To lose weight you MUST be in a caloric deficit. There is no debating this fact.
When trying to lose weight so many of us focus on eating less and workout more. This can cause metabolic adaptation.
Exercise will only burn 5-10% of your daily calories and the body just becomes more effective to just ‘get by’ on less calories with strict caloric restriction.
Enter NEAT: non-execise activity thermogenesis.
NEAT can burn up to 20% or more of daily calories.
Examples of NEAT include things like walking, gardening, light housework, stairs, simply moving!
Movement does a lot of amazing things for our bodies:
- It burn more calories
- It works as a de-stressor
- It’s great for hormone regulation
- NEAT can decrease cortisol
- It can help increase glucose transporter activation (which helps you better utilize the carbs you eat without having to raise insulin as much to get the glucose into your cells)
Muscle is more metabolically active so it burns more calories than fat.
However, at rest and sitting, muscle does not burn a lot more calories than fat. When we move muscle burns 5-10X more calories than fat, at rest, muscle typically burns only 2x more.
Sometimes when we add exercise combined with a lower-calorie diet we MOVE less. Our body doesn’t want to burn more calories, so we naturally begin to move less. We also think we are getting our activity with our workouts so you begin to move less throughout the day without realizing it.
If you hit a plateau with your weight loss don’t automatically eat less and working out more.
*Look to increase movement throughout your day. Start by trying to get in 10K steps (so easily counted on your Fit Bit or smart phone when you carry it in your pocket).
If you just add 200 calories of movement a day over the course of a year it could equate to a difference in 20 pounds of lost weight or weight you didn’t gain.
Fat loss is simple – but it’s not easy! I’m here to help you navigate the way. Reach out to me here, email me here: shawna.kaminski@gmail.com or watch this video to get started with me.