Eric Roberts explains that workouts burn only 5-10% of your daily calories, while everyday movement like walking and fidgeting accounts for 15-30%. High-intensity exercise also raises cortisol, which increases hunger and can wipe out the calorie deficit you just created.
Your workout, the spin class, the stair stepper, the running, that's called your EAT, your exercise activity thermogenesis. This takes up 5 to 10% of your daily calorie burn. Now, there's something called your NEAT, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, and that is just everything you do that is not a dedicated workout. And this is walking, fidgeting, talking with your hands, pacing while you're on a phone call. Taking the stairs, and that accounts for 15 to 30% of your daily calorie burn. So I'm going to say that again: your movement outside of your workout roughly doubles or triples the calorie burn than your workout. And here's the part that changes everything: when you do higher intensity exercise where your heart rate is elevated, you increase your cortisol, which is your stress in your body, and this increase in cortisol. Leads to more appetite, more hunger, and more cravings. And so while you might burn more calories in the spin class, because you are now hungrier, you end up eating more calories, taking yourself out of the calorie deficit.
