NEAT Improvement Strategies to Improve Weight Loss

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  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    edited December 2020
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Yup, lots of this stuff is emphatically not normal.

    I can't speak for anyone else, but for 30+ years, my normal was obesity. It wasn't good. Nowadays, I'm happy to do many things that are doable - harmlessly "non-normal" things - in order to be a tiny bit fitter, a tiny bit more mobile, or to burn a tiny number more calories and help me maintain my healthy weight.

    It's kinda ridiculous and shameless, I suppose. I don't care. 😉

    One of my favorite recent things is doing lateral leg lifts, nearly every day - 20 on each side - while I pulse my electric coffee grinder. It looks completely ridiculous and absurd, I have no doubt. But I've been doing it for a while, and now not only don't I wobble like I did at first (with the grinder firmly on the counter), I can now hold the coffee grinder up in the air and pulse the button as I stand on one foot and lift the other leg. The grinder creates a tiny bit of interesting instability as it spins. I notice tiny improvements in my balance in daily life as a result, like if I trip or something. I like that. That's worth looking silly in my kitchen daily, to me. It need not be worthwhile to others.

    Each person can find his/her own path, I suppose. This thread is just information, if it suits a person.

    Can I tick insightful and inspiring for this ^^?

    I'm trying to teach myself to fidget again, having practically become a statue since getting sick. Unconsciously down-regulated everything to conserve precious energy. I find music helps, even if I'm just bopping my head from side to side, it's something!

    Yes.

    I suspect (can't prove) that the bolded happens to a fair number of people - during illness, after injury, following too many rounds of extreme yo-yo dieting over decades, maybe as a result of becoming less fit through inactivity so it's harder to move comfortably - and it may not change, because it's become habitual, unless we work at changing it. Doing so is not a requirement, but it's an option.

    It's a very sensible option in my case. As you know, my capacity for exercise is pretty limited, capacity for strenuous exercise even more so (basically non-existent, anaerobic threshold is essentially a 'do not cross' line), and may not get any better than where I am now (though I hope it does). If I don't want to be stuck on low cals forever, I need to find a way to sneakily increase my TDEE in such a way that my body doesn't freak out and land me in bed for a month! I figure NEAT is my best bet.

    And yeah, deconditioning really is a thing. It can be hard to push through, but really doesn't take horribly long (at least for me, though obviously I was quite fit pre-ME). Those first few weeks are a slog, but once you're through that it's a whole lot easier.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    mtaratoot wrote: »
    Back in the Before Times when we could see people in person, I was at a training. I usually take stairs when I can; there's just not many in my life. As I recall, it was shortly after I got to my goal weight or just before. We were doing a water audit in a large multi-floor hotel. We were going to visit a room on the 7th floor. One of my colleagues asked about stairs, and off she went. I followed. I found out later it wasn't that she was trying to burn more calories, but that elevators make her get vertigo.

    Oh well. I got to climb and descend several floors anyway. Sometimes it's hard to FIND the stairs up, and they're often secured from entry on the main floor.

    Here's one I noticed the other day. Probably almost a wash as far as calories go, and that might be a pun. I like to cook. I hate doing dishes. Instead of using my food processor to cut in the butter to the flour, I used a pastry cutter. A bit more physical work, but so much easier to clean. But how many more calories did I miss by not having to wash the food processor?

    Does it count that I used my marble rolling pin (heavy) instead of wood? I sincerely doubt it.

    Not trying to talk you into liking washing dishes, just making observations about myself:

    I used to always use the dishwasher after big cooking projects, but in the last few years I've stopped using it except for occasions like Thanksgiving.

    My OH is willing to do the after dinner dishes, which is wonderful, but lately I've been taking over more of these, and just leaving him the things that need to be scrubbed.
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  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,255 Member
    I have TWO dishwashers. I call them "Lefty" and "Righty."

    The one time I jump up to do dishes is on river trips. It's actually kind of funny; most people on the trips I'm on do the same thing. Everybody wants to help. Most of the groups I travel with have a rule that whoever were cooks for the day are not allowed in the dish line. It's a hard one to enforce. Seriously. There's some people who it's really hard to kick off the dish line. There's also some people who like one of the two middle bins (warm soap and warm rinse). When it's cold out, sticking hands in warm water feels good to some people. I hate getting my hands in bleach, so I always bring a set of rubber gloves so I can take that task, or I do the first bin - the scrunge. It's cold water, and it's where we get most of the food off before the real wash. Saves soap. It's best to minimize soap in the wash so it all comes off in the rinse. Poorly rinsed dishes can give you the trots.

    I usually work at a sushi "restaurant" three days per year. At the end of the long weekend, we put all the kitchen away. Even at the end of each day we have to get things really clean. Sometimes the dishwash staff doesn't do a good enough job keeping rice out of the drain, and it has to be cleaned. My friend watched me disassemble the drain and clean out the mess. She said she would never do it and it was gross. I figure it was just food; we don't wash dirty dishes after people eat on them, just the food prep stuff.

