Has anyone trained themselves to fidgit?
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MegaMooseEsq
Posts: 3,118 Member
I've always been a fidgeter, and perhaps at least partially related, never struggled with my weight until some life changes a few years ago. I made some efforts to break myself of the habit as an adult, but have allowed it to come back since learning about NEAT. I was recently listening to a Lyle McDonald podcast that suggested much of NEAT, including fidgeting, is genetic, and was wondering if anyone who wasn't a natural fidgeter has managed to successfully train themselves to do it. Would you have to think about it all the time? Would you stop moving if you stopped thinking about it?
Just as an anecdotal data point in favor of fidgeting, I've kept pretty tight data for over a year and a half now, and once I moved into a deficit (about nine months ago), have noticed consistently higher weight loss than would be accounted for by my calorie counting. I've had a number of theories about this and NEAT is definitely up there - I work a completely sedentary job, but am almost constantly moving my legs.
Just as an anecdotal data point in favor of fidgeting, I've kept pretty tight data for over a year and a half now, and once I moved into a deficit (about nine months ago), have noticed consistently higher weight loss than would be accounted for by my calorie counting. I've had a number of theories about this and NEAT is definitely up there - I work a completely sedentary job, but am almost constantly moving my legs.
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Kind of... I definately fidget more now than I used to (I put that down to having a Fitbit for several years and it getting me up and moving a lot). I do a lot of leg swinging without even thinking about it. Fidgeting has increased your NEAT (and mine)
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Genetic Fidgeters unite!
I gained a lot of weight partly due to medications that I had to take to mitigate migraines. The types of medications had as side effects a desire to sit still and eat ice cream in front of the TV.
Now I'm med-free, eating bowls of lettuce instead, at a healthy weight and with all that energy - I'm back to get-up-sit-down-get-back-up.
In first grade my teachers were complaining about this in me, so I'm thinking it's who I am. 4 -
@MegaMooseEsq, how many extra calories does your data support? 1%? 5%?
I've never put much stock in in the idea of being able to substantially change NEAT by fidgeting or always parking farther away or making other efforts to increase NEAT as a priority, especially when comparing the potential magnitude to ensuring one has set their calorie level and is logging correctly. However, this data of which you speak has me intrigued.3 -
@MegaMooseEsq, how many extra calories does your data support? 1%? 5%?
I've never put much stock in in the idea of being able to substantially change NEAT by fidgeting or always parking farther away or making other efforts to increase NEAT as a priority, especially when comparing the potential magnitude to ensuring one has set their calorie level and is logging correctly. However, this data of which you speak has me intrigued.
Not accounting for intentional exercise, I lose weight at the rate expected of an individual at MFP's "active" daily activities (I am clearly sedentary by the MFP model). I've checked this against the USDA body weight planner (a TDEE model), and the difference comes out to maybe 200-300 calories a day (or the calories estimated for someone eight inches taller than myself). Converted to a percentage of my daily intake, that's currently 10-15% of my daily intake. Certainly this could be due to logging issues, being towards an end of the BMI bell curve, or something else entirely, but there does seem to be some science behind the NEAT theory. Whether or not one can consciously increase NEAT is another question, one I am also skeptical about. Thus my post!
ETA: Edited edit because I'm trying to break myself of the impulse to apologize when I get a "woo."6 -
I fidget constantly (wiggling legs right now...) , and have always wondered how that impacts my daily calorie burn. I have never been able to sit still my entire life, lol. Maybe I should pay attention to my loss and see if I get the same result. I am sometimes hungrier than I feel I should be given my calories consumed that day, or the day before...0
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I've trained myself to fidget, to an extent. I'm not naturally a fidgeter but have become more so one than I used to be. During work days especially, I fidget a lot (during meetings, while waiting for slow internet pages to load, while reading or coming up with ideas, etc.) and it's not something that I necessarily think about doing, though it is something that I'm aware of. It's something that became a habit after a while. However, in my daily life outside work, it is something that I would have to think about doing, and I tend not to move around as much unless I think about it.0
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cmriverside wrote: »Genetic Fidgeters unite!
I gained a lot of weight partly due to medications that I had to take to mitigate migraines. The types of medications had as side effects a desire to sit still and eat ice cream in front of the TV.
Now I'm med-free, eating bowls of lettuce instead, at a healthy weight and with all that energy - I'm back to get-up-sit-down-get-back-up.
In first grade my teachers were complaining about this in me, so I'm thinking it's who I am.
I'm the opposite -- I was always praised (by teachers and so on) as a little kid for being so able to sit still and be calm and read a book quietly and stuff like that. My mom used to go on about how I was so good on airplanes. Weird thing to be praised for, looking back.
I do find I move a lot more when I'm not overweight, which is probably a side effect of having more energy (I was not ever overweight as a child, however). I tap my fingers more and my feet and so on, but real fidgeting I do think is natural and don't think I could train myself to do (to get back to OP's question).
