Role of Non-Activity Thermogenesis in Resistance to Fat Gain
 

Nice article Lyle,

I have a question about NEAT though. If I understand correctly, NEAT is actually caused by extra movement correct, not just the burning of extra calories for no reason? So, just for illustrative purposes, if a person realized that subconciously he was moving more (neat) and purposely fought the urge, would he now be taking away all his NEAT? So if two people sat side by side, one person having very low NEAT and the other very high but both sat on the couch perfectly still (one person having to consiously do so) the person with high NEAT would lose his advantage right?

Yes. NEAT is calories burned due to the moving around/fidgeting/etc. If you somehow consciously prevented that, you'd lose the benefit.

Interesting stuff. Thanks Lyle.

I took the liberty to look up the paper. If I'm reading it right, 8 out of the 12 male subjects got a boost of activity that generated 400 calories or more a day. That's pretty surprising and intriguing. I was curious about this because I wasn’t sure if most got a boost of 100-200 (for example) and then there was one freak at nearly 700. It looks like there were actually two individuals over 600 and 3 others fairly close to 600.

1. Considering how many calories are burned in a typical hour of formal exercise, I think 400+ is a lot of activity via NEAT.

2. I'm sort of surprised that 400+ seems to be somewhat common among the males (although maybe this is skewed because they only chose fairly lean subjects to begin with)

3. Makes total sense why some can make muscular gains on a 500 cal surplus and others don't (for example).

Eh, just some of my thoughts. Very cool paper and article.

I've read, I think from you, that a drop in metabolism of 10% while dieting would be a big deal. I assume this is RMR.

I wonder if "all-in" daily metabolic change has been expressed as a percentage anywhere. For instance, these guys, on overfeeding, if their starting diet was like 2000-2500 calories, may have had increases in daily burn of 33% to nearly 50% once all sources (RMR, TEF, NEAT) are factored in.

I'm REALLY not sure what your asking but it looks like the average increase from baseline caloric expenditure to overfed caloric expenditure was ~20%. But I think that's pretty meaningless because A) it would be dependant on the caloric surplus (I'm guessing), and B) the variability between increases were drastic between subjects.

The largest total measured response I've seen was the classic Minnesota Study which found a tottal drop of 40% but 25% of that was simply due to the weight loss. So 15% was an actual metabolic rate adjustment.

Well this study did quantify changes in RMR and TEF which I listed. But the NEAT was just hugely variable. The paper listed baseline total energy expenditure (BMR + TEA +TEF) as ranging from 2216-3818 with subjects bodyweights ranging from 53.3-91.7kg. Overed total energy expenditure ranged from 2508-4601. So let's make the assumption that the guy with 3818 was the one who ended up at 4601. I have no idea if that assumption is true or not.

That's a 20% total increase.

It looks like it's true. There's a chart that has the breakdown per subject but I'm saying it "looks" to be true because for some reason the base line calories don't match up exactly to the range that they gave. Or maybe I'm looking at the wrong spot. Either way, the guy with the highest baseline had the highest overfed expenditure. But that does not seem to be the case for all subjects.

Lyle do you have any idea what if any the affect the macro nutrient ratios would play in regards to NEAT when running 1000 calories over maintenance levels?

IE how would less fat and a higher percentage of protein and/or carbs affect things?

Overkill: what chart are you looking at, I have the paper here in front of me and see no indivdiual data.

Incindium: To my knowledge nobody has examined the impact of different macros on this.