At our recent company all-in, someone in their 3-minute lightning talk shared about an acronym called NEAT which really caught my attention.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) is the energy expended for everything we do that does not include sleeping, eating, or exercise; and ranges from simple things like standing and fidgeting to moving about. Source
Long story short, we burn a bunch of calories by doing our day to day mundane activities.
Learning this has encouraged me to again be more aware of my step count and trying to be more active in general in every day tasks.
I’m not going to quit the gym or eat any less healthy, but this new awareness is definitely a great motivator to move more.
-Ben