5 Non-Exercise Ways to Boost Fat Burn

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What are you waiting for? Good night. Are you looking for the good life, for the sweet spot?

Well, this is it.

These simple non-exercise ways to boost fat burn have turned my YouTube channel subscribers upside down, meaning they've flipped over them like it's crazy. Secretly, my hope is that you are using these already, or you're using these as extra insurance. And it's not your only line of defense.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman, and it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

All right, school is in session. We're going to talk about these 5 non-exercise ways to to boost your fat burn. And let's do this, so I don't want to do a bait and switch on you. Are these going to help you burn fat? No, but in some cases, yes. And they're going to open the gate so that you can burn fat, because if you're not doing these things, chances are we've closed it, we've closed the door. And much as you want to and might be doing other things to try, You won't. Some of them are so easy, they're ridiculous. But number 1, increase your water intake in order to boost your hydration. So in that same vein, it's not water alone. And I hope that all of you have gotten that message by now. And I know there's concerns about retaining water. There's concerns potentially about sodium and increasing my sodium if I'm supposed to be on a low sodium diet. You know, I would have a discussion with your physician again about that. Even doctors, please realize they haven't gotten much, if any, nutrition education in medical school. And so for them to tell you how to exercise or tell you how to eat is hard. And although, of course, I think we all know that there's always been that connection with sodium and high blood pressure, However, there's always been this myth that we've all believed that we were getting too much sodium in and that we were virtuous in not getting it. And, you know, yes, I would say Robb Wolf, who is in charge of Element, has been instrumental and key in getting the message out about the research that we've gotten it wrong, that we need the right kind of salt, we need good salt, and we need it in our lives. It is absolutely where we get our energy. So first thing in the morning, I will tell you this, that if I have a headache, it's the very first thing I do. I will actually nowadays I'm using Element, but either that or I'm using some of the best possible salt I have in the house and putting it in two, actually two, about 12-ounce glasses of water, just regular dinner drinking ware. And I will down them both. And that is like the first thing to set me up for the rest of the day so that everything else that goes in, I'm really, really hydrated. But why is this so important? First of all, any stressor that your body takes, whether it's physiological or it's psychological, is a stressor. And all of those stressors mean compounding them, you'll get to the tipping point. And when you reach the tipping point, your body will conserve energy and store fat. Conserve energy, you should read as not burn it. Like, whatever it is you might be doing, you go walk a mile normally, maybe you burn 100 calories. You go walk a mile under stress, you might not burn 100 calories. And, you know, that's just a very remedial example, but every single cell in your body needs water to function. So if you're not getting it, think about one of the number one places that you store your water is muscle. So if you are dehydrated at all, and we're talking at all, like 2 to 3% dehydration, do you know your performance is compromised? And we know this because of the testing, and this is 30, 40-year-old content, but we know this because of testing athletes when they're that dehydrated, their their performance levels go down. When somebody gets too dehydrated, we're talking probably heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and those are partial definitions of it. Now, we can't see it going out. We can't see a meter saying, oh, there's a 1%, you just sweat out or didn't drink and you're using it up. So we don't get that fortunate. We don't have anything telling us exactly. So using your urine is one good way. If it's mostly clear, you're probably doing okay. However, I also want to let you know that if you're taking a lot of supplements, sometimes, yeah, colored urine is just an indication that those supplements have gone through you, that certain things will show up in the toilet, and it's not an indication that you're flushing away all of those things, which is what we were led to believe probably as young adults. Anybody else? But we need that hydration. So just know that every single job that your body has to do, many of them related to metabolism, it does better, easier, more fluidly— pun intended, see what I did there— with a hydrated cell level. So what's in electrolytes to remember is sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Very small doses of magnesium, very small. But you need those balanced relationships between the three of them in order to get them fully into the cell. It's like each of them needs the other in order for that to happen. So that is number one, boost your water intake. And here's the, you know, the updated version of what we learned once. All fluids do count. Now, if you are taking in milk, for instance, and that's probably a terrible example for me because most of you don't do dairy and we know that, and I know whey protein has a lot of good things in it that is also dairy, but if you're taking in anything like milk, it's probably 1/3 solids in it. So it's not all gonna count. If you're taking in coffee or tea, yes, they're— some of them diuretics if they're caffeinated. However, that liquid still may be supporting digestion and elimination. It may be hydrating just a little bit. So realize that you do get a little credit for it, but you're gonna try to focus and count on water and juices. If you're bringing in watermelon and watery foods, like vegetables, cucumbers, asparagus, those kinds of things also are going to support you. All right, number 2, increase your protein intake. Non-exercise way to burn fat. So we're not even taking anything away here, right? Increase your protein intake. And if I just said from where you are now, if you have room to