I can train myself to get up occasionally and so on, but to be fidgety, I doubt it.
Oddly enough, I lost weight faster than MFP's projections anyway, which I think is because my life requires a lot of walking for errands because I live in a city (and I've learned that if I have a long wait for the L I can walk up and down across the platform and think of it as a positive, not a time-waste), and I live in a 4th floor walk-up, and stuff like that, so I am positive about the ability to control NEAT in other ways.5 -
Fidget, no. But if I'm walking outside and I have to stop at a traffic light, I march in place until it changes.1
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Sorta? I have to keep it in the back of my mind. Like make sure I’m twirling my foot or something each time my husband fast forwards a commercial on a show we watch together... but once I get engrossed ( especially reading) I go as still as a statue.
Concentration = stillness for me. So something like a tv show I’m more successful being fidgety than a good book.
I’m one of the slower than predicted weighloss types ( I lose less than predicted for sedentary even though I qualify as active or better).1 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »@MegaMooseEsq, how many extra calories does your data support? 1%? 5%?
I've never put much stock in in the idea of being able to substantially change NEAT by fidgeting or always parking farther away or making other efforts to increase NEAT as a priority, especially when comparing the potential magnitude to ensuring one has set their calorie level and is logging correctly. However, this data of which you speak has me intrigued.
Not accounting for intentional exercise, I lose weight at the rate expected of an individual at MFP's "active" daily activities (I am clearly sedentary by the MFP model). I've checked this against the USDA body weight planner (a TDEE model), and the difference comes out to maybe 200-300 calories a day (or the calories estimated for someone eight inches taller than myself). Converted to a percentage of my daily intake, that's currently 10-15% of my daily intake. Certainly this could be due to logging issues, being towards an end of the BMI bell curve, or something else entirely, but there does seem to be some science behind the NEAT theory. Whether or not one can consciously increase NEAT is another question, one I am also skeptical about. Thus my post!
ETA: Edited edit because I'm trying to break myself of the impulse to apologize when I get a "woo."
Interesting, thanks for sharing. It's not natural for me to fidget unless severely over-caffeinated. I'll have to try the estimator you mentioned to see. TdeeCalulator.net has my TDEE overestimated by 100 calories or so; maybe that's saying I fidget less than the average.0 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »@MegaMooseEsq, how many extra calories does your data support? 1%? 5%?
I've never put much stock in in the idea of being able to substantially change NEAT by fidgeting or always parking farther away or making other efforts to increase NEAT as a priority, especially when comparing the potential magnitude to ensuring one has set their calorie level and is logging correctly. However, this data of which you speak has me intrigued.
Not accounting for intentional exercise, I lose weight at the rate expected of an individual at MFP's "active" daily activities (I am clearly sedentary by the MFP model). I've checked this against the USDA body weight planner (a TDEE model), and the difference comes out to maybe 200-300 calories a day (or the calories estimated for someone eight inches taller than myself). Converted to a percentage of my daily intake, that's currently 10-15% of my daily intake. Certainly this could be due to logging issues, being towards an end of the BMI bell curve, or something else entirely, but there does seem to be some science behind the NEAT theory. Whether or not one can consciously increase NEAT is another question, one I am also skeptical about. Thus my post!
ETA: Edited edit because I'm trying to break myself of the impulse to apologize when I get a "woo."
Interesting, thanks for sharing. It's not natural for me to fidget unless severely over-caffeinated. I'll have to try the estimator you mentioned to see. TdeeCalulator.net has my TDEE overestimated by 100 calories or so; maybe that's saying I fidget less than the average.
It's at https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/index.html - I've personally found it much more useful than the MFP estimates and haven't bothered to close my diary in ages. As an experiment, I tried the calculator you linked and it underestimated my TDEE by about 400 calories.2 -
I used to fidget a lot. I've now successfully trained myself out of it and can now sit calmly and move calmly instead of neurotically moving my legs for example. I see fidgeting as a flaw and as a sign of anxiety.2
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »@MegaMooseEsq, how many extra calories does your data support? 1%? 5%?
I've never put much stock in in the idea of being able to substantially change NEAT by fidgeting or always parking farther away or making other efforts to increase NEAT as a priority, especially when comparing the potential magnitude to ensuring one has set their calorie level and is logging correctly. However, this data of which you speak has me intrigued.
Not accounting for intentional exercise, I lose weight at the rate expected of an individual at MFP's "active" daily activities (I am clearly sedentary by the MFP model). I've checked this against the USDA body weight planner (a TDEE model), and the difference comes out to maybe 200-300 calories a day (or the calories estimated for someone eight inches taller than myself). Converted to a percentage of my daily intake, that's currently 10-15% of my daily intake. Certainly this could be due to logging issues, being towards an end of the BMI bell curve, or something else entirely, but there does seem to be some science behind the NEAT theory. Whether or not one can consciously increase NEAT is another question, one I am also skeptical about. Thus my post!
