Category Archives: Treadmill Desk

Weight Loss With A Treadmill Desk Improvement Sprint: The Best Laid Plans Fail Frequently

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The worst intentions of criminal masterminds everywhere cannot account for life just “happening” around them.

I am sure you know already how I bang on about the difference between “urgent” and “urgent and important” and that you should plan out your days. Even the best laid plans fail frequently when they encounter “the real world.”

I fell off the self-discipline wagon so hard this past week I think I broke something.

I spent the last days of April attempting to get to the storage locker, but there was always one more thing that needed to be taken care, eating up the time I had set aside for the errand.

Then I spent the first few days of May trying to locate all of the parts for the treadmill and desk, making multiple runs to the locker as I found that I was missing this piece or that piece, when I know for a fact I put them all in to a box together.

Finally, to cap it all off, part of the desk was broken, so I had to source a replacement piece for it, and when I finally got that new replacement in my hands, it too was broken. More time wasted having it returned and waiting for the new, non-broken piece to show up.

Woo hoo! Yak shaving!

My plan was perfect except for the part about where “reality” interactd with it.

Excuse me while I blow off some steam.

Gyaaaahhhhhh!

There, all better now.

Another late start to the month with my latest improvement sprint. Is this becoming a trend now that I am working on a new project? I hope not.

I hate being late for anything. Being late turns me in to a psychological nut job. A few weeks back, I was heading off to Angel Stadium for the Video Game Legends event hosted by Westwood College and arrived with only 15 minutes to spare before the main event started. I had been on the road for four hours by that point in time, and travelled a total of 50 miles. I had budgeted plenty of time for such an important event and fully intended to make the “meet and greet” session that was being held one hour before the main event. Yeah! Right! Four hours! Four hours, six vehicular accidents and some very frayed nerves by the time that I arrived.

My sprint for April started late, my sprint for May has started late. I do not want this to continue through the rest of the year. It will not be allowed to continue! I will not allow myself to be thwarted! I will not fail myself for the last time, again!

Gyahhhhhh!

More steam.

Today I start logging my time to find out where the hiccough is occurring. I will write an article about it later this week – assuming I can find the time.

As you can see from the collected data so far, the first four days of the month are empty due to the late start, and the first two days were rather rocky. I am also keeping my speed low, 1.5MPH to 2MPH for the first week or two so that I can get back in to the groove and do not end up causing an injury that brings the entire improvement sprint to a grinding halt.

I managed to hit four hours on my fourth day into the improvement sprint but I really ached afterwards. This is what happens when I spend so long away from exercising. I will make sure that if I go over two hours on a day for the first two weeks that I am taking a short rest break between each hour to give my legs time to recuperate.

So far I have avoided playing World of Warcraft for two reasons: a) I do not have my Warcraft computer set up on the treadmill desk at this time, and b) I need to get my coordination and manual dexterity back, before I am comfortable multi-boxing several characters at once whilst walking on a treadmill. I have not played Warcraft since December so my skills have gotten a little rusty in the time away from the game.

Weight Loss With A Treadmill Desk Improvement Sprint

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With all of the great food I cooked during April, along with my plan to bake and create desserts during June, I decided that I needed to get myself back into shape. I have been seriously neglecting my overall health for the past two years or more.

Currently I am at my heaviest, right now, today, than I have ever been in my entire life. I have been spending too much time away from the gym, too much time at a desk, eating too many take-out dinners, working every waking hour on crunch projects, all the while focusing my time and energy on setting up our new offices and running a video game development company. My life and my health have gotten seriously out of whack and next month I intend to do something about it.

I have been talking, but not actually doing any real goal setting, about pulling my treadmill desk out of storage for almost a year, but with two house moves and an office move in that time, my life, and my health goals, have been upside down in terms of priority. Many of my possessions have spent the better part of a year crated up and in storage due to lack of room either at my apartment or my office. Time to fix that, and what better way than with a solution I actually enjoy? So it is time to start playing World of Warcraft again and get back to writing several thousand words a day whilst walking on my treadmill.

When I built my first treadmill desk in 1999 and started walking regularly, my weight dropped by 34 pounds in just under 2 months and my weight remained constant, at around 150 pounds for the next several years so long as kept up the walking. Whenever I stopped regularly using the treadmill it became quickly evident, as just putting on a few extra pounds, I am the sort of person that will readily show it in my face.

With that said, I intend to make the month of May an all out improvement sprint for my waistline. I intend to get myself back on the treadmill desk for at least 2 hours per day, six days a week and bust my weight and waistline down as quickly and as healthily as I can. I will allow myself one day a week in which I do not exercise due to client meetings, industry meetings or other commitments. Any extra time that I put in on my treadmill will not count towards the next day’s requirements.

The first part of the plan entails making room for the treadmill desk in my office. I spend most of my day in an air conditioned office so it makes sense to keep my treadmill desk right there. The second part requires me to get my treadmill out of storage and reassemble both it and the desk. Neither of these are showstoppers so all I need to do is set aside the time for the tasks, I don’t even need to rent a truck to move the treadmill, it will load straight in to the back of the Land Rover. Everything else I need is close at hand in the office so by this time next week I will have everything set up and ready to go.

Walking on a treadmill at 3 MPH whilst writing or playing World of Warcraft is the easiest way I know to get some decent, low impact, aerobic exercise for several hours at a time without becoming bored or having the exercise eat in to my daily routine or relaxation time.

And if you are curious as to how much I weigh right now, I am an embarrassing 218lbs and 5’ 7” tall. I am way overweight, as I said, the heaviest I have ever been, and feeling very unfit right now. Life, and running a start-up company where every project is a crunch project — my company, Infinite Monkey Factory, handles a lot of crisis projects, offering engineering, art and management expertise to help a derailed project get back on track.

Every week I will post an update on my progress and my weight, and my intention is to return to 150lbs by the end of the year, that is a total loss of 68lbs and I intend to do it all playing World of Warcraft and writing for my blog.