In this solo episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I break down why NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), and a simple step count, is one of the most overlooked levers for improving body composition, recovery, and performance. I explain how NEAT often drops when calories are reduced, why that can stall fat loss even when you think you’re in a deficit, and how using wearables (or even basic tracking) can make subconscious movement visible and easier to improve. I also share how the Flex Diet Cert is built as a complete system for nutrition and recovery, covering interventions from macros (protein, fats, carbs) to NEAT, sleep, micronutrition, intermittent fasting, and more — designed for everyone from general population clients to high-level athletes. I also remind listeners that enrollment for the Flex Diet Cert closes Monday, February 16th, 2026, at midnight Pacific. Sponsors: Fitness Insider Newsletter: https://miketnelson.com/
In this solo episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I break down why NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), and a simple step count, is one of the most overlooked levers for improving body composition, recovery, and performance. I explain how NEAT often drops when calories are reduced, why that can stall fat loss even when you think you’re in a deficit, and how using wearables (or even basic tracking) can make subconscious movement visible and easier to improve.
I also share how the Flex Diet Cert is built as a complete system for nutrition and recovery, covering interventions from macros (protein, fats, carbs) to NEAT, sleep, micronutrition, intermittent fasting, and more — designed for everyone from general population clients to high-level athletes.
I also remind listeners that enrollment for the Flex Diet Cert closes Monday, February 16th, 2026, at midnight Pacific.
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Enroll in the Flex Diet Certification by midnight PST on Monday, Feb. 16.
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Dr Mike T Nelson: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle, increase performance, improve body composition, do all of it in a flexible framework without destroying your health. Today on the podcast it's just me just doing a short solo cast, and we'll have another guest episode coming up later this week.
But I also wanted to remind you that the Flex Diet Cert is closing tonight. This is Monday, February 16th, 2026. So if you still wanted to enroll, your time is getting very short. If you're listening to this message on Monday, if you're listening to this message after Monday, you can still go there. Get on the wait list for the next time.
So the Flex Diet Cert is your complete system to do [00:01:00] nutrition and recovery. We've got eight different interventions raining from protein, fat, carbohydrates, which of course are your macronutrients to neat to sleep micro nutrition and a whole lot more. So it's a not just a nutritional component. That's what I wanted to talk about today is the calories in, calories out, but does cover all the other main components that you would need for better performance, better body composition for everyone from general population all the way up to pretty high level athletes.
It's crazy how a lot of high level athletes are still missing what I would say is basic to even intermediate. Type nutrition, even though a lot of times they wanna start on the advanced stuff. And the other part I wanted to mention today is that we talk a lot about, in the cert, one of the interventions is [00:02:00] neat.
So non-exercise activity thermogenesis. I think this is something that probably doesn't get enough love. And the reason for that is that this is a huge lever, especially for body composition and recovery. The easiest way to measure this is a step count, but in essence, it's all the other movements and activities that are not necessarily formal exercise.
And while we do talk about formal exercise briefly in the cert, the reason need is so important is that as you cut calories, this is probably the number one thing that drops from a caloric expenditure standpoint. Unless you are doing some type of cognitive or conscious override of it, this is because when you start pulling calories out of the system, your body doesn't really like it and it says, Hey Uhoh, this might not be good.
[00:03:00] We might be getting closer to a air quote, starvation condition. We wanna maintain efficiency, so we're going to not move around as much. In essence, we're just cave people with cell phones. Now from a genetic standpoint, we haven't really changed a whole lot, but unfortunately our whole life now is set up for efficiency.
We don't do nearly as much walking. We don't, we have dishwashers and all these modern appliances and everything else, which are great. I love my dishwasher. But the amount of energy that we had to spend even just a hundred years ago compared to now. It's substantially different. The good part is you have to, you can consciously override some of this.
The easiest way is by programming in a step count. And again, we go through how you would do that and all the details of it. Modern wearables are pretty easy at measuring step count now, [00:04:00] so it is something that most people have access to. I started doing this long time ago before wearables were even a thing.
That's how old I am. I used to stick little pedometers on people. That was a pain. They would always lose them, or they'd go through the wash or go through the dryer or something would happen. But the biggest thing I found with that is just by making people conscious to how much they were moving, just even by doing that alone, just by observation, sometimes it's called the Hawthorne effect.
People would start walking and start moving more. And I think a lot of times when body composition is the focus people probably spend a little too much on nutrition. And again, nutrition is super important. Yes, the amount of calories you take in is a huge factor that definitely needs to be considered.
How much of that is protein, fats? Carbohydrates makes a huge difference. But I've worked with many clients in the [00:05:00] past who just could not figure out why they kept slashing calories and. They thought they were in a caloric deficit, but they weren't losing any weight and it wasn't that they hit a plateau.
This would be stuck for 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 weeks at a time when we started measuring their neat, their non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or we'll just simply say their step count was actually going down. And the interesting part was they didn't realize it. Because a lot of your day-to-day movements are subconsciously regulated, and by providing even just something as simple as a step count, it gives you a way to look at it and go, oh wow.
I am 2000 steps short, or 3000 steps short. I'm gonna go take a walk while on the block. Now again, those small movements don't seem like a lot on a daily basis. You can pound that by days, months, years. It does [00:06:00] add up and make a pretty substantial difference. The other good part is that it does take some oversight.
It does take into setting up a system to do it. Of course, you wanna be realistic with what you are expecting from clients, which we go over in the cert, but people have access to it. Even if it's cold in Minnesota, you can still bundle up, go outside worst case if you have to walk around more inside or use a treadmill or something else.
But vast majority of the time, you can walk outside, you can do it on your own, don't need any fancy equipment. You don't need to warm up, you don't need to do anything else really. So in terms of accessibility, it actually ranks really high. And so when I design the Flex Diet Cert, it is primarily more on the nutrition side, but I wanted to make it complete and include things like basic exercise, neat sleep.
In addition to things that are more nutrition based, obviously your [00:07:00] macronutrients, protein, fats, carbs, we talk about intermittent fasting, micronutrition, et cetera. So it is more on the nutrition side, but it is more of a complete system and solution to work with body composition goals. And also walking is a great way to promote recovery.
So it even helps with. Performance enhancement and indirectly adding more muscle. So if you can recover faster and spend a little bit more time training in the gym to get a better stimulus, to add more muscle. So that's today's very short podcast. I think the importance of NEAT is gaining some traction, but I still see that it is an underused intervention and that's why I wanted to make sure it was included in the Flux Diet Cert.
And if you want more information, go to the link down below here. You's still time to enroll. If you're listening to this on Monday, February 16th, [00:08:00] 2026, you have until midnight Pacific. Standard time tonight to enroll won't be open for several months. Actually only open twice a year, so it'll be some time before it's open again.
So there you go. I would love to see you in the certification. If you have any questions let me know and bump up your neat. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We will have a very, another more longer interview coming up in the next few days. We've got tons of huge interviews that are already scheduled.
Tons of great stuff. We got one coming out a little bit Dr. Darren Cando talking about creatine. My good buddy, Vinny, talking about mindset and how it affects performance. We've got my friend Christie talking about zone two cardio and much more, so stay tuned for all of those. [00:09:00] If you're interested in the flex diet cert, hop on to the link down below.
I hope to see you there. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to all of you next week.
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