Yes, you read that correctly: you don’t need the gym to lose weight.\r\nIn my coaching opinion, we want to move away from the thought process that we burn calories in a gym & instead focus on approaching the gym with a ‘performance-based’ mindset. Gyms provide the necessary equipment to strengthen & shape your body & optimise your cardiovascular performance.\r\n\r\nHowever, for those of you seeking a fat loss/weight loss goal, you might be wondering how this can be achieved without a training facility.\r\n\r\nSimply put, fat loss can be attained through nutrition and energy output. Energy output does include exercise in the gym but extends to much broader aspects of your lifestyle also. Therefore, for the purpose of this article, I want to introduce you to two terms:\r\n\r\nNEAT\r\n\r\nNENAT\r\n\r\nNEAT refers to Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis & NENAT refers to Non-Exercise Non-Activity Thermogenesis.\r\n\r\nNow, what do these terms mean & why do you need to be aware of them?\r\nYour body utilises energy throughout the day (via thermogenesis) – it is not simply reserved for training sessions alone. When we consider that actual planned exercise activity accounts for probably 3-5 hours of our week, we have to question: what about the other 165 hours? Let’s face it, 3 hours of activity won’t be a sufficient enough stimulus if you spend the remaining time sat down a lot. Because of this, we have to consider activity outside of the gym & this is where NEAT & NENAT comes in.\r\n\r\nNEAT is a form of activity that isn’t planned exercise – the most commonly referred example is your ‘daily step count’.\r\n\r\nNENAT can be thought of your body’s natural movement across the day: for instance, fidgeting & sitting upright.\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat’s the point in knowing this?\r\n\r\nHere’s an interesting fact.\r\nAs you lose body fat/weight, there’s less of you. That means, you no longer require as much energy which means that the goal posts for calories in and energy out is constantly moving.\r\n\r\nIn fact, Rosenbaum et al, outlined that activity expenditure can reduce to nearly 400 calories in people who have already lost 10% of their body weight!\r\nTherefore, if you were 80kg and you’ve already lost 8kg of that weight, you can probably expect to burn 400 calories less each day!\r\n\r\nWhen you understand this natural process of the human body (known as Adaptive Thermogenesis), you can understand why so many people reach a plateau in their transformation.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately, to add to this, our body also experiences decreased satiety – therefore, increased hunger! One reason for this is a lower body fat level (less stored energy available).\r\n\r\nNot only that, but your body’s NENAT will decrease & unless managed, so will your NEAT. Your body is essentially downregulating its activity to conserve energy.\r\n\r\n\r\nLet’s Return to NEAT – Here’s What We Can Do\r\n\r\nKnowing that your body will naturally begin to downregulate overall activity, we need to do something that opposes this and helps us to continually establish a calorie deficit in order to prolong our fat loss success.\r\n\r\nThis is where your daily steps come in!\r\n\r\nSetting a step goal to be achieved daily is a simple yet undervalued tool for fat loss. It can be used as a tool to off-set and oppose the natural adaptations made by the body. It can be progressive & should be matched to your lifestyle (for instance, it should be feasible and realistic within your day to day – it’s unlikely that a 20,000-step target for a single day would be achievable for most).\r\n\r\n\r\nCan’t I Simply Do More Cardio\r\n\r\nWell, yes, you can!\r\n\r\nAt some point, especially if your goals are quite aspirational, you will likely need to plan in for additional cardiovascular training. This would need to be based on the individual’s circumstances but also in relation to what’s realistic for them across their working week.\r\n\r\nHowever, cardio shouldn’t be included to simply replace steps. It has been shown that steps do not have as much of a negative aspect on appetite in comparison to cardio prescribed exercise. This might well be because of its more intense nature.\r\n\r\n\r\nConclusion\r\nWeight loss/fat loss can be achieved without a gym.\r\n\r\nA gym should be seen as a place to strengthen & improve performance.\r\n\r\nThe body will begin to adapt as you lose more weight: we must find ways to increase energy expenditure.\r\nIncreasing your daily step count can be a very appropriate tool to support energy expenditure.\r\n\r\nCardiovascular prescribed exercise might be needed but probably shouldn’t be used for compositional purposes until a realistic step count has been met.