Questions about the Exercise Assignment – April 12th Blog – Nutrition and Health – Spring 2020

Joseph Dixon ♦ April 13, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment

Comments about the Exercise Assignment –

The Exercise Assignment is for the purpose of getting you to think about your Total Energy Expenditure (TEE) -that different things contribute to it. Also I want you to think about how much energy you expend when you do an exercise, and how many Calories are in certain snacks. Then there is a general question about NEAT in Question 1.

The Total Energy Expenditure (TEE) calculation is only a rough estimate.  Just like BMI is very rough, so is just using your weight in this calculation is very rough.  In some cases the number of Calories you calculate will be high for you.  Sometimes they will be low for you.

Here is another question concerning the Exercise Assignment from a student:

Hello and Happy Easter, I have a question about the NEAT portion of the assignment. I understand that Physical Activity is classified in levels, with moderate activity including walking and daily exercise. However, for the NEAT portion of the analysis questions, am I supposed to use the same number calculated for Kcals burned in physical activity? Or should I subtract the number I got for the exercise portion? Basically, isn’t NEAT supposed to exclude regular exercise activities? If you could clarify when convenient I would appreciate it. Thank you!   Stay well and enjoy your holiday,

Answer: Are you talking about question 1?  You are suppose to give a very rough estimate of your NEAT for the week and compare it to the Structured activity for the week.

Ask yourself – how many hours of structured exercise per week do you normally do? Take these hours and multiply by the Kcal for the structured exercise you do.  Then ask yourself, how many hours of NEAT per week do you normally do? Take these hours and multiply by the Kcal for walking or another NEAT activity like Gardening. You might want to break it down by activity. But in the end, you should have a rough estimate for weekly structured activity Kcal versus for Weekly NEAT Kcal. Which is greater?  Joe Dixon