Fitness Through Fidgeting: How I Burned 500 Extra Calories a Day Without ‘Exercising’

Most people make weight loss harder than it actually is. As a personal trainer with over 17 years of experience, I’ve helped countless people lose weight and get in the best shape of their lives. More importantly, I’ve helped people achieve their dream physique without too much effort.

How is that, you ask? Fidgeting.

I am a naturally hyper individual, meaning I cannot sit steady and must constantly move my hands or tap my feet. Some people call it being restless and anxious. But that’s a story for another day.

When I learned that fidgeting could help you burn more calories throughout the day, I was happy to embrace my restlessness. Fidgeting is a part of nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which is the energy burned for everything that is not exercise, sleeping, or eating. (1)

On a recent cutting phase, I decided to employ NEAT to burn an additional 500 calories throughout the day. In this article, I share all the details of this experiment, with tips on how you can leverage this technique in your routine.

Understanding NEAT: The Science Behind Fidgeting

Inadequate NEAT and a sedentary lifestyle can increase the risk of obesity (1). Increasing spontaneous physical activity boosts daily energy expenditure, which can help an average sedentary American maintain overall health and well-being. (2)

Fidgeting is an excellent weight loss tool for overweight individuals who struggle to exercise.

“Fidgeting is a great way to burn extra calories, especially for people who are already overweight or who don’t have time to exercise regularly. Studies show that fidgeting can burn anywhere from 800 to 2,500 calories per day.” — Dr. Andrew Huberman (Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at the Stanford University School of Medicine)

A calorie deficit is the holy grail of weight loss. An individual must burn more calories in a day than they consume to maximize their weight loss progress. The best part about fidgeting is that you don’t need to do a lot to burn the additional 500 to 1,000 calories.

My NEAT Experiment: Strategies and Implementation

Some of the components of NEAT involve fidgeting, standing, walking, and household chores.

After running a few calculations with my trusty calories burned walking and calories burned sitting calculators, I realized that I only had to make two changes to my routine to achieve the desired 500-calorie deficit.

This is how I did it:

Strategy One: Leg Fidgeting

Besides being a personal trainer, I am a devoted health and fitness writer and spend a good chunk of the day sitting at my desk, pumping out these banger articles. I used this handy calculator to determine how many calories I burned working on my computer and found that I expended around 108 calories for every 60 minutes of work.

As someone who is constantly moving his legs, I was curious how many additional calories leg fidgeting burns. A study found that leg fidgeting can increase energy expenditure by 20 to 30 percent without increasing heart rate (3). This is excellent news, as a peaking heart rate while working can disrupt focus.

Nonetheless, I changed the ‘sitting activity’ tab in the calculator from ‘fidgeting hand’ to ‘fidgeting feet,’ and the calories burned bumped up to 150 kcal. Although the ‘fidgeting feet’ parameter doesn’t account for the hand movements involved in typing, let’s just consider the 150 calories for now.

This is a difference of 42 calories (150 – 108 kcal) per hour. Now, I spend at least six hours a day working on my computer, and moving my legs comes naturally to me. I don’t have to think about it or make a conscious effort for it. In fact, my wife gets super annoyed with me for moving my legs all the time. Little does she know how many additional calories I’m burning. (This will change after she reads this article. But I digress.)

Fidgeting my legs for six hours burns an additional 252 calories compared to sitting normally and working on the computer.

With this, we are already halfway to our goal of burning 500 calories. I told you it isn’t that hard.

Strategy Two: Walking While Answering Calls

As a personal trainer and online coach, I spend a good chunk of the day on my feet, training clients in the gym and taking work calls.

Burning the remaining 250 calories wasn’t too difficult for me. The calories burned walking calculator told me that I only had to walk for 60 minutes at a 2.5 mph pace (which is relatively slow) to burn 257 calories.

I ensured I hit my walking goal by:

1. Walking across the gym multiple times while waiting for my personal training clients. I didn’t consider the time I spent walking with them during the workout as I sometimes walk alongside my clients on the treadmill to keep them company and motivate them.
2. I made it a point never to answer any client calls or messages while seated. As soon as a client called me, I started walking. I also answered questions over DMs while on my feet. I must add that this also improved my focus and creativity.

Total Calories Burned After Adding These Strategies

After implementing these changes, I was burning an additional 509 calories (252 + 257) throughout the day. As you can tell, I didn’t modify my routine considerably to hit the 500-calorie mark. Two small changes to my existing routine were all I needed to do.

Results and Benefits of the Fidgeting Experiment

So, why did I choose to cut 500 calories specifically?

Scientific evidence suggests cutting 500 calories from your daily diet can help you lose 0.5 kilograms (1.1 pounds) a week. (4)

Before I took up this diet, I was pretty happy with my diet. However, to transition from the maintenance to the shredding phase, I had to enter a calorie deficit. The fidgeting exercise was the perfect solution. Here is an overview of my results:

Weight Loss

In line with my original projections, I lost two kilograms (4.4 pounds) in a month by making fidgeting a part of my routine. I prefer starting the weight loss phase with a small deficit as it allows my body time to adapt to the new routine and minimize cravings and hunger pangs.

I will now switch to a 1,000-calorie daily deficit, which will be a mix of high physical output and restricting calorie intake, to amplify my weight loss results.

Energy Levels & Productivity

One of the biggest benefits of incorporating NEAT protocols into your routine is that it makes you feel active and energized throughout the day. When you are physically active, you feel more productive.

During this challenge, I routinely ended up doing much more than I had originally planned just because of being in a flow.

Since this is a non-exercise protocol, it is much easier to sustain in the long term, which helps maximize its effectiveness. However, you must stay consistent for optimal results. A single missed fidgeting session can wreak havoc on your progress.

Honestly, I had days when I felt overwhelmed with work and wanted to skip this whole NEAT ordeal and focus on my work. On days like these, you must remember that the fidgeting protocol doesn’t demand extra time and integrates right into your routine.

Overall Well-Being

Besides the additional calorie burn, staying active helped enhance my overall mood and reduced stress levels. I also noticed an improvement in my sleep quality. I fell asleep relatively quickly and woke up feeling fresh.

Importance of Daily Movement Beyond Structured Exercise

A 30 to 60-minute workout session might not be enough to improve overall health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases. The modern desk-bound lifestyle can have serious health consequences.

Making minor NEAT adjustments to your routine can be a potent antidote for your otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Contrary to what most people think, you don’t necessarily need to hit the gym and sweat buckets to improve your overall health.

Small movements throughout the day can lead to some really big results. In my case, if I had followed this NEAT exercise to burn an additional 500 calories daily, I could have lost six kilograms (13.2 pounds), which is usually how much weight I cut during the shredding phase.

Besides making you more lethargic, sitting for an extended period can have a negative effect on your posture. Incorporating NEAT into your routine can help nullify some of these side effects. For example, people with hunched-over shoulders should prioritize maintaining a tall chest and keeping their shoulder blades pulled back and down while walking to correct their posture.

Tips To Make NEAT a Lifestyle

Here are a few tips to add NEAT to your lifestyle:

Pick the Right NEAT Activity

Other than the two movements I used, there are countless NEAT activities that you can add to your routine, such as climbing the stairs, cooking, washing your car, gardening, playing with the kids or pets, using a standing desk, heck, evening using a fidget spinner counts as one.

I highly recommend you pick the NEAT activities that suit your lifestyle and you can stick to in the long term. Starting cooking because you want to get good at it is commendable, but you shouldn’t take up a new hobby while you’re trying to lose weight via fidgeting.

Opt For Stackable Activities 

I highly recommend choosing a NEAT activity that you can club with other tasks. For instance, walking while answering work calls. Adding a standalone fidgeting task can make you feel overwhelmed and increase your chances of dropping out without achieving your fitness goals.

Find a NEAT Activity For Different Situations

A fidgeting activity you do at home might not be appropriate for work. Shortlist a few activities you like and keep them handy to ensure you are moving your body throughout the day.

Finally, you must learn to listen to your body. Feel free to skip a fidgeting session if you feel exhausted. However, make sure you don’t use this as an excuse to skip activity.

Conclusion

Leveraging NEAT to burn an additional 500 calories a day is an incredibly effective way of losing two pounds in a month. Making small adjustments to your daily routine is enough to achieve these results, rendering this technique suitable for individuals who can’t make time for exercise.

Like any other fitness regime, consistency, discipline, and dedication are vital to achieving the desired results with the fidgeting approach.

If you have any questions about fidgeting or NEAT or need help implementing them into your routine, post them in the comments below, and I’ll be happy to help!

References:

1. Levine J. A. (2004). Nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): environment and biology. American journal of physiology. Endocrinology and metabolism, 286(5), E675–E685. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.00562.2003
2. Johannsen, D. L., & Ravussin, E. (2008). Spontaneous physical activity: relationship between fidgeting and body weight control. Current opinion in endocrinology, diabetes, and obesity, 15(5), 409–415. https://doi.org/10.1097/MED.0b013e32830b10bb
3. Koepp, G. A., Moore, G. K., & Levine, J. A. (2016). Chair-based fidgeting and energy expenditure. BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 2(1), e000152. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000152
4. Koliaki C, Spinos T, Spinou Μ, Brinia ΜE, Mitsopoulou D, Katsilambros N. Defining the Optimal Dietary Approach for Safe, Effective and Sustainable Weight Loss in Overweight and Obese Adults. Healthcare (Basel). 2018;6(3):73. Published 2018 Jun 28. doi:10.3390/healthcare6030073

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