increase, if you're not already kind of maxed out, you're already there, you're afraid you're overdoing it, If you have room to increase it, there are several reasons why. Number one, let's start here. The thermogenic effect of food. Every food we eat takes some fuel for our bodies to burn and digest the work of digesting it and breaking it down. Protein is one of the highest, so protein takes almost a third of the calories that you eat go to breaking it down and digesting it. So say you eat 100 calories of protein, 30 of those calories are, you know, already counted for. You're not actually going to store them, and still you get the essential amino acids that are building your muscle. So the thermic effect of food is highest in protein. So there's that advantage. Number 2, in terms of protein intake is the muscle protein synthesis that you're getting. So 30% of it, remember, goes toward digestion. This is true. And then you've got this other part that goes toward building more lean muscle. What do we know about lean muscle? It's the only metabolically active tissue we have. The rest are what? Internal organs. They're cartilage, ligaments, tendons. You know, those are not burning calories and fat. Definitely just hanging around on the hammock saying, could you bring me another drink? It's not doing anything for you. So yes, we need it. It's not that zero fat— we need some amount of fat for health in our body. Actually, we create hormones with fat, so don't poo-poo it. But muscle protein synthesis is a huge boon. So the more muscle we have, also the the more energy we expend in every movement we do. 3, even without resistance training, there is a muscle protein synthesis that occurs when you eat protein. Yeah, so you can gain lean muscle. Now look, it's not— definitely not as easy as when you combine eating protein with resistance training, with lifting weights, but it is there just by increasing protein intake. It's been documented that yes, you will increase your protein or your muscle. So again, we want it because that's metabolically active. That means you're burning more calories simply around the clock. We have to sit sometimes for work. We're sitting but burning more calories if we have more muscle. Number 3, sleep more consistently. Now I know that for some of you, you might be listening saying, I would love to. I hate it when people say that, because if I could, I would. So if that's you, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes for resources. We created a book called Sleep Yourself Skinny. Actually, that needs a modification, doesn't it? I think we're all past that. It's Sleep Yourself Strong would be such a better title. We're on it. I'm changing that. But the whole idea is that there are almost 2 dozen little tricks and tips that you can do. Now, the key for most of us is don't give me a bucketload of things to do. Give me a step-by-step-by-step way to stay accountable and make a change. Because inevitably, as a coach who's worked as purely a coach, not just a strength and conditioning coach, since 2000 with people, when inevitably I ask, well, what have you tried and how did it go and how well did the magnesium work for you? Well, when I remembered, I didn't notice anything. That's what I would hear. When I remembered. And what you need is some kind of accountability. So if you're trying to remember or apply a bunch of things chances are you're not going to do any one of them. So my goal as a coach would be to help you say— and I'm helping you right now, do this for yourself— to say, all right, of this list, which of those are you willing to try? Let's pick 3 of them. Now let's decide, 1, 2, 3, which order are we going to start first? Don't do them all, do one at a time. And then we can figure out, is that working? Is that working? Here's 3 that work for my clients best of all. Number 1, set your wake-up time and keep it consistent every single day of the week. There's no such thing as sleeping in. There's no such thing as snooze unless you're sick, because that will help you set a circadian rhythm, get onto a regular schedule. And it may not be the one you love, it may be the one that your life and your job dictates. And I get that, but you don't want to be one, one morning having to get up at 5:30 in the morning and another morning getting up at 7:30. Do you know that that's why people are so exhausted on Monday is because of that sleeping in and staying up late on Friday and Saturday? Everything has been changed and off, and now your body is trying to get back onto its regular cycle. And if you stay on that regular cycle, it just becomes your way of life. And I promise you, I couldn't sleep in if I tried. Now that has nothing to do with the puppy who's staring at me and jumping on the bed when I'm still trying to get that last half hour. It's just simply, I sense when the sun's up, even with blackout curtains and an eye mask on. I'm just done. My body's done sleeping because I've gone to bed at the same time. And that happens magically if you get up at the same time every day. The bedtime happens. So it's bedtime first. Eat carbs with dinner. So those of you who are going keto, you're going really, really low in your carbohydrates, you're probably doing yourself an injustice. You don't have enough to promote serotonin. You probably tend to want to binge, or you crave, and You can, you can eliminate a lot of that. You're going to be in a better mood, have more serotonin, poop better, get good digestive fiber in with high-quality carbs. Now, we don't need as many as we once thought. Most of us ate the way marathoners train. We don't need that. And even marathoners today don't do that. But you want to eat some carbohydrate with dinner Definitely not for breakfast. Start with high protein and very low carb, and as the day goes on, add a little bit more carb to your lunch and most of it to dinner, and you will feel better and more relaxed and be able to sleep better. So that's two.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age. And that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen. To make it easy for myself, not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily, I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want, that I don't want, hiding in most protein powders. That's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared.