ETA: Edited edit because I'm trying to break myself of the impulse to apologize when I get a "woo."
Interesting, thanks for sharing. It's not natural for me to fidget unless severely over-caffeinated. I'll have to try the estimator you mentioned to see. TdeeCalulator.net has my TDEE overestimated by 100 calories or so; maybe that's saying I fidget less than the average.
It's at https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/index.html - I've personally found it much more useful than the MFP estimates and haven't bothered to close my diary in ages. As an experiment, I tried the calculator you linked and it underestimated my TDEE by about 400 calories.
I just went to your USDA tracker. It's pretty close...but there is still that nagging "Activity Level" thingy...it isn't an absolute, and it gives nebulous qualifiers like, "Very Light," "Light," "Moderate," and, "Heavy," for both daily activity and leisure time activity. I maintain at very close to the level they suggest - but it's still a crap-shoot/personal experiment for most people - PLUS, I guessed at the next-higher level of activity than what I actually do, because I've learned that is how it is for me.
Everyone has to run the experiment.
I mean, how can we even define, "fidget?"
Oh, geez. What a can o' worms.
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cmriverside wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »@MegaMooseEsq, how many extra calories does your data support? 1%? 5%?
I've never put much stock in in the idea of being able to substantially change NEAT by fidgeting or always parking farther away or making other efforts to increase NEAT as a priority, especially when comparing the potential magnitude to ensuring one has set their calorie level and is logging correctly. However, this data of which you speak has me intrigued.
Not accounting for intentional exercise, I lose weight at the rate expected of an individual at MFP's "active" daily activities (I am clearly sedentary by the MFP model). I've checked this against the USDA body weight planner (a TDEE model), and the difference comes out to maybe 200-300 calories a day (or the calories estimated for someone eight inches taller than myself). Converted to a percentage of my daily intake, that's currently 10-15% of my daily intake. Certainly this could be due to logging issues, being towards an end of the BMI bell curve, or something else entirely, but there does seem to be some science behind the NEAT theory. Whether or not one can consciously increase NEAT is another question, one I am also skeptical about. Thus my post!
ETA: Edited edit because I'm trying to break myself of the impulse to apologize when I get a "woo."
Interesting, thanks for sharing. It's not natural for me to fidget unless severely over-caffeinated. I'll have to try the estimator you mentioned to see. TdeeCalulator.net has my TDEE overestimated by 100 calories or so; maybe that's saying I fidget less than the average.
It's at https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/index.html - I've personally found it much more useful than the MFP estimates and haven't bothered to close my diary in ages. As an experiment, I tried the calculator you linked and it underestimated my TDEE by about 400 calories.
I just went to your USDA tracker. It's pretty close...but there is still that nagging "Activity Level" thingy...it isn't an absolute, and it gives nebulous qualifiers like, "Very Light," "Light," "Moderate," and, "Heavy," for both daily activity and leisure time activity. I maintain at very close to the level they suggest - but it's still a crap-shoot/personal experiment for most people - PLUS, I guessed at the next-higher level of activity than what I actually do, because I've learned that is how it is for me.
Everyone has to run the experiment.
I mean, how can we even define, "fidget?"
Oh, geez. What a can o' worms.
Oh for sure the activity estimate is still a crapshoot, I just find the long-term projections useful once you've figured out an appropriate activity level (which may or may not be accounting for NEAT or weird BMI or whatever in addition to other activity). Unlike some projections, it at least tries to account for the decreased rate of loss over time. And expert mode has some fun additional data to play with that I don't see from most calculators.2 -
gebeziseva wrote: »I used to fidget a lot. I've now successfully trained myself out of it and can now sit calmly and move calmly instead of neurotically moving my legs for example. I see fidgeting as a flaw and as a sign of anxiety.
Just a random example plucked out of the ether and not addressed to anyone in particular? *grin* I definitely won't ask how you feel about hair twirling. As it is, I'm pretty fine with kicking my feet like a five-years old at my desk where no one can see me, especially if it's possibly helping me lose weight and definitely keeping my legs from getting stiff - I don't do it in court or in front of my in-laws or anything. That said, I do have an anxiety disorder, but it's pretty well medicated right now. I'm not aware of a connection between fidgeting and mental illness, but I suppose it's possible.4 -
You can certainly train yourself to fidget/spontaneously move to get a slight bump in NEAT. Naturally leaner individuals tend to be considered hyperactive or unable to sit still, but for more naturally sedentary individuals, it's going to have to be a conscious effort. Things like parking farther, taking stairs over elevators/escalators, intentionally getting up from your chair, etc are other ways to do the same thing. It's primarily the reason why pedometers and movement reminders exist.
