More Information About Treadmill Desks

So, we had an error on our desk today, which prompted my partner in crime to start googling for the solution.  In doing so, he's found a number of links to blogs, articles and other posts about treadmill desks.

I'd like to share these links here:

Gear Monk describes the process from the ground up

Gear Monk also links several articles regarding the treadmill desk and the data on sedentary lifestyles:

James Hamblin spends a day on a treadmill desk for the Atlantic

The BBC got into the treadmill desk revolution as well.

Even my beloved NPR's Morning Edition took a look at it.


All of the various articles have links to other articles.  It's the interwebs, you could lose yourself in the rabbit hole it creates.  I hope you're walking while you do it.

Treadmill desk day 17

We've had the treadmill desks now for 17 days.  Although probably only earnestly walked them for 16, but I'll take the extra one.

Here is a shot of part of my spreadsheet so far:

Obviously I didn't think to keep track of the time for the first few days.  Then I saw that as an error.
The quick and dirty:

In the past 17 days, I've walked for
35 hours
130k steps
39 miles

During that time I've also
-written a few blog posts
-played the Wildstar beta
-done competitive World of Warcraft arena teams
-checked my email
-booked at least one meal for our Disney trip
-watched at least 2 movies
-Tweeted, used the Book of Faces, browsed Pinterest

In other words, I've used my computer.  While walking.
By the official Thursday morning naked before the shower weigh in this week, I've lost 8 pounds.

By the pants I'm wearing right now (that I pulled out of the Goodwill pile because I couldn't get them all the way up over my hips a few months ago), I've lost a few inches.

By the energy level I have in the morning, I've slept better in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 10 years.

By all accounts, I'm doing a damn good thing, and my delightful and brilliant husband is entirely to blame.

Treadmill Desks?

So, for those of you who know me, who've been by the house or follow me on Twitter or The Book of Faces, then you know we've made the move to treadmill desks at home.
Let me start at the begins, as E used to say.
We are gamer nerds.  Straight up, sit at the computer for hours at a time, grinding out a video game.  It's fun, it's a way for Noah and I to interact together and share something we both enjoy together.  We've primarily played World of Warcraft for the last 7 years, but we've played other games: Champions Online, Orcs Must Die, Unreal Tournament, and lately we've added Wildstar.
We've got the console games, the Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, all with the movement based games.   We prefer the PC games.
We never intended to be those people who just sit in front of their computers, consuming in one way or another, in all of our off hours.  It just sort of, well, happened.  Between watching Netflix, reading social media, reading the news, listening to music and gaming, we were probably spending upwards of 5 to 8 hours in our computer chairs, on the computers.  Certainly, we would make an effort to not be gaming when our daughter was awake, we'd help her with homework, we'd break for meals, all that jazz.  But on a given otherwise plan-less Saturday or Sunday, we would spend the entire day more or less seated in front of the computer.
Then, a few years ago, a friend of ours sold Noah his exercise bike.  Noah spent hours trying to figure out how to get a tray to accommodate a mouse and keyboard that would be wirelessly connected to a PC computer.  That way, we could cycle and be online at the same time.  It never quite worked out.
Despite the fact that the bike ended up in the storage building behind the house, and it was never really discussed after that, Noah apparently never gave up on the idea of tying computer use time to being active.

Our original set up: 2 computers, 4 monitors, CPUs on the floor, cats and stuff stored up above. 

Fast forward to about a year ago.  While cruising the internet, looking for the obligatory information regarding our games, outrageous acts by politicians and pictures of adorable cats, Noah was also reviewing information about treadmills.  Specifically, he was researching treadmill desks.  He would mention it here and there, but never with what I interpreted to be a lot of motivation.
Early in 2014, he seemed to be researching with a goal in mind: to build OUR treadmill desks.  For us.  To use.  In the space pictured above.  We had the disadvantage last year of being put in a precarious position financially (I left a job unexpectedly, and it turned out to be a brilliant blessing, but that's another story).  I was effectively unemployed for 6 months, and we lived on our savings account, which is now depleted.  So we've been living frugally and not making a bunch of big purchases if we can avoid it.
Having said that, since I made so little, we actually had a fairly impressive tax refund this year.  Given that situation, and given Noah's research, about 3 weeks ago, we decided to pull the trigger on it.  That's right, we ordered not one, but two treadmills. Not just any treadmills, but treadmills designed to be built into desks.

The Lifespan TR1200 Treadmill base designed specifically
for being put into a desk unit.  It has a relatively
low step up height, wider surface for walking,
and it has a counter for your steps (which also
detects if you've stepped off of the treadmill and stops
it after a defined time with no one walking on it).

They arrived on May 13.  We enticed our handy man friend (who built the above set up for us and installed the counter/desk top) into coming over and helping us move the desk up.  We raised the desk level about 8 inches and put down the treadmills.  We had to pretty much tear everything out that was there before:

First, we had to take out the desk
and raise up the brackets that support it.

We reinstalled the brackets, but left things a bit less "attached."  This was so that we could adjust up and down, as well as closer or further away.  This was primarily so that we could get a better sense of how the desk should sit once we were using the treadmills regularly.  Also, behind the desk is a space for cords and such.

We were pretty happy with this placement initially.

 However, the cat was fairly annoyed at his lost space once we moved the CPUs up top.  He was very concerned about his loss of relaxation space that was high enough to be away from the dog.
Not much we could do about that.
The initial plan for the shelving up front was always to have the CPUs up there, but they aren't deep enough to place the boxes straight on.  We also didn't build a channel down from the shelves initially.  We regret that now, since we're mostly struggling with cord placement issues at this point.

Then came the decision regarding monitor placement: up or down.  In the picture on the left, you see that I put mine up and Noah put his on the desk.  Neither was ideal.  Up was too high and uncomfortable, and down was a challenge as well.  We also discovered that the desk was slightly too low.  The problem with that was the numbness that came from having to reach too low to get my wrists placed right on the keyboard.  We also had to place the subwoofer on a small table in order to allow the cord to reach from the CPU all the way down beneath the table.  Hopefully when we get the channel built in to the shelving, that will be less of an issue.

Even our daughter got into the act.  She loves it. Ultimately, the decision we made with the monitors was to place mount them on the shelves.  

And here's the final product.  We're still working on trying to get the cords sorted out, but that will come with time.  Mostly we need to drill that channel for the cords from the top down to the desk and then the cord/outlets on the floor.  Either way, we're delighted.