Look, yep, I agree, real food first, but it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich.

Sometimes the protein and Don't forget the fiber. They kill cravings and they boost satiety. And you've got to make it easy to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at flipping50.com today.

And the third one to try would be start testing magnesium. That's a little more in depth. I won't get into that, but these are some ways to help yourself. Here's why it's important. If you sleep more consistently, the release of testosterone and growth hormone that comes in your deep cycles of sleep— so we go through these cycles about 90 minutes several times during the night. If you wake up naturally, get up, go to the restroom, come back to bed, fall right back to sleep, you probably have just gotten up at one of those breaks between the 90-minute, and you haven't disrupted your cycle at all. You haven't disrupted a dream. It's different than getting woken up by something else like thunder or somebody snoring or barking in your room. But if that's not what's happening, if you're not getting those deep cycles that third and the fourth cycle in that 90 minutes, that's where you release testosterone and growth hormone. Those are the two magical— let's seal the deal. She did the workout, let's give her some more lean muscle and repair it. Boom. Now you have magic. Without those two things, we don't have that little bolus that we need of just nature's taking care of us. So same wake time, remember, that's the fastest way to reset that circadian rhythm. One more word on cortisol being the hormone that is wonky and not helping you at all if you don't sleep very well. So if you don't get those cycles of sleep, you don't get into deep sleep, your cortisol the next day is up. And cortisol is what we call a catabolic hormone, meaning it breaks down muscle, while testosterone and growth hormone are anabolic hormones, and they're there to do the tooth fairy goodness of building muscle up. Number 4, limit or eliminate your alcohol consumption to really sleep. If it's a thing for you, your health will suffer. You will age faster. You're accelerating your aging if you're not sleeping well, in a very very informal study of pilots we know and love. You know, I asked one of the pilots I know and love, and he said, what happens to old pilots? And he says, it's not pretty, you know, because of all the time zone travel, that back and forth, the disrupted sleep, the too short of sleep, the changes in circadian rhythm constantly, that it can wreak havoc. And so depending on how they're able to shift and/or retire and then get a little catch-up done, it doesn't go well for them. You're the same way, not due to that, but due to alcohol, the effects of alcohol on you. First of all, nothing really good metabolizing alcohol, you know, all other metabolism stops. Yeah, so when you're dealing with that, that food that you eat afterward Even if it's salmon and kale, it gets stored as fat. Yeah, so that's not a good thing. The alcohol you're drinking, it doesn't matter if it's beer or it's wine or it's vodka, it metabolizes as sugar, increasing your blood sugar. And then when blood sugar is up, insulin is up, and we're not as sensitive to insulin in midlife. So it takes more and more insulin, and insulin is like a fat fertilizer. When your body is high in insulin, as it is after a meal or alcohol, it's in fat storage. You can't be both fat burning and in fat storage. So the more that happens, the longer it goes, the worse it will be for hopes of burning fat. The aftereffects of alcohol is bad. I'm sure we've all experienced it. It negatively impacts your sleep. A lot of people believe that it makes them go to sleep, makes them sleepy, but the problem is it's not quality sleep. And then you wake up and it's kind of a disrupted, disjointed sleep. Causes blood sugar issues the next day. Probably you've noticed this, you're starving maybe because of, again, sugar. It's just like a sugar trap. It negatively impacts your hydration levels significantly there too. Decision-making skills are gone. So let's say you don't have kale and salmon ready for dinner.

