• NEAT: the great secret to lose weight without going to the gym

It has been said throughout life that variety is the taste. Well, now it seems that diversity is also the key to being fit without having to beat ourselves up.

As revealed by a study led by Susan Malone, a professor at the University of New York, the most 'fit' Americans are not those who give themselves body and soul to a single discipline, but those who practice a greater range of physical activities .

After analyzing the lifestyle of about 1,000 adults across the country between 2003 and 2006, the authors of the research, published at the end of February in Translational Behavioral Medicine, observed that active subjects practiced at least two different physical routines (five, in the case of the most 'dynamic').

Neither 'crossfit', nor 'running', nor tennis ... The preferred physical activity for about 30% participants in the study was walking (with an average of four walks of 40 minutes a week), followed by dancing and ride a bike.

Among 44% of respondents who confessed not to perform any type of exercise , experts found the greatest number of chronic health problems and habits as unhealthy as smoking.

With all that data on the table, Malone and his team reached a conclusion that, surely, you will also have experienced if you do sports on a regular basis: constancy is fundamental but the most effective formula to reach our best version is to pay us for cross training .

That is, performing different physical activities will not only contribute decisively to improve our physical performance (pushing us out of that tired comfort zone that everyone talks about) but also help our head to defeat that great enemy that lurks in the dark to make us throw the towel: boredom .

MORE MOVEMENT

So far, all clear but, what about that 44% of sedentary? The researchers at the University of New York bet, once again, to take advantage of everyday actions as golden opportunities to introduce the movement into their lives.

Walking, climbing stairs, taking care of the garden or even cleaning the house points upwards as an exercise. All this is part of that wonderful NEAT (Not Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) that we have talked about several times in ZEN.

It is the caloric expenditure that our body produces by carrying out all the daily physical activities that we do not have programmed, that is, those that do not fall within the pure and hard physical exercise.

We refer to all those things that our grandparents did and that, today, we try to emulate (in a somewhat artificial way) in the gym by walking on the treadmill, 'climbing' steps on the elliptical and carrying kettlebells instead of bags of the purchase.

We tried?

Daily and sports activities that will help you not get fat and be fit

Drop down

If you are somewhat confused about what counts as physical activity, take note of the recommendations published by the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in your guide:

DAILY ACTIVITIES

  • Wash and wax the car for 45-60 minutes
  • Scrub the crystals or the floor for 45-60 minutes
  • Fix the garden for 30-45 minutes
  • Travel 2.5 km in 30 minutes pushing the baby carriage
  • Collect dried leaves for 30 minutes
  • Walk 3.2 km in 30 minutes
  • Remove snow for 15 minutes
  • Climb stairs for 15 minutes

SPORT ACTIVITIES

  • Play volleyball between 45-60 minutes
  • Throw in basket for 30 minutes
  • Cycle 8 km in 30 minutes
  • Make 30 minutes of aquagym
  • Swim 20 minutes
  • Play basketball between 15 and 20 minutes
  • Jump rope 15 minutes
  • Run 2.4 km in 15 minutes

The experts of this institute clarify that all these activities can be 'split' throughout the day (for example, three five-minute series of climbing stairs).

Also, the most sedentary can start walking 30 minutes three days a week to gradually increase up to 45 minutes more intense five days. With this plan, they say, you can burn between 100 and 200 calories daily.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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