    But in general, washing dishes isn't a task I enjoy. I could get a dishwasher, and modern ones are VERY water efficient. I don't want to give up the under-counter storage space. Small house and small kitchen, and I have lots of kitchen tools. Did I mention I like to cook?
  • moogie_fit
    moogie_fit Posts: 280 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Shameless self-bumping again, partly because I've linked this (with provocation or almost close to requests 😉) and partly to share a self observation due to pandemic (!).

    I have a higher calorie need than MFP (and my tracker) estimate. Mostly, I don't know why this is so (though I have a few ideas). Early on, I asked (brutally honest) friends if I was fidgety, and they said "no".

    However, I've been Zooming some with small groups of like-age female friends during the pandemic, and I think maybe I *am* fidgety, compared to other women my age. Groups are small enough that I can see myself, plus others, in the squares onscreen.

    Most (not all) the others are capable of sitting quietly in front of their computer for an hour or so. Me? Arms down, then up, with hands clasped behind my neck. Little later, back down, lean to the left for a while, then lean right; a little forward sometimes, a little back others. Make reaction faces while other people talk: Smile, wide eyes, grimace, tilt head, whatever. Take a drink of my tea. And so forth. I think/hope this is not frenetic enough that it's hard for others to watch - I'm not in motion every moment - but it is a contrast with a fair number of others who mostly sit still and look pleasant but neutral, occasionally talk. 🤷‍♀️

    Huh, who knew . . . until now. 😉

    Same here I bought a large yoga ball for sitting on during zoom. Want a standing desk bad
  • BrightEyedAgain
    BrightEyedAgain Posts: 259 Member
    bump

    I love hearing all the different things people do to move more in normal life!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    I'm baaack, for a bump and some comments, on things I've been trying lately:

    * In the house, if doing something and I need to put an item down, put it on the floor (as long as no sanitation reason not to, obviously). Tiny bendy-stretchy.

    * Similarly, get down and sit on the floor to do things. Remember, I'm aging. I'm a pretty mobile li'l ol' lady, but when I sit around too much (a real risk in pandemic Winter), I start to stiffen up. It's good to get up and down from the floor.

    * I'm thinking about triggers. I think I said that for a while, I've been doing standing side leg-lifts while holding my small electric coffee grinder in one hand (raise the opposite leg while holding the grinder up off the counter and pushing the button), 40 quick pulses, 20 lifts each side. But, triggers: I'm working on using other chores as reminders (triggers) to do certain bodyweight or stretchy movements, trying to make these mini-eccentricities more routine.

    Also, for sure not new: In response to the "too much pandemic Winter sit-around", I've resumed setting timers so I don't Just Sit for extended periods. Using the timer built in to the stove, so I *at least* have to get up to reset it, but working to do some walking/standing chores or stretches or something while I'm up. 🙄 Trying to create some anti-lazies over here, y'know? 🙄

    The hot weather this week has had me sitting more than usual - wish I'd read this days ago :)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,216 Member
    @Bella_Figura: Some great ideas in there! So nice that you have shopping options a pleasant walk away. When I lived closer to one, I often went for groceries and brought them home in a backpack, even fairly heavy ones since I had a suitable pack.

    I really hear you on that stairs thing, BTW. I didn't even realize how I was "budgeting" trips up and down stairs until I lost weight, and it got easier. I do it much more often, now, whenever I want something up that's down, or vice-versa.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,155 Member
    Bella_Figura wrote: »
    Having never had a garden before, I needed to buy a whole bunch of gardening tools when we moved to this house. So I bought a manual mower rather than an electric/petrol one, ditto shears, loppers and secateurs rather than an electic hedge trimmer and grass strimmer. I also water the garden using an 15 litre watering can (it's heavy!) rather than a hose. It takes me 10 full watering cans to water everything, so it's quite a lot of hefting. It also means I use water from the water butts, rather than tap water, which is environmentally better. So a win-win all round.

    This is a great idea! My kids are forever leaving half-drunk water cups and bottles everywhere, so I usually round them up in the evening (I used to make them do it because: responsibility! but now I usually do it because: extra steps!) and dump them into a watering can for our plants. Beats wasting it by dumping it down the drain AND paying those few extra cents on our sewage bill.

    I often find I prefer the manual tools to powered ones. I find them much more intuitive to use, anyway. Sometimes I need the strength of a powered tool, but rarely enough that I don't feel the need to own most of them. Or we own a few, and our neighbors own a few, and we can borrow each other's as needed rather than each having to buy and take care of something that gets used only a few times a year if that.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 14,255 Member
    mtaratoot wrote: »
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    Again.

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