You're not even going to have that.

You're probably going to make some worse choices in terms of what it is that you're eating. So good choices are hard. That brings us to number 5. Move more and exercise less. Doesn't that sound like a contraindication? But this has been the mantra for Flipping 50 since You Still Got It, Girl, the after-50 fitness formula for women, came out. It's move more and exercise less. And please don't hear that you should slow down or that you should not do high-intensity exercise. That's not what I'm saying at all. In fact, The reason you should do less exercise is so that when you do it, you can go hard. You can do high-intensity interval training, getting breathless. You can do high impact if your joints will tolerate it, and you can do heavy weight as much as your joints, ligaments, and bones will tolerate there as well, because that's what's going to help you boost bone, boost lean muscle, and your metabolism and your overall strength and power, which will make your 85-year-old self thank you for it. So here's what we're talking about and why less exercise, just higher quality of it in intensity, makes sense. The variability between NEAT is up to 2,000 calories a day between those who are active and those who are sedentary. So stay with me. NEAT is non-exercise activity time, or you can say— some people will say thermogenesis— non-exercise activity thermogenesis. I get up, I'm walking around the house, I'm picking up all the dog toys, I'm putting laundry in the laundry basket, I'm folding the clothes and putting them away. That's thermogenesis. My metabolism is up compared to sitting down or sitting on a couch, right? Just relaxing. Remote in hand. So NEAT, non-activity or non-exercise activity. I call it time just for ease. You don't need to know that you're burning more calories, but of course you would be if you're moving versus sitting. But the difference between people who fidget, who get up, who move. And I don't know if you can see this, I'm talking with my hands. So sitting up animated, talking to my hands, even this is burning more calories than just sitting here very static, very stoic. And I can't even do that without changing my voice as well. But energy level-wise, it's good to talk with your hands, by the way. That's 2,000 calories. 2,000 calories a day. That's quite a bit, right? Between those who are active and those who are sedentary. And while you might burn 300 calories or even 600 in an ambitious workout, seriously, you've done that, haven't you? You've been at the gym, you've been on the treadmill, and you're like, oh my God, I'm drenched. That was a great workout. How many calories did I burn? Because it'll come up, right? And it's like 157, you know, are you kidding me? Okay. We can count out 15 M&Ms and we're good. Nothing. And I don't know why M&Ms came to mind, but they did clearly. But you want to think about that's not a lot, right? And the value of exercise goes beyond that. So I will call this, we call it EPOC, it's excess post- oxygen consumption, meaning after exercise our bodies are still— we're still revved up. We don't just, like a car, shut the motor off. Even you go back out to the car 15 minutes later, the motor's still going to be hot if it was running for a while. Well, so are you. It's still up and you're slowly coming back down, your circulation coming back down, your respiration coming back down. Everything that is repairing the the little micro damage that was done while you were exercising, that's coming back down to its homeostasis. And it takes a while. If it's hard exercise, it'll come down over time. If it was a long exercise, again, that too will take more time. So there is more value than just the— what's that, what's that treadmill say I burned? You know, the overall. But if you do that very ambitious workout trying to burn 700 calories in an hour, for instance, at that crazy kickbox boot camp class, it can come back to bite some midlife women and leave you sitting more than ever, because now you're sore, you're exhausted, your adrenals are kind of shot. And look, if that's how you're feeling, you really kind of wiped out the benefit of exercise overall, which is to make us more engaged, more energetic, more active through the rest of our lives and days. That part is much more interesting to you because it's much more beneficial in your total energy expenditure. Experts categorize NEAT into 3 main subcomponents comprised of your body posture. So sitting in a chair right now, you know, and I can sit here, but I can also