Have you heard about NEAT?

NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which means increasing your energy usage without performing actual exercise. It is all the energy you use (think calories burned) doing physical movements throughout the day. It is an important piece to maintaining a healthy body weight that is often overlooked. How can you increase the calories you burn throughout the day? Find ways to be more physically active. All the little movements add up!

Tips for finding ways to be more physically active:

• Walk around for 5 minutes when given a break during a lecture class. Don’t sit there and play on your phone!
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator
• Take a 10 minute break every 45 minutes of studying to go walk or do simple movements like body weight squats, step-ups, planks, etc.
• After eating a snack or a meal, take a short walk
• Find ways to walk more often. In Michigan, this may mean having warm clothing handy to wear like hats and gloves.
• Park farther away in the parking lot
• Meet up with a friend to walk and talk
• Clean! Vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing, folding laundry, etc. are all part of daily movement!

Every movement counts! Even if it is one minute here and a few seconds there, every little bit adds up over the course of the day!