Treadmill desk - 1 month down!

With the full knowledge of how bad a sedentary lifestyle is and, in an effort to get my butt out of the chair more often, I decided, after talking to LoveCat Bronwyn Jameson who also has one, I was going to get a treadmill desk.

My hubby suggested to just get a standing desk but I figured if I was going to stand I might as well walk, right?

I've had my treadmill desk for a month today.


This is how it arrived -

This was the sexy dude who put it together for me. I think I'll keep him :-)

This is it, all pristine and new and ready to go. It looks quite glorious in the sunshine there, doesn't it? Welcoming. Beckoning, even. Go on, step on, you know you want to try me....

And this is me on it the other day. Multi-tasking my butt off. Tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming. Answering emails. Checking out Amazon and Goodreads and generally spending two hours a day on it doing my usual rounds of social media/procrastinaton enabling tools.

They recommend that you go 2k/hr as a good walking/typing speed but its actually much slower than my normal walking pace so it was just too weird. I walk at 4k/hr and its just right. I'm not writing any creative words, mind. Just short social media stuff. I dont think it would work for me actually trying to write. I'd definitely have to slow it down more just for the typos and I think I'd get frustrated with the speed. But I've gone from maybe walking 2k/day three days a week on my street walks and doing about 3-8k steps according to my fitbit to walking 8k most days (4-6 on interrupted days) and achiving about 14 -15k steps every day.

Do I feel fit and healthy and vital and springing around with energy?Umm...no. Maybe that'll come. But I know it's good for me and I really like being able to walk so many k's without feeling like I'm doing any exercise (which I really really hate!) all while accomplishing the things I would normally do sitting on my butt. There's something about the efficiency that is addictive to this multi-tasking addict. 

So its win/win all round for me. I'm just hoping I stick with it and its not some fad that will soon lose its gloss....

What about you? Ever been on a diet or a fitness kick or started a new hobby only to have the gloss wear off and abandon it a few weeks later. I know I have....

My New Toy!

By Barbara DeLeo

I'm a complete sucker for new and shiny exercise equipment and I haz a new toy! Yes, I know those late night T.V ads can be as seductive as Joe Manganiello in boxer shorts, but this is different. It's not one of these:

or one of these

it's one of these

This is my Fibit. 

What's a Fitbit and why would I ever want to use one, I hear you ask? It's the perennial problem of WWB (writer's widening butt) which comes from hours spent in a chair when the only thing getting exercise are my fingers on the keyboard and my elbow as I shovel chocolate into my bouche.

So, what is a Fitbit? Well, it's like a jazzed up pedometer. I wear it all day, hooked to the waistband of my jeans or clipped to my bra, and it counts the steps I take, how far I walked and how many floors I climbed, but that's not all. It also monitors my sleep, helps me track how much water I drink as well as what I eat. Because it syncs with my phone I can see a whole lot of charts and graphs to monitor my progress which is really motivating.

Yesterday for example, this is what I achieved. The step info fell off the bottom of my picture but it does show the green line to indicate that I met my goal of 10,000 steps.

I can set my own goals and get little messages of encouragement sent to my phone and collect stickers for milestones met. I'm also in a Fitbit group with other writers where we have a leaderboard to show how many steps we're all doing. 

One of the really interesting things I can monitor is how well I sleep. I pop my Fitbit in a little wristband at night and it monitors how long I sleep and what the quality is.Not surprisingly,  I've found that the more exercise I do during the day, the better I sleep at night. See how my sleep was much better yesterday than the day before? The red line means awake and the blue means restless.

                                                       


















So, that's my Fitbit. I'm hoping that it doesn't end up in the garage like the Ab-Circle Pro or a glorified clothes rack like my treadmill.....Have you had success using exercise equipment at home? Thought of getting a Fitbit?