How to increase energy expenditure even at rest.

While we know, muscle inactivity and sendary bodies are at highter risk of cardiometabolic diseases, research has emerged that in some sedentary positions, you can increase muscle acivity.

Does this mean it’s actually possible to burn more calories whilst sitting?

Kind of. At least as far as muscle activity is concerned anyway.

Scientists may have found a way to help reduce the negative effects of inactivity in industralised populations, which as it turns out, also a great strategy of increasing muscle activity outside the gym.

What’s the research?

Researchers have been following a hunter gatherer tribe in Tanzania, the Hadza people, one of the few true hunter gatherers left and likely the closest we will get to understanding the diet an movements of our ancestors.

They discovered one surprising thing about the community; the Hadza people were relatively sedentary.

Turms out that the average Hadza member, spent on average 10 hours a day being sedentary compared to the average modern day person in an inudustrialised population who spends on average 9 hours a day.

When you looked at the health of the Hadza men and women, there were no signs of diabetes or obesity. A more thorough article on how and what they eat can be found here in this blog The problem with the paleo diet, in case you’re already wondering what their diet was like.

This made scientists wonder, if the Hadza men and women’s diet was made up of 15% pure sugar taken from honey bees, some meats they hunted and mostly plants they foraged, how come they didn’t have any of the health problems most of us in modern societies do, with very little exercise?

The answer of course is that they do exercise, just not in the way that we think about exercise.

TDEE

All movements through out the day count towards your total daily energy expenditure.

Foraging for plants to eat meant lots of walking, but then there was still the one observation that didn’t seem to add up, and that was how many hours they actually spent sitting down.

This of course got scientists wondering whether there was a difference in the way our bodies expended energy between sitting in chairs versus squatting on floors, and that’s when they came up with interesting data.

Nonambulatory rest is different to chair sitting…

Because these “resting” movements were so different to how you and I would normally relax on the sofa whilst watching the latest Star Wars spin-off, scientists called these “nonambulatory rests” and it turns out that these “resting positions required higher levels of muscle activity than chair sitting.” (Raichlen et al, 2018)

Floor squatting was defined as “squatting with heels in ground contact and buttocks elevated from the ground.” When compared to chair sitting, squatting activated the muscle in the lower body more.

More muscle activating = more energy used 

But there’s more…

Researchers also found, that despite spending 10 hours in nonabulatory rest, the average Hadza person would transition from sitting to standing around 50 times a day compared to the average office worker, who would transition only 38 times a day.

So you see, the Hadza people didn’t need to run marathons or pick up a barbell to remain healthy, they just had a really impressive total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), and well yeah ate pretty well. For more on how to calculate your BMR and TDEE visit this blog.

Total daily energy expenditure matters

So why is this important for us athletes? Because when it comes to maintaining a healthy body weight, your total daily enegy expenditure is just as, if not more important than that one gym session (regardless of of how hard you hit it).

Which is great news for anyone struggling with an injury right now or just looking for a way to increase that TDEE without beasting yourself even more at the gym when you already feel ilke you’re doing enough. 

Side note for the midlife ladies, if you’re going through menopause right now and everything feels hard, this is a huge one. Move your body whenever you can. Remember it’s not so much about training harder, but more about training smarter.

What are some non exercise ways to increase your energy expenditure? 

Well, based on this research I think its pretty safe to assume that any movements that involve squatting, walking, reaching, all count as non exercise movements that will help increase muscle activity.

Here are some great ways to increase your daily energy:

Gardening

Washing the car

Walking

Cycling

Hand washing the dishes

Hanging up the laundry as opposed to using a tumble dry (plus it’s also better for the environment)

You could even find some strategies to help you increase movement whilst at work by applying these:

Take work breaks frequently to stretch your legs or to fill up a water bottle

Take the stairs where possible

Walk to different stations at work where possible

At home try these things:

Watch the TV in a squat position

Kneel or squat when emailing or scrolling on your phone

Squat when reading or managing any admin jobs on your computer

Set up a standing table

Not only is there evidence that these non ambulatory positions are helping you to keep your muscles active, they are also keeping your joints mobile. Win win!

Takeaways

How you rest your body matters when it comes to total daily energy expenditure.

Even if you have a sedentary job, you can negate the negative effects of non activity by including a few basic movements like floor squatting and kneeling.

These simply movements can be added to your daily routine without any extra effort.

Resources

Raichlen DA, Pontzer H, Zderic TW, Harris JA, Mabulla AZP, Hamilton MT, et al. Sitting, squatting, and the evolutionary biology of human inactivity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2020 Mar 31;117(13):7115–21.