What’s All the Fuss About With Getting 10k Steps?!
Ever heard that you should get 10,000 steps a day? Here’s why!
The obsession over steps all starts with our metabolism. Before we break down the metabolism, I want you to think about how as you’ve aged, you may have said my metabolism has slowed, my metabolism is broken, etc. Well, think back to when you were a child, you probably did lots of running around, lots of playing, ate whatever whenever. But as we get older, we move less, work out less, and begin to diet and our metabolism expends energy on those areas that we begin to do less of.
Our BMR, Basal Metabolic Rate, makes up about 60% of our total daily calorie expenditure. This is the amount of calories you burn to survive. Think about your heart beating, lunges breathing, food digesting, etc. The only way you can increase this is by putting on muscle because muscle tissue requires the most energy to maintain. So if you are looking to increase the amount of calories your metabolism burns doing nothing – work on building muscle.
NEAT, Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, makes up about 15-30% of our total daily calorie expenditure. This is the amount of calories you burn just doing life. Walking into work, playing with the kids, cleaning the house, tapping your foot, etc.
TEF, Thermic Effect of Food, makes up about 10% of our total calories burned. This is the rate at which your body burns calories that occurs after ingestion of food. When you eat food, your body must expend some energy (calories) to digest, absorb, and store the nutrients in the food you’ve eaten. Protein actually burns the most calories through processing. Just another reason to eat protein at every meal.
Exercise makes up 5-15% of the total calories burned. This just happens during your 60-90 minute workout. The other 23 hours of the day make the biggest impact on your metabolism.
As we work through the breakdown of our total daily calorie expenditure, we can see that a big chunk of our calories, besides BMR, are expended during NEAT. This is why steps are a popular craze. Daily movement is SO important for increasing your metabolism.
Where do I start?
eat protein at every meal
aim for 6k steps or more daily
incorporate strength training
Time to get stepping 🙂