How many calories do we burn with daily activities?
Harvard Medical School (USA) has developed a list of average calorie expenditure they are lost in 30 minutes depending on the type of activity carried out and depending on body weight. The following are for a person of 57 kg and another of 70 kg:
| Activity | 57 kg person | 70 kg person |
| Wait standing in a line | 28 calories | 35 calories |
| read sitting | 34 calories | 40 calories |
| To cook | 57 calories | 70 calories |
| Go shopping | 85 calories | 106 calories |
| go to work on foot | 107 calories | 133 calories |
| Play with children | 114 calories | 141 calories |
| Gardening | 135 calories | 162 calories |
| Wipe | 135 calories | 162 calories |
| Moving | 210 calories | 252 calories |
How to increase NEAT to burn more calories
Without almost realizing it, carrying out small activities throughout the day will increase our energy expenditure and, consequently, our NEAT. And it will also improve our health. A study from Boston University (USA) concluded that The sum of the time spent in daily activities of short duration, if done regularly and several times a day, has the same benefits as exercising for an hour in the gym.
- one. Change the elevator to the stairs. You burn between 5 and 11 calories per minute climbing stairs. Climbing two floors every day is equivalent to losing 2.7 kilos a year.
- 2. Spend less time sitting down. Many people spend many hours a day sitting at work or in front of a computer screen. It is recommended to get up every 20-30 minutes from the chair to stretch or walk.
- 3. Walk more or cycle. As far as possible, it is recommended not to take the car for some journeys, such as going to the supermarket, to work or picking up the children from school.
- 4. Play with children or pets. Walking the dog for longer and longer routes or doing intense activities with the little ones in the house will increase our daily caloric expenditure.
- 5. do housework. Sweeping, scrubbing, ordering, cooking, cleaning the windows or ironing are activities that involve continuous movement.
- 6. Sightseeing and outdoor activities. During our leisure time, it is a good time to increase our NEAT. Replacing the sofa or the cinema with activities such as walking, visiting another city or going to the beach will improve our health.
How does our body spend calories?
Our body consumes calories every day due to four different factors: basal energy expenditure, diet-induced thermogenesis, NEAT expenditure, and physical exercise. This is how the Institute of Health Sciences and Physical Activity (ISAF) explains how much is consumed, approximately, with each one:
âš¡ Basal energy expenditure (56%)
Amount of energy that our body needs to carry out basic life processessuch as breathing, making the heart beat, maintaining the functions of all our organs… To calculate it, different variables must be taken into account, including sex, age, height and weight.
âš¡ Daily activity expenditure or NEAT (24%)
Energy Expenditure for Daily Activity and Work, or NEAT, is the amount of calories expended in physical activities other than sports, such as walk a dog, do housework or go shopping.
âš¡ Physical exercise (12%)
It represents the energy expended when doing sport or intense or moderate physical activity.
âš¡ Diet-induced thermogenesis or DID (8%)
When we eat foods that contain protein, carbohydrates, or fat, we expend energy and produce heat, which is intended to provide enough energy to digest and metabolize nutrients.
Are thermogenic products effective?
The discovery of thermogenesis as a key factor in weight loss, that is, the mechanism by which the body begins to generate heat and initiate a decrease in adipose tissue, generates multiple claims for foods and supplements with thermogenic properties. Nevertheless, You have to be careful with these products.
“There are nutritional components with certain thermogenic effects, such as caffeine or similar at high doses, such as ephedrine. What happens is that when they are effective in burning calories, they appear side effects, especially at the cardiac level, such as tachycardia. Even some supplements that can be bought online (for example, dinitrophenol), of dubious legality, are highly thermogenic, but also very dangerous,” warns Francesc Villarroya, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Barcelona and researcher at the Center for Biomedical Network Research on the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (CIBEROBN).
“Current research is very focused on achieving that: activating thermogenesis without undesirable effects for the heart, but it has not been achieved yet,” he concludes.