Treadmill - step 1

Hi,

I’m a developer. I write software all day, except for when I do my role as scrum master. Then I talk on Skype or write text documents and emails. But most of the time I read and write code. In front of a computer. That is on a desk. In an office. Almost every working day. All day. And I’m actually very happy about it.

However, this is not great for my health. Sitting all day in front of a desk. So I gave up sitting nine months ago and have been standing at my desk since then. However, standing all that time isn’t great either. It’s better, but not great. So I was ready to take the next step: to walk in front of my desk.

Yes, walk. I had heard a lot about this at conferences and read blog posts about it. Yes, I realize replacing one monotonous posture with another isn’t solving everything, but it’s a step, right? And it sounds very interesting, so I ordered a two-week trial today, with the intent of buying an under-the-desk treadmill. This post is my thoughts before trying it out.

There have been a lot of in-betweens, of course. For many years I’ve raised my desk and stood a while and then sat a while. I’ve had issues with my arms when I was younger and had a physiotherapist guide me to good sitting positions where I rest my arms. However, I’m getting older, and my back is noticing this more and more, leading to me using a chiropractor. That’s been quite good, really.

Where I’m at today is that the standing has become harder on my heels and my knees. So I’ve bought shoes that I hoped would relieve part of the stress, and then higher heels when I noticed that I really was standing wrong. I was standing too much on my heels. So I fully expect to have to do the transition gradual, and perhaps need to mix in some sitting again. Just so as not to over-do it, and to let my current aches heal.

I’m wearing an Apple Watch, and my daily average active energy is 717 calories, including 8,7 km walking/running distance and 9.947 steps. My goal, without doing too much research in how feasible this is, is to add 15.000 steps by walking 6 hours a day at 2km per hour, after having used the treadmill for two weeks. I honestly do not know if this is a too ambitious or too low goal. We’ll see.

Also, my goal is to keep using the treadmill for three years. I’m sure the move goals will change once I get settled into the routine, but being committed to this kind of working sounds good to me. Things I will not regard as breaking my plan is walk-and-talk meetings, travel days when visiting customers, and attending conferences. Also I have no plans to change my weekends and holidays, since this should already be impacting the majority of my days. But it’ll be interesting to see if there will be some spillover effects.