I wