I grew up in a Mediterranean country where talking with your hands is the norm, and is a very important part of communication. Hand gestures are not a "recommended" part of the speech, they're part of the language that carries information -- in fact, in written text (where hand gestures don't exist) language is ever so slightly different in order to compensate this fact.

Naturally, I picked this habit up myself. So, when I speak English, I use hand gestures all over the place -- as if I'm talking my mother tongue. I live in Boston, where I think talking with your hands isn't particularly popular... So in the last couple years I've been trying to lose this habit. My experience thus far has been pretty interesting and challenging. At times, it feels like talking without consonants, because for certain ideas my hand movement doesn't feel any less important than the words themselves.