
Notes on 416 Days of Treadmill Desk Usage - dmnd
http://nealstephenson.com/news/2015/03/09/notes-on-416-days-of-treadmill-desk-usage/
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revelation
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jsprogrammer
Didn't capture the images...

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simplemath
I'm irrationally annoyed that Neal freaking Stephenson is using such a shItty
host.

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bronson
No kidding. The lesson: never ever use Hang Left Hosting. When you get
popular, they replace your content with their own, um, whatever page that is.

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nl
While he is correct that slow walking doesn't burn many calories in itself,
there is also evidence[1] that even mild levels of exercise act to increase
your metabolism significantly.

This means that the benefits outweigh the simple measurement of calories
burnt, especially for people who are otherwise sedentary.

[1]
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0013022)

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jader201
A lot of contradictory comments on this thread:

> _This means that the benefits outweigh the simple measurement of calories
> burnt, especially for people who are otherwise sedentary._

> _It was my understanding that if you 're largely sedentary, no amount of
> exercise can "make up" for that, and that the correlation with increased
> morbidity and mortality remains._

Some say that even a little helps, some say that even large amounts of
exercise still isn't enough.

As a largely sedentary person, I wish there were more concrete studies done to
show how to mitigate the risks of long-term problems for those of us that are
sedentary for a (relatively) big part of the day.

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stevenwei
I don't think these are contradictory at all.

If you're largely sedentary, getting an hour of exercise per day doesn't
counteract the fact that you've been sitting for 12 hours per day. [1]

Simultaneously, walking slowly all day does not burn many calories compared to
a proper workout. But that's fine, because the goal of walking slowly all day
is not to burn calories, but simply to keep you from sitting all day.

It seems to me the best approach is to simply do both.

[1]
[http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2091327](http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2091327)

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Someone
So, this guy isn't doing much good, with 2.5-3 miles walking a day at 1.8
miles/hour (1h25m to 1h40m of walking)?

I expect that, in 10 years or so, we will SE more nuanced publications about
the health effects of sitting less.

Looking at chimps in nature, I expect the optimum will be something where you
don't sit in the same position for hours at an end, but hobble a few meters
every half hour or so and grab some fruit or groom a colleague (the latter
would require significant changes in workplace ethics and law)

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VLM
"hobble a few meters every half hour or so"

I get up every hour almost without fail, and walk all the way across the
building to get a drink, or bathroom break, or any excuse, sometimes I do
nothing at all. Often I walk to a different floor. This was on dr advice a
long time ago WRT back probs and general health. I'm a heck of a lot more
productive in the 10 minutes after I get back than the 10 minutes before, so
its almost certainly a substantial net gain to my employer.

I do the same daily mileage as the author but compressed into my lunch hour,
in addition to the above, weather permitting. I'd be interested to see shoe
wear stats. When I slack off in the depths of winter or the peak of summer I
can see my shoe soles not wear when I don't do a couple miles of pavement at
lunch hour.

Its also interesting to look at financially, I can only get a couple hundred
miles out of a pair of shoes, and I need to buy decent walking shoes not cheap
junk solely based on appearance. I would guess shoe wear on a rubber belt is
very low compared to concrete... then again I don't pay for whatever wear I
cause to the concrete sidewalk and someone is paying for his treadmill wear
directly or indirectly.

When I worked in a suburban office building I walked the nature trails and
shoe wear on shredded bark was approximately zero, and it was more emotionally
satisfying than dodging panhandlers in the city.

Related to above I tried wearing trail hiking boots and the wear was high on
pavement. Lunch hour walks would probably be a good strategy for breaking in
new boots, but it doesn't work long term for exercise.

It was an interesting article although there's plenty of space for further
study.

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gouggoug
I'm curious to know how hard it is to focus on a concentration intensive task
such as programming (or novel writing in the case of Neal Stephenson) and walk
at a reasonable pace on a treadmill; not to mention how do you effectively
type on your keyboard?

I personally feel like I wouldn't be able to write software while on a
treadmill as I already find it hard to do sometimes while standing up at my
desk.

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pbhjpbhj
I assumed at 3mi a day he's walking for about 1-1½ hours and so was doing that
at times when he's normally be reading back work, dictating, reading forums or
watching a video or what-have-you.

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gouggoug
Good observation, I hadn't realized that.

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afarrell
I would like to see someone make a treadmill desk for less than $1000.

If you can buy a poor-quality treadmill with rails for $200, why can't you buy
a poor quality one without rails to put under a standing desk which you've
made out of PVC, lag bolts, and IKEA parts?

I would love to know where to get a cheap treadmill without rails though...

