards something that actually fits your life but gets you up and being active.
My goal for you is to increase your general activity in a way that’s sustainable, not to simply chase a step number just because it sounds good.
More Isn’t Always Better
This is where behavior and lifestyle matter more than motivation. Let’s say you get to 8,000 steps per day consistently. You feel good, your training is going well, and your routine is working.
Do you automatically need 12,000? Then 15,000? Then 20,000?
Not necessarily.
At some point, chasing more activity just for the sake of more activity starts to take away from the reason you wanted to be fit in the first place. If adding all those steps takes away from your family, your friends, from your hobbies, and from your life in general, that’s probably too much.
Your fitness should support those things, not consume them.
Sometimes a Walk Is Better Than Another Workout
Let’s say you’re already strength training three to four days a week. Let’s say you want to lose some more body fat, so your first thought is, “Well, let’s add another 45-minute cardio session.”
But that 45-minute workout might not actually cost you 45 minutes…
You have to get ready, travel to wherever you’re running, train, clean up, and get home. Suddenly, it’s a much bigger time commitment than it first appears.
Could that workout be useful? Absolutely. There are plenty of situations where I would program structured cardio. But if you’re already training consistently and barely moving the rest of the day, there may be a simpler first step.
Another 45-minute workout might cost you more than 45 minutes. A 15-minute walk with your family might actually give you some of that time back. And even better, that’s a chance for you to spend time with your family.
You move more. Your kids move more. Maybe the dog gets a walk. And you get time together without carving out another full training session.
That’s a strong return on investment.
This Isn’t an Argument Against Cardio
To be clear, this is not an argument against cardiovascular training (everybody needs to do cardio).
That’s training. That’s adaptation. NEAT has a different role.
I’m not asking you to replace workouts with walks. I’m asking you not to confuse your workouts with all the movement your body needs.
Look for Movement That Already Exists
NEAT shouldn’t require you to rebuild your schedule entirely. In fact, it usually means looking at what’s already there.
- Can you walk your dog a little farther?
- Can you take a 10-minute walk after lunch?
- Can you stand up more during your workday?
- Can you play outside with your kids instead of sitting?
- Can you take the stairs?
- Can you go for a family walk after dinner?
There’s simple and there’s easy. While this might not be always easy, it is certainly simple, and that’s kind of the point.
You don’t need a more complex plan. You just need more movement.
You Exercised Today. Were You Active?
I don’t want you to stop working out. In fact, I think that’s quite the opposite. I want you to lift weights. I want you to improve your cardiovascular fitness and follow a program that makes you stronger and more capable.
But when your workout ends, your opportunity to improve your health doesn’t end with it. Instead of only asking, “Did I work out today?” try asking something else…
“How much did I move today?”
I want you to become someone who exercises, yes, but I also want you to become someone who is going to build a body and a lifestyle that lets you keep doing things you care about for as long as you are physically capable.
Sometimes that starts with simply getting up and taking a walk.
Looking for a strategy to continue to make progress towards your goals? Email me at [email protected].
Let’s have a conversation and get you where you want to go.
