Category Archives: Treadmill Desk

desk treadmill

Desk treadmill activity review – 2016

Fitness, Treadmill Desk, Treadmill Desk,

It’s a new year!  I know I haven’t mentioned my walking status for awhile, mainly because I forgot to.  My desk treadmill also had numerous problems, too.  After working with Lifespan extensively along with quite a bit of arm twisting on my TR1200-DT3, they finally agreed to upgrade my desk treadmill to the TR5000-DT3 model at a reduced price.  Basically, the motor kept going out, despite maintaining it properly, and my use being well within the specifications. The TR5000 has a more powerful motor.  So far, the new desk treadmill runs great.  However, I didn’t encounter issues with my TR1200-DT3 until about six months in, so the jury is still out.  I’m going to post a separate piece about my issues, in case it helps others.

I’m writing this post now without any idea about how many steps I actually walked in 2016.  I fully expect it to be lower though because of the above problems.  My treadmill has down for half the year.  I can’t do much about that, and how long it took Lifespan to get a solution.

As I did before, I’m compiling a list of all my weekly progress of steps tracked by my Lumo Lift, which helps me keep good posture that helps avoid neck pain, but also tracks the number of steps I take surprisingly accurately.  Roughly, 2,000 steps = 1 mile.

Obviously, not all walking was done on my desk treadmill, but a lot of it was.  When you see dips in weekly steps, that’s likely a business trip, vacation, I exercised some other way other than anything that would trigger detected steps, or I was outright lazy for whatever reason.  The prolonged downturn in the spring through fall was due to the treadmill breaking down.

Week (ending of)StepsMilesNotes
Total33279451640
1/1011032855
1/1711026755
1/2412103960
1/318339541
2/710225251
2/149996049
2/215303326Business trip
2/2811231256
3/66218131Business trip
3/136537432Business trip
3/2010373251
3/2811486857
4/311640858
4/1011806059
4/172958714Death in family
4/246831934Treadmill broke down
5/186614
5/83162115
5/154076320
5/223778518
5/294361421
6/53539217
6/123086915
6/192004310
6/262680613
7/33262916
7/10174398
7/17199949
7/245088425
7/31143977
8/72403812
8/142067210
8/212717013
8/287455837
9/44643623Vmworld, forgot Lumo charger
9/11129886
9/183108915
9/253580717
10/210803254Treadmill finally replaced!
10/911185755
10/164291921Treadmill broke again!
10/233339216Vacation
10/304468022Business trip
11/66319731Treadmill replaced!
11/137737238Business trip
11/209490647
11/279339946
12/410059050
12/119256546
12/1810776453
12/2510227051
1/110023250

You can clearly see that having an operational treadmill makes a huge difference!

Well, my step count is significantly lower than 2015.  I don’t feel too bad about that though because the treadmill broke down multiple times.

Still, 1640 miles in a year is quite a lot!  To give you an idea, that’s about the distance from Richmond, VA to Denver, CO!

I gained some weight unfortunately.  2016 was a very stressful year, and a lack of a convenient method of exercising while working didn’t help.  I do need to eat better.  That’s my goal for 2016.

Assuming my desk treadmill doesn’t break down again, I’m setting a goal of 2500 miles.  That’s roughly the distance from Richmond, VA to San Diego, CA.  I also am now going to try to couple walking with eating right to see how my weight does.  Just from my experiences in 2015 and 2016, walking this much alone doesn’t seem to allow me to lose weight.  Not that I ate terribly, but I didn’t watch what I ate closely either.

And as I finish this post, I just completed my 7.5 miles of walking for the day!  364 more days of walking to go!

Desk treadmill activity review – 2015

Fitness, Treadmill Desk, Treadmill Desk

I wanted to start this year off with an update on my desk treadmill/walking update.  I intended to do more frequent progress updates, but it’s hard to do that and blog on technical topics as much as I’d like.  But this kind of update is better than none at all.

As I am drafting this, I’m compiling a list of all my weekly progress of steps tracked by my Lumo Lift, which helps me keep good posture that helps avoid neck pain, but also tracks the number of steps I take surprisingly accurately.  Roughly, 2,000 steps = 1 mile.  My Lumo Lift did break however the last week of the year.  It wasn’t the product’s fault.  It inadvertently got smashed, let’s just say in a manner that it was unsurprising that it didn’t work thereafter.  I just got my replacement today, so I’m back to tracking my steps!