While some people may generally feel more energetic once getting to healthy body fat levels, some people do experience a decrease in NEAT as the body perceives the need to conserve energy. Lyle describes this as well in several articles and podcasts. And this is in the context of energy balance. In a chronic deficit, the body would rather preserve energy than spend more. So at leaner levels of body fat, you may be already at or at least closer to maintenance calories than a deficit, and that may explain why there's an increase in energy levels and activity for those people.0 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »gebeziseva wrote: »I used to fidget a lot. I've now successfully trained myself out of it and can now sit calmly and move calmly instead of neurotically moving my legs for example. I see fidgeting as a flaw and as a sign of anxiety.
Just a random example plucked out of the ether and not addressed to anyone in particular? *grin* I definitely won't ask how you feel about hair twirling. As it is, I'm pretty fine with kicking my feet like a five-years old at my desk where no one can see me, especially if it's possibly helping me lose weight and definitely keeping my legs from getting stiff - I don't do it in court or in front of my in-laws or anything. That said, I do have an anxiety disorder, but it's pretty well medicated right now. I'm not aware of a connection between fidgeting and mental illness, but I suppose it's possible.
Ha. It was an example because that's what I used to do when I was fidgeting. I hadn't even read the other coments, yours including (I still haven't read it).
I also said anxiety not anxiety disorder, I did not imply a conection to mental illness. Cos that would be stupid.1 -
gebeziseva wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »gebeziseva wrote: »I used to fidget a lot. I've now successfully trained myself out of it and can now sit calmly and move calmly instead of neurotically moving my legs for example. I see fidgeting as a flaw and as a sign of anxiety.
Just a random example plucked out of the ether and not addressed to anyone in particular? *grin* I definitely won't ask how you feel about hair twirling. As it is, I'm pretty fine with kicking my feet like a five-years old at my desk where no one can see me, especially if it's possibly helping me lose weight and definitely keeping my legs from getting stiff - I don't do it in court or in front of my in-laws or anything. That said, I do have an anxiety disorder, but it's pretty well medicated right now. I'm not aware of a connection between fidgeting and mental illness, but I suppose it's possible.
Ha. It was an example because that's what I used to do when I was fidgeting. I hadn't even read the other coments, yours including (I still haven't read it).
I also said anxiety not anxiety disorder, I did not imply a conection to mental illness. Cos that would be stupid.
I’m the OP and I thought I’d mentioned leg motions in the first post, is why I assumed you’d read my post. No worries! I was not posting about people who used to fidget or who have negative opinions of people who fidget, but was wondering about efforts to consciously increase NEAT. I get that a literal connection between fidgeting and mental illness sounds unlikely, but it can be rather hurtful to people with mental illnesses (not to mention hyperbolic) to use terms like “neurotic” and “anxiety” to describe things you dislike, so I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.6 -
My legs fidget a lot. It's weird because I'm naturally lazy but I can't sit still. I don't think I have RLS though because I can sleep just fine. I read that it's not entirely a bad thing though because you're increasing circulation at least.
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MegaMooseEsq wrote: »gebeziseva wrote: »MegaMooseEsq wrote: »gebeziseva wrote: »I used to fidget a lot. I've now successfully trained myself out of it and can now sit calmly and move calmly instead of neurotically moving my legs for example. I see fidgeting as a flaw and as a sign of anxiety.
Just a random example plucked out of the ether and not addressed to anyone in particular? *grin* I definitely won't ask how you feel about hair twirling. As it is, I'm pretty fine with kicking my feet like a five-years old at my desk where no one can see me, especially if it's possibly helping me lose weight and definitely keeping my legs from getting stiff - I don't do it in court or in front of my in-laws or anything. That said, I do have an anxiety disorder, but it's pretty well medicated right now. I'm not aware of a connection between fidgeting and mental illness, but I suppose it's possible.
Ha. It was an example because that's what I used to do when I was fidgeting. I hadn't even read the other coments, yours including (I still haven't read it).
I also said anxiety not anxiety disorder, I did not imply a conection to mental illness. Cos that would be stupid.
I’m the OP and I thought I’d mentioned leg motions in the first post, is why I assumed you’d read my post. No worries! I was not posting about people who used to fidget or who have negative opinions of people who fidget, but was wondering about efforts to consciously increase NEAT. I get that a literal connection between fidgeting and mental illness sounds unlikely, but it can be rather hurtful to people with mental illnesses (not to mention hyperbolic) to use terms like “neurotic” and “anxiety” to describe things you dislike, so I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.
It was offensive to me, and here is the actual quote.gebeziseva wrote: »I used to fidget a lot. I've now successfully trained myself out of it and can now st calmly and move calmly instead of neurotically moving my legs for example. I see fidgeting as a flaw and as a sign of anxiety.
Fidgeting is a flaw?
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