NEAT Improvement Strategies to Improve Weight Loss

Enthusiast84 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

When it comes to devices, they can be a great inspiration/incentive, with step counts, move reminders, and the like . . . but do keep in mind that there are movements that they don't recognize, but that still burn a couple of calories. The devices count a lot of things. Your body counts every little thing.

In your opinion do you think the devise underestimates then?

I think the devices estimate calories, they don't measure them. Heck, I don't just think that, it's objectively true.

As a generality, they could over-estimate or under-estimate, or they could be spot on. For most people, I think a well-designed, well-programmed device will be pretty close, because most people are close to the averages on which the estimates are based: That's the very definition of "average".

The devices will over or underestimate for some people (people further from average, not necessarily for obvious reasons), and be quite far off for a very few. This is just how statistics work.

The devices measure certain things; different devices vary in what they measure. What is measured can include arm movements (wrist based device, using accelerometer); speed/pace/distance (using gps, or motion-based step estimates); heart rate (wrist or chest belt); and elevation change (through altimeter). (Some of those values are measured more accurately, or less accurately, under certain conditions, or by certain devices.)

Some of those measurements correlate somewhat with calorie burn, but even taken in context with perfectly accurate user settings (height, weight, VO2max, maximum heart rate, age, stride length, etc.), they don't perfectly predict calorie burn. They're estimating calorie burn.

I'll give you a couple of examples where these sometimes go wrong, under and over:

Once in a while on here, we see someone report that their fitness tracker thinks they're walking, when in actually they're doing something like playing the piano. The arm movements have been interpreted by the device as walking movements. It's likely that calories will be over-estimated, in that scenario.

We also occasionally see someone say that their fitness tracker thinks they're not walking when they're pushing a grocery cart through a store, because they're not making the arm movements that are typical of walking. It's likely that calories will be under-estimated, in that scenario.

When I made the statement you quoted: " . . . keep in mind that there are movements that they don't recognize, but that still burn a couple of calories. The devices count a lot of things. Your body counts every little thing", I meant to be suggesting that there are things a person can do that are small calorie burners, compared to sitting still, that their fitness tracker won't register.

Any movement burns calories, even if your tracker-wearing arm doesn't move, your body doesn't move through space, your heart rate doesn't go up much, you don't change altitude, etc. If I sat here in my chair all day long, slowly waving my left arm over my head (a dumb thing to do, but just an example), I'd probably burn a few dozen calories in 8 hours. The fitness tracker on my right wrist wouldn't notice.

There's been research suggesting that persistent fidgeting can burn as many as low-hundreds of calories per day. How much of that do you think your fitness tracker would catch?

You go on to write:

I still don't eat all the adjustment back even though I've been in maintenance for a few months. I've lost a few more pounds too during this period. Starting to think now that I should probably eat all the adjustment back to stop losing. Just so frightened of gaining.

Take the number of pounds you've lost in that period, multiply that by 3500. Compare that to the total number of calories from your tracker that you didn't eat back, over the same time period. If the numbers are close, you can eat all of the adjustment. If there's a gap, divide by the number of days to get a rough estimate of how many calories lower or higher than the adjustment you'd have to eat to maintain.

Bonus fact: Some people find that when they go up to actual maintenance calories, they get an energy bump from doing it. After a couple of months, maybe sooner, they start losing slowly again, even at what was previously their actual maintenance calories. So: Go to maintenance calories, as best you can estimate them. If you want, add 50 daily calories once a week or so, and watch what happens, to find your stability point. You don't have to add all of the adjustment at once. Maybe you'll get a bonus TDEE increase; never know until you try.

(Note that you could see a small pseudo-gain on the scale from water balance, if you add an increment of calories, that is bigger than that calorie increase could cause as fat gain. Don't let that water weight adjustment make you think you're gaining fat.)

What's the worst that could happen? If you eat 100 calories more than your actual maintenance calories for a whole month, you will gain less than one pound. You know how to lose a pound.

Best wishes!

NovusDies wrote: »

I have now improved my NEAT by an average of 350 calories per day.

Bigger Things I have done so far:
1) Lose weight. I feel better so I move more. I know the goal is to eat less, move more to lose weight but since my BMR calories keep going down I appreciate that my NEAT is going up as a result to buffer.
2) Got a step tracker. Giving me a steps challenge makes me think about walking around more even when I don't have a good reason.
3) Got a puppy. My last dog died some time ago and I have missed having one but I admit that moving more was an added incentive and I made sure I got one large enough to handle walking. My activity spiked suddenly and I was actually losing weight too fast for a few weeks. It should go without saying though that NO ONE should consider getting an animal purely for weight loss purposes. A puppy especially can be and almost always are a MAJOR hassle at times.
4) Outdoor hobby for summer - gardening.

Changes in mindset:

1) Be less efficient - I am working on stopping my natural instinct to maximize my loads when carrying things. Multiple trips are better.
2) Do not let my wife bring me things - No more "while you are up can you..."
3) Cut back on home automation use - it is surprising the number of things I can control from my chair but now I get up
4) Park further away (weather permitting) - an oldie but a goodie
5) Do not get mail from vehicle (weather permitting) - now I walk back down the driveway to retrieve it


My next strategy is to read this entire thread and look for more ideas.

Bolded #1: I love that one so much! I never noticed, when I was fat, how much I was rationing trips up and down the stairs (in my 2-story house with living areas on 2nd floor) . . . until I lost weight and stopped doing it (without really planning it). Now I'm up and down all day. I think it's underappreciated, when one has gotten overweight (especially if one has done so gradually, or has always been overweight), how much easier it is to move when smaller. Some of that "move more" just happens automatically, when smaller! (But it's easy to add onto that, too, as you observe.)

Bolded #2: Love that, too! Next, you could start offering to bring her things . . . nah, that would be selfish NEAT-hoarding, wouldn't it?