The most detailed and data-rich study of obesity ever undertaken was performed at the Mayo Clinic and published January 28, 2005 in the journal Science. Results show that it's metabolically more effective to put more NEAT — "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" — into your life to achieve a healthy body weight, than to seek organized exercise.

To prepare, design and carry out this NEAT study over the past decade, Mayo Clinic brought together:

1. 20 study participants who were willing to forgo Christmas peanut brittle, Halloween Milky Ways and all restaurant and home meals. Every meal had to be taken at the hospital, without exception.
2. A biomedical team at Mayo Clinic of approximately 150 people, ranging from endocrinologists, dieticians to specialists to conduct analyses with a mass spectrometer.
3. The periodic $1,000/person glass of water. This was a special metabolic test that required drinking treated water with tracers to monitor the person's metabolism as a way of providing researchers a measure of compliance that test subjects were eating only meals prepared for them by hospital staff.
4. A dedicated kitchen staff to cook 20,000 meals over the test period, starting at 5 a.m. each day—without skipping a beat, food group or strange hankering.
5. 150 million lines of data that were downloaded from the data-loggers and analyzed.
6. Committed study participants to clean their plates—and scrape them, too, with a rubber scraper—so every calibrated calorie that was served was also consumed.
7. Custom-made data-logging undergarments that all participants wore 24 hours a day, exchanging a new pair every morning at the hospital at breakfast. The bottoms look like bicycle shorts and the women's tops look like sports bras. The men's tops look like undershirts.
8. Jet fighter control panel motion sensing technology embedded in the special underwear to monitor every tilt and wiggle of the participants.
9. No swimming—due to the potential water damage to the motion sensors.
10. No particular activity regime was endorsed or prescribed. Participants were told to go about their normal work, recreation, rest and romance routines.