sit here and I'm really tired and slumped and leaning and, and chin in my hand, you know, and one is more attractive than the other. So this is just much more energy. Ambulation, which means walking around, or I could stand, I could get a bike or a desk, not treadmill, but a standing desk so that I could stand and do these. And that would be a great idea actually. Energy is higher than any way. And then the last one is spontaneous movements. What does that mean? It means like if you're one of these, Like you always gotta be moving something. Or, you know, I used to sit next to a friend of mine in high school and I remember this, she'd cross her legs and then one of them would always be swinging. It would be like we'd reach down and actually hold it because it'd be like, stop it. But she was winning, right? Because if you are a fidgeter, you're actually burning more energy off. Just all the fidgeting counts. So there is that category of NEAT as well. And I want to tell you this, that there's this debate that's been studied and it was released in a publication that came out in 2013 that looked at aerobic and strength training in a routine, not together, not, you know, we're going to go back and forth between aerobics, but doing 1, 2, or 3 aerobic exercise sessions a week and doing the corresponding 1, 2, or 3 resistance training a week. So there were— there was one group that did one of each, the other group did two of each, and the third group did three of each. Which one do you think had the greatest energy expenditure, total energy expenditure, when they looked at their entire week? 2, it was the sweet spot because in that they gained enough energy and fitness and strength to have more energy to want to do things. Those that did 3 were couch compensating in between. They were like, you know, yeah, you know, I worked out. Could you take the garbage out? You know, will you take the dog out? I'm tired. 'Yeah, could you order Instacart?' Right? Because they're tired. You don't want to be that girl. And then the, the ones who did just one of each, it's not enough. It's not enough to gain strength or gain endurance. You're just kind of starting over every single time. So probably motivation to exercise during that one time also wasn't great. Now, I don't want to discount for those of you who are— you have really active lives, You are, you've got 3 kids of college age and you have to move 'em all into college over this week. You don't need 2 workouts even, maybe you don't need any or maybe you need just one and one because life right now is gonna be your workout. The reason you've worked out consistently leading up to that is so you can do it 'cause of course they live on the top floor. Isn't that always the way? And the elevator's broken. Can't tell you how I know that. Okay, so there is that debate, but I want you to understand that that study of postmenopausal women, by the way, also helps to emphasize and prove NEAT is actually more important than lots and lots of exercise, because that backfires and makes you the other 23 hours of the day. And I know you're sleeping during some of that, but if you have an elevated metabolism, you're burning more calories when you're sleeping too, right? So we can factor all of that in. It is important.

All right.

So not long ago, I created a YouTube video and we'll embed that right in the show notes. And those show notes you'll be able to find at flipping50.com/non-exercise-ways-to-boost-fat-burn. So what are you waiting for? You can come over and grab that. You can watch the YouTube video if you'd like to and prefer to see everything in pictures. And please share it. And by the way, if you are a prove-it-to-me girl, all of the science will be there too. The references for today's show will be there. So I didn't just make up the fact that, you know, hydration actually helps to increase fat burning and/or decrease fat storage. But all of the science is there for you as well as other resources. And thank you so much for being a listener. If this podcast episode has helped you, and particularly if you know a woman who is in a busy season of her life and maybe can't exercise as much as she wants to, but would really value knowing that some of the habits that she probably already has are actually still helping her to maintain what she's doing, or she can do these other little things without having to go work out or take the time or the energy to do it if she doesn't have it. So I appreciate your sharing it in advance.

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