Fidgeting

I have always been a fidgeter and by now everyone I know has heard my famous fidgeting story. In case you haven't...

I have always wiggled my feet together, and all the dogs we've owned know that if they sit at my feet they will get a free massage. So one day when I was sitting across the table from our contractor, I was rubbing my dog with my feet under the table when I heard her barking outside. Whoops. So besides getting a little discount from the contractor, it seems there are other benefits to fidgeting.

Mayo Clinic researchers had 16 people overeat for two months and tracked what happened to the food the participants consumed, in terms of whether it was burned or stored as fat or other tissue.

They found that the key factor in predicting fat gain was the change in calories burned during the normal activities of daily living -- fidgeting, moving around, changing posture, etc. They labeled this factor NEAT (for non-exercise activity thermogenesis).

"Those people who had the greatest increase in NEAT gained the least fat, and those who had the least change gained the most,"

So now I am sitting here wiggling every part of my body so that I can burn off the frozen custard I indulged in tonight.