"I'm working out, but nothing is changing."

Sound familiar? You've been pushing hard in the gym for weeks or months or maybe even years, and you still haven't lost weight. It's frustrating!

But here's the thing. Your workouts actually don't do much for weight loss, not just for you but for anyone. There's a common misconception that the people that are the leanest or most "toned" work out the most, but that's just not the case.

So, let's break it down. Everyone burns a different amount of calories each day, BUT how those calories are burned can be generalized (see graph below).

TDEE is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, essentially the amount of calories you burn in a day. How those calories are burned are broken down into four categories: BMR, NEAT, TEF, and EAT.

BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate (sometimes referred to as Resting Metabolic Rate) is how many calories you will burn in a day if you do nothing, like not even get up to go to the bathroom. Hospitals use this for patients that are bedridden/in comas so they know how much to feed them. This is responsible for about 60-75% of the calories you burn in a day. While you have some control over this (those with more muscle mass will burn more at rest), a lot of it is out of your control (height, weight, gender, age, etc.).

Next is NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. This is all the things you do during a day that are NOT exercise. Think grocery shopping, playing with your kids, doing laundry, etc. Any type of movement that is not intentional exercise is responsible for 15-30% of the calories burned in a day.

The two factors that contribute the LEAST to your total daily calories burned are TEF (Thermic Effect of Food) and EAT (Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). TEF is the amount of energy (calories) used to chew, digest, metabolize, and absorb your food. It makes up roughly 10% of your total daily energy expenditure. Some foods will increase TEF more than others, but that's a topic for another day.

EAT is the amount of calories burned while exercising. This makes up anywhere from 5-15% of your daily calories burned. So let's say your TDEE is 2,000 calories, there's a good chance your workout doesn't even burn 200 calories. Sorry to break the news, but your fitness tracker is lying to you. And if you've never tracked your food before, 200 calories is about 1.5 glasses of wine or one chocolate chip cookie. So that hour workout doesn't mean you can eat the entire pantry without seeing some weight gain.

Since you wouldn't start eating more food in order to burn more calories (increasing TEF), you shouldn't be working out more to burn extra. The point of exercise is for overall health, to increase strength or muscle mass, or for certain performance goals, NOT TO BURN CALORIES. If you're looking to increase total calories burned in a day, your best bet would be to take time away from dieting in order to increase muscle mass (which would in turn increase your BMR) OR focus on what you are doing throughout the rest of your day (NEAT), take more walks, play with your kids, etc.