Welcome to another weird Q&A here on Wits and Weights. I'm your host, philip Pape, and if you have a question for the podcast, you can send it by text using the link in the show notes. If you wanna tell me that it's a weird question, I'll be happy to include it in one of these. If it is a less so, I will include it in another Q&A episode, or even as its own episode, and I will give you a shout out. All right, let's get into it today with question one. Can you burn a significant number of calories by fidgeting or tapping your foot all day? Now, this is actually a very legitimate question because fidgeting and small movements like tapping your foot, they fall under the category that we know as non-exercise activity, thermogenesis, neat, and NEAT encompasses all the energy expended for everything you do that is not sleeping, eating or structured exercise. So we do include walking in NEAT, but typing on the computer, gardening chores, all of that fun stuff, as well as all the unconscious movements like fidgeting and tapping. Now research has shown that NEAT can vary a lot between individuals by up to 2,000 calories based on your lifestyle and actually plays a substantial role potentially the biggest role in your daily energy expenditure other than, I would argue how much muscle mass you have, but in the short term, it's the one that you have the most control over changing. Now, some studies suggest that people who fidget are more generally or if they are more generally restless, they can burn up to a few hundred calories more per day than somebody who's more naturally stationary. So that's independent of the rest of your lifestyle, and while it does burn some more calories than just sitting, still it's pretty modest when compared to, you know, all the other stuff like walking or training or muscle mass things like that, and so I wouldn't rely you know, I wouldn't rely on the fact that you fidget, because it is an unconscious thing, but it is interesting to understand why some people are just more fidgety and they burn a few more calories than others. That said, increasing your NEAT in general is a huge component of a strategy to increase your energy flux, your daily energy expenditure, and incorporating any more movement into your day Taking the stairs, standing while you work, walking around the house, pacing during Zoom calls can all contribute to better energy balance. It supports your metabolism and makes fat loss easier all of that. So, yes, fidgeting slightly boosts calorie burn. It's unconscious, though, and it's most effective when combined with the things that you have a little more control over. All right, question number two I like this one Can watching horror movies help you burn calories due to increased heart rate?

And I have to tell you, I've thought of this myself. When I'm like um a football game, for example, right, when I'm watching a football game that I actually care about, and it's close, and for like two hours you feel like you're going to have a heart attack and I'm like man, how many calories am I burning with that? Um, well, so when you're watching a horror movie, anything that's stimulating, like that, it definitely triggers a physiological you know, stress response for sure. It's why I don't recommend doing it right before bed, because it can interrupt your sleep, and that includes increased heart rate, the release of adrenaline, right, your, your body's natural fight or flight mechanism, and then that could lead to a tiny increase in your metabolic rate. Now, I say tiny, but I did find that some studies suggested that watching a 90 minute horror film might burn an extra 100, 150 calories, which is like taking a short walk because of the heightened emotional and physiological response during the viewing. So there could be something to this. But I would say again, this is why this is weird. Q and A right, the calorie burn is, in relative terms for your whole week, it's pretty small. It shouldn't be considered a substitute for exercise. Like you shouldn't make daily horror movie watching your weight loss or fat loss strategy, right, it's probably not the most efficient or practical way to go. If you enjoy a great horror movie, enjoy it and maybe you'll get a little benefit from it, and it's an interesting phenomenon, right? I would say make sure you train, make sure you're moving, make sure you're eating the right way for you, and then enjoy the scary movie anyway because you enjoy it. There you go, okay.

Question three Can you build muscle by only working out once a week? Now, this is a quite serious question related to frequency and I want to be clear. We are talking about one training session a week, not working out a muscle group once a week. The big difference, right, like a six day body part split, might be working out a muscle each, a separate muscle group each day, and so you're doing each muscle group once a week, but you're working out six days. This is talking about one session a week. So we know that building muscle effectively getting stronger is a combination of the stress right, the stimulus from the resistance training and the recovery, and that's nutrition, sleep right, time between sessions, and so the frequency of your training, how many days you train, does factor into that with regards to how often you get the stress and how much recovery you get.

Working out once a week is probably at best for most people, a way to maintain muscle. Maybe For beginners it's just not going to be enough Now if the alternative is you're going to sit on your couch and not go to the gym at all and now you start going to the gym once a week and it gets you into that mindset of consistency and it's sustainable, and then you're able to add another day and then maybe finally one more to get up to three. Awesome, I love it for that strategy as like an entry point, especially if it reduces stress, it helps you sleep better that day, it helps you focus on your food, like there are a lot of benefits, but it's not going to give you probably significant you know, strength and muscle hypertrophy gains without the frequency. There are some low frequency, you know, single day a week, exotic programs out there for very advanced lifters that you might hear about, but we're talking about the tail end of the curve and the effort that you'd have to put in and how hard you'd have to train in that session and how long it would have to be. It's just completely unpractical for people and that's a far cry from why the person's asking this question, which is probably hey, can I go for an hour, do a normal workout once a week and still get results?

I would say probably not. You need two or three times a week, ideally three um. Higher frequency training simply gives you more touch points, more opportunities to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, to actually put the stress on your body so it can grow and then prevent you from detraining before you get to the next session and hit that muscle. It also helps you distribute your training volume throughout the week, which reduces any risk of overtraining in one all-out, crazy, balls-to-the-wall session. So if your schedule only allows for one workout a week, I would actually want to audit your schedule.

I'd want to look at how can we actually get in another workout or two, whether it's on your off days, a different time of day, using shorter sessions and splitting it up all of that and make sure the workout is efficient, right. Make sure that, if you don't have a lot of time, that we're focusing on efficient movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, compound movements that maximize, maximize your you know effectiveness and and prioritizing the intensity and the form, along with the right progression over time, is where the magic happens. So I general answer is no, you're not going to make much progress with once a week, but it could help you for other reasons to eventually get up to the two or three days a week you need. But other than that, I would look to plan in two or three, ideally three days a week. If you could do it in the morning, there's extra benefits for that. But I would say, do it when it is sustainable for you so that you actually stick to it.

All right, so thanks for joining me again for another weird Q&A, some intriguing, unconventional, offbeat questions about fitness, health, nutrition, mindset. And again, if you want to submit your question, just use the link in the show notes to text me. You could also send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook and then I'll feature it in a future episode. All right, stay curious, keep challenging the norms and continue your journey toward being a healthier, fitter person. I will talk to you next time.