It has now been over a month and it is time for a progress report.  While I am not tracking my miles. I estimate I am now walking anywhere from 4-5 hours a day (nine hour work day). I started at .7 mph but as of last week I am now going a zippy 1 mph. So you do the distance math. In hind-site the holidays were a good time to start this, not just from a fitness stand point, but I also had short weeks with Xmas day off and New Years Day off as well. That allowed me my legs to get adjusted - when you’re veal, its hard to get your legs moving again on a regular basis. I think the move up to 1 mph has actually made my concentration on my work better.  I don’t know why, it might be if I am walking so slow I have to think about walking. However, I don’t think I could go any faster, at least safely.

Because I moved up to 1 mph I adjusted my keyboard shelf and moved it over the  treadmill console. Another bit of luck, - the shelving unit I bought at Home Depot fits snugly over much of the console so my key board does not move or wiggle at all now.

I also just got my new Mac laptop to replace my dinosaur of a PC desktop machine. Now I can move the laptop back and forth from the treadmill desk to my veal desk when I need a break.

What are the Results

I sleep like a baby. That much is very noticeable. I use to be a late night-er, but I go to bed much earlier. The days I use it I am much less tense and my back has never felt better. With my old monitor, it was sitting up a tad to high and I was getting neck strain over time, but my laptop is set slightly lower and the neck strain has disappeared.

Weight loss results have not been significant at all, I am down to 254 lbs. from 255 lbs. however, I have not adjusted my eating habits as I wanted to see the results from the treadmill alone, and I pretty much ate my body weight in turkey, ham and cookies over the holidays so I find it a miracle that managed to actually lose weight this month.

In the last few years I have always had  a little arthritis in my ankles and while on the treadmill I feel fine, but sometimes I can really feel it when I get home and am stationary for a while. I can not emphasis enough the need to buy good shoes. I am even contemplating switching from my Rockport work shoes to walking shoes.

Work performance 

I think, at least to start with, my work performance slowed as I adjusted to treadmill and I found what I could and could not do walking on it. Talking to people in person was out, unless I could figure out a way to walk backwards so I could talk with them. I also found it difficult to walk when I really needed to focus and trouble shoot on a complex coding problem or sometimes when I needed to be creative. Walking on the treadmill didn’t bother me while I was on the phone, or when I was doing mundane computer tasks that did not need much thought or analyzing.  However, as I get more and more use to the treadmill I am finding I can handle more and more complex tasks. My mouse and keyboard skills were no more difficult than when I was sitting at the desk.

Where to go

As I said, I am going to look into getting some very nerdy but needed walking shoes with good arch support (suggestions?) HR also mentioned that they have an ergonomics professional who regularly comes in to look at people’s workstations and give suggestions on how they can set it up better. They would like the ergonomics professional to look at my setup. I am thinking that ought to be interesting to see what they say. They had reviewed my cube earlier and were very happy with my “standing desk” I wonder what they will say now that it is a walking desk?

Other than that, my goal is to still walk at least 5 hours a day. At some point I want to start lifting light weights (no no, not in my cube) to continue the de-vealifing process.

Would I recommend it? Again, talk to your doctor AND your HR department. While I am loving it, I however, I do not think it is for everyone, it is a slow process and it takes months to get use to if you are not in shape. While walking on a slow moving treadmill takes no great skill, if you have balance or health issues I would not recommend it.