Obviously, not all walking was done on my desk treadmill, but a lot of it was.  When you see dips in weekly steps, that’s likely a business trip, vacation, or I exercised some other way other than anything that would trigger detected steps.  I’m pretty sure before I compile this data there’s going to be some insane amounts here.

Also, for some stupid reason, I deleted some weekly progress emails that I used to track this at the beginning.  I was able to salvage some from when I began, but you’ll see a large gap until I consistently saved them starting in June.  Bottom line is I walked actually a lot more than this.

WeekStepsMilesNotes
Total38298971896HOLY CRAP!!!
3/3016147780TOO HYPED!
4/612789763
4/2713456867
5/412161960
5/2510471552
6/115529177
6/810170750
6/1510968354
6/2211535657
6/2911019655
7/69023945Business trip
7/1314149470
7/2015035475
7/2710805554
8/310184650
8/109336446
8/1710647953
8/248219641Vacation
8/318765543Vacation
9/710529052Vmworld
9/1410877854
9/2111127855
9/2811600858
10/512496862
10/128032840
10/1998444Training
10/263912219Business trip
11/25926929Business trip
11/911779258
11/1610135350
11/2312225661
11/3011869959
12/76902834Business trip
12/148024740Business trip
12/2111209556
12/2811169955
1/33765218Lumo broken

First off, there’s quite a few funny things in the table.  By far is the fact that I walked 80 miles my first week with the treadmill, but never exceeded it, although I did come close on the week of June 1st.  I was pumped to use it, and I was doing work at home conducive to allowing me to walk without issues, and I was excited to get going on it even into the night.

But reality does kick in.  The thing I’ve learned about using the desk treadmill is it’s hard to walk and concentrate REALLY hard on something, like training, unless it’s an urgent thing.  If I’m working with a customer interactively, I’m fine.   If I’m troubleshooting a problem, I’m also fine walking on the treadmill.  If I’m learning something new?  Not fine.  And that’s why the crazy 70+ mile weeks stopped to keep up my learning and lab stuff I did.

But even with me reducing some of the miles I walked, I still pretty darn consistently walked A LOT.  I knew I was racking up miles, but it’s really eye opening tallying it up and seeing almost 2000 miles.  There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind I well exceeded 2000 miles in 2015 walking considering all the weeks I didn’t save the emails for, and I would never have come close to that without the desk treadmill.

I also lost weight, but not nearly as much as I would like.  I did in all drop about 15 pounds, but considering I walked over 2000 miles, that’s disappointing, and I know it’s because I snack too often.  I need to get a better grip on not eating while maintaining this level of physical activity.

But all in all, the desk treadmill has improved my health, and I’m very glad I did it!

Desk Treadmill Progress – 8/17/2015

Last Week in Treadmill, ,

I’ll be posting quite a bit about using my treadmill desk, and one thing I want to include is my desk treadmill progress as time goes on.  This will help me track my progress with it, and it may also help anyone else who is using a desk treadmill perhaps to see if they are having similar or difference experiences.

From the beginning to last week

I really wish I had started this blog when I started using my treadmill desk.  I’m sure I’ll have forgotten details about things, and I didn’t retain my data from the beginning, either.

I got the treadmill desk setup March 9th, 2015.  At the time, I wasn’t exercising regularly, my weight was about 275 pounds (I’m 6’1″), not in the worst shape, but definitely not in good shape.

Basically, when I began using my treadmill desk, the pace was significantly slower than it is now.  I began walking at about 1.8mph to 2.0mph depending upon how precise I needed to be with my mouse.  For distance, I have to admit I let my enthusiasm for getting into better shape get the better of me.  The first few days I was aroud 15,000 steps, but by the third day, enthusiasm took over, and I was walking 20,000 steps for awhile, then 31,600 step day, and from then on through the 28th, I was walking daily pretty much between 20-33K steps.  It caught up with me big time.  I plummeted to barely 15K steps for awhile, and that lasted another month or two, with some sporadic periods where I was hitting 20K sometimes.  Finally, around the end of May, I guess I got my legs back, and I began pushing to average 20K steps again.  And that’s where I am now.

Speed wise, I slowly moved the speed up to where now I can mouse pretty well at 2.7mph, and can walk at 3mph well with just typing.

My weight has seen a fairly steady decline in 5 or so months I’ve had it, and I’m down to about 255!  I haven’t really conscientiously tried to eat better, either, so I’m pretty confident that the weight loss is due to the treadmill desk.

