{"id":268635,"date":"2026-02-05T08:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T08:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/268635\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T08:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T08:04:12","slug":"joanna-lumley-swears-by-vigorous-neat-exercise-to-stay-fit-at-79-heres-how-to-do-it-effectively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/268635\/","title":{"rendered":"Joanna Lumley swears by \u2018vigorous\u2019 NEAT exercise to stay fit at 79 \u2013 here\u2019s how to do it effectively"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 79, Joanna Lumley is proof that life doesn\u2019t stop with age. If she\u2019s not filming a new TV series, she\u2019s travelling the world \u2013 and she\u2019s just as active at home. While gym workouts<\/a> aren\u2019t for her, she stays fit with NEAT exercise<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Standing for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, NEAT exercise refers to any movement you do that isn\u2019t intentional, like gardening or walking on your commute. For Joanna, it means housework, gardening and taking the stairs. In an interview with My Weekly<\/a> magazine, she explained: \u2018I don\u2019t go to the gym but I do stuff with vigour, such as housework, gardening and going up the stairs two at a time.\u2019 <\/p>\n

This type of exercise makes up significantly more of your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, meaning how many calories you burn across each day), compared to the time you spend exercising in a gym or doing a planned workout. To be specific, NEAT makes up around 50% of your TDEE, while a planned workout typically only counts for around 10%. The more you fit movement into your day by doing housework, gardening or taking the stairs like Joanna (especially if you do them \u2018with vigour\u2019), the more energy you expend and the bigger the fitness benefits. <\/p>\n

\"joannaKarwai Tang\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Joanna Lumley at Wimbledon, July 2025<\/p>\n

One study<\/a> on women aged 65+ found that just 30 daily minutes of light activity of this kind, including house cleaning, was associated with a 12% lower risk of death compared with being mostly sedentary. Those who got an additional 30 minutes of moderate activity were 39% less likely to die. Even more interestingly, senior study author Andrea Lacroix noted that as adults get older, they expend more energy doing the same activities they did when they were younger, meaning the older you are, the more you’ll get out of light NEAT exercise.<\/p>\n

Inspired? Here are some other examples of NEAT to try: <\/p>\n

Washing the carFidgeting Walking upstairsWalking the dogCarrying grocery shopping Gardening Playing with children or pets Using a standing desk Using a desk treadmill Walking to the gym, shops or office, instead of taking public or private transportRELATED STORIES\"Headshot<\/p>\n

\u00a0As Women\u2019s Health UK\u2019s fitness director and a qualified Pilates and yoga instructor, Bridie Wilkins has been passionately reporting on exercise, health and nutrition since the start of her decade-long career in journalism. She secured her first role at Look Magazine, where her obsession with fitness began and she launched the magazine\u2019s health and fitness column, Look Fit, before going on to become Health and Fitness writer at HELLO!. Since, she has written for Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle, The Metro, Runner\u2019s World and Red.Now, she oversees all fitness content across womenshealthmag.com.uk<\/a> and the print magazine, spearheading leading cross-platform franchises, such as \u2018Fit At Any Age\u2019, where we showcase the women proving that age is no barrier to exercise. She has also represented the brand on BBC Radio London, plus various podcasts and Substacks \u2013 all with the aim to encourage more women to exercise and show them how.Outside of work, find her trying the latest Pilates studio, testing her VO2 max for fun (TY, Oura), or posting workouts on Instagram. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 79, Joanna Lumley is proof that life doesn\u2019t stop with age. If she\u2019s not filming a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[57233,149492,149491,147678,147290,5218,152603,2117,152602,565,2120,134,2116,111,139,69,152601,149610],"class_list":{"0":"post-268635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-57233","9":"tag-collection-celebrity-workouts","10":"tag-collection-fit-at-70-and-beyond","11":"tag-collection-fit-at-any-age","12":"tag-collection-fitness-app","13":"tag-content-type-default","14":"tag-contentid-6fdb6aa0-14f3-46e8-abac-3448b3d9a194","15":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","16":"tag-does-vigorous-neat-exercise","17":"tag-fitness","18":"tag-hasproduct-true","19":"tag-health","20":"tag-locale-gb","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-shorttitle-joanna-lumley","25":"tag-subsection-strength-training"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}