Treadmill Desk: Walking While Working

A few weeks ago, I moved across the country to Brooklyn, NY. I don't recommend moving -- it's pretty freaking stressful -- but one of the great things about it is that you get to try out new stuff in a new environment. One of the new things I decided to check out is something that I've been obsessed with from afar for the past two years: The treadmill desk.

The treadmill desk comes out of research done by Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic. He found that thin people tend to expend more energy throughout the course of the day on non-exercise related things (think: fidgeting) than their fatter counterparts, and that this difference in energy expenditure alone may explain much of the weight difference.

So he racked his brain for a way to harness this knowledge, and came up with the treadmill/desk mashup, which allows users to burn extra calories (and up to a pound a week) by walking really, really slowly at their desks. (I've written a bit more about how it works on my personal blog.)

When I first heard about Dr. Levine's research, I wasn't able to convince my wife to allow me to install a treadmill in my office. (Instead, I settled for sitting on a giant exercise ball, which works pretty well.) But after we moved East she finally caved, and I bought a nice old treadmill off of Craigslist and got to work constructing a desk.

After spending about $50 on foam and plywood (in addition the $400 on the treadmill) and a few hours cutting and gluing, I now have a homemade desk that I walk at every day. By late afternoon, my legs feel pretty heavy, but I don't even notice that I'm walking most of the time, and I no longer feel the onset of the post-lunch coma. As for health benefits? I just got started. Ask me in a couple weeks.

(That's my new desk in the photo.)