Last Week’s Numbers

So, how did I do last week?  Pretty darn well!  Following a week where I didn’t get nearly as many steps in because the treadmill was getting repaired due to a bad belt, so I couldn’t walk during the week, I bounced back to my old ways until the end of the week, due to a minor medical issue (I’m fine, don’t worry).

Monday – 28,237 steps, 13.6 miles

Tuesday – 21,306 steps, 10.3 miles

Wednesday – 22,652 Steps, 10.9 miles

Thursday – 15,597 steps, 7.5 miles

Friday – 9,886 steps, 4.8 miles

Saturday – 9,053 steps, 4.4 miles

Sunday – 5,935 steps, 2.9 miles

Total: 90,014 Steps, 54.4 miles

This week’s weight: 254.3 pounds.

I won’t have access to the treadmill for the next few weeks, so don’t expect one of these for awhile.

My Treadmill Desk – A Life Changer

In a previous post, I mentioned that as an IT pro, it can be a struggle to get stay healthy.

I’ll discuss how I changed my diet radically in a later post, but I wanted to talk about my treadmill desk.  A lot of people have been interested in it, so I wanted to get this post out there sooner rather than later.  I also have a lot of tricks, tips, etc. that I want to follow up with later, too.

Recently, there has been a lot of news about how sitting is slowly killing us because they tend to force people to sit for so much of their day.  Studies have been coming out that show that simply getting up every so often can significantly improve your health, including your metabolism, posture, weight control, blood pressure, and all kinds of health benefits.  More studies have been coming out showing the benefit of the ever increasingly popular standing desks.

About a year or so ago, I threw two disks out in my neck, and ever since, I’ve been more conscious about my posture.  The specialists I saw let me know that this kind of thing is increasingly common because people bend their necks to look at their phones, tablets, and even computer screens.  Considering so much of my time is spent on these kinds of devices, I really began noticing just how bad my posture was when using them, but especially when I was in front of my computer.  I tried better office chairs, but that didn’t seem to be enough, as my neck would still hurt.  I noticed when I sat, I inevitably slumped in my chair, and my neck posture wasn’t correct.

One day, I was working at a customer’s site, and the admin I was working with had a standing desk.  After talking with her about it, she suggested we work together using it for the day to see how I’d like standing.

By the end of the day, yes, my feet hurt, but my neck didn’t.  It felt noticeably better than how it does at my house or workplace.  I also had a friend online who bought a treadmill desk about a year before and raved about how it helped him drop weight and feel better. I could definitely stand to lose some weight.   Naturally, I felt a treadmill desk would be a good fit.

After researching and even trying some models out, I came to the conclusion I needed the following:

  1. A reliable treadmill that could go as slow as 1.8mph and as fast as 3.5mph, with a control module on top of the desk.   The speed isn’t hard to find.  The de facto treadmill people go with is the Lifespan TR1200-DT3, and that’s what I went with.
  2. A standing desk that would mechanically adjust, via a powered motor, with at least 3 memory settings for height.  (One for me standing, one for me sitting, and one for my wife standing when she would use it.)
  3. A desk that would adjust to heights that would be ergonomic for my arms bending at roughly 90 degree angles.
  4. A desk that would work with VESA monitor mounts to ensure the monitors could be set at a height about eye level.
  5. Although not absolutely necessary, it would be great to have a desk that had a solution for undermounting the CPU under the desk to not have to worry about any cord lengths other than maybe power.
  6. A desk wide enough to hold everything on my desk.
  7. NO INTEGRATED WRIST PAD!  The Lifespan desk/treadmill bundle had this, and when I tried it, I ABSOLUTELY hated it.
  8. A premade package to ensure I wasn’t buying something that couldn’t for example hold my computer underneath, and would be easy to assemble, despite the higher cost.

I settled on an Uplift from The Human Solution in black, 72″ wide model.  It included an undermount for my computer, the electric motor, four height memory setting, a good warranty, pre-drilled holes to make assembly very easy, and it was reasonably priced compared to the competition. Here’s some pictures, and pardon the cord mess, I hadn’t installed wire management at the time.

Here’s the CPU mount close up:

treadmillcpumount

Here is the treadmill and desk controls:

treadmillcontrols

So far, it’s been a complete life changer.  I’ve dropped 15 points since I purchases it about four months ago.  My neck feels better, I have more energy, and I just generally feel much better.

However, there’s been a learning curve to using it, and other things I needed to make it work for me you may not think about, which I’ll talk about in future posts.

Have any of you been thinking about getting a standing desk or a treadmill desk?  Have any of you gotten either?  How has it worked for you?