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stevenwei
You can, but most of those poor quality treadmills are meant for light use
(i.e. running at high RPM for 30-60 mins per day, 3-5 days a week). If you try
to run the same treadmill at low RPM for several hours per day every day,
you'll burn out the motor pretty quickly.

That's not to say that people don't try though, there are plenty of DIY
treadmill desks made out of exactly what you describe.

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mapt
I would venture to _guess_ that powered ellipticals might be a better solution
here. Much less erratic, impactful structural loading.

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nasalgoat
I remember reading REAMDE which has a protagonist who uses a walking desk, and
attributes his massive weight loss to it.

Science fiction it would seem, but still a good idea!

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therealdrag0
However, there are people who have lost a lot of weight by making their video-
games dependent on continuing to pedal/walk. I think there is even a sub for
it, but I can't think of the name.

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SocksCanClose
Didn't answer they question everybody really wants to know: what is up with
Enoch Root??

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krapp
Time traveler.

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chiph
I dunno. Every time we meet him he's older. I would say he's a near-immortal.

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dantheman
Surprising how few calories it burns, seems like a simple 30 minute walk would
be better and have less of an impact.

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therealdrag0
From what I've read, exercising before or after work does NOT negate the
negative health effects of sitting all day. It helps, but continuous sitting
is still just terrible for us.

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patchu-michu
Care to expand? I thought the relationship between poor health outcomes and
sitting was a correlation requiring further study to demonstrate causation?
Interested to read any research that says otherwise

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therealdrag0
I don't remember coming across any research proving causation over
correlation.

From a quick Google search, there are a couple news articles (with direct
links to the journal articles) about extra-curricular exercise not removing
harms (which is all I meant to note in my OP):

\- [http://qz.com/223160/why-not-even-exercise-will-undo-the-
har...](http://qz.com/223160/why-not-even-exercise-will-undo-the-harm-of-
sitting-all-day-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/)

\- [http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/health/sitting-will-kill-
you/](http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/21/health/sitting-will-kill-you/)

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alain94040
Can't pass the mention of "do you know your revenue per mile":
[http://walkingworking.com/english/do-you-know-your-
average-r...](http://walkingworking.com/english/do-you-know-your-average-
revenue-per-kilometer/)

6000 km is a lot of walking.

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mercurialshark
Probably the most articulate and persuasive piece analyzing treadmill desks is
Neal Stephenson's "Arsebestos" in his book of various essays Some Remarks. If
this is a link to said essay I wouldn't know, the server is crushed...

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rguzman
People think that sitting is very bad for you because it is correlated with
all kinds of undesirable health outcomes. Does anyone know whether these
effects disappear when controlling for level of activity?

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rosser
It was my understanding that if you're largely sedentary, no amount of
exercise can "make up" for that, and that the correlation with increased
morbidity and mortality remains.

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jfoutz
What does largely sedentary mean?

So, for example, running a marathon doesn't take much training. It averages
about an hour per day, according to this [1]. The runners _seem_ to be living
"largely sedentary" lives, playing video games, watching TV, sitting for work,
etc. It sure _seems_ like running has some positive effects [2]. Are you
saying that Stephenson's approach of walking slow most of the day is pretty
much the only way to unlock an extra year or five?

My argument is, of course, argument via google. There's so much contradictory
information and economic motive to, well, lie that it's hard for me to get a
grip on what's actually sensible. Some regular exercise sounds like a good
argument, and there's some evidence to back that up ([2] for example), but it
sure has the feeling of folklore.

[1] [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/the-marathon-
runner...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/the-marathon-runner-as-
couch-potato/?_r=0)

[2] [http://www.hs.iastate.edu/news/2014/07/28/iowa-state-
profess...](http://www.hs.iastate.edu/news/2014/07/28/iowa-state-professor-
finds-leisure-running-reduces-mortality-risk/)

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cpeterso
I wouldn't be able to read or concentrate if I was walking on treadmill. And
how noisy is it?

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renata
I find that it actually helps my concentration a bit to be able to stop typing
and just walk for a bit when I'm thinking about something, but I'm a pacer to
start with. When I'm actually typing I don't notice it much; it's only a major
impediment when I'm doing a lot of mouse work.

It's audible but not noisy. I'm in a cubical environment where most people
have headphones on all day and my coworkers immediately surrounding me can
hear it with headphones off but those with one cube in between cannot.

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pbhjpbhj
You walk whilst typing?

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atwebb
It's much easier than you might think and the noise isn't too bad. I commonly
take a conference call while walking and typing, a good headset alleviates
most noise issues (better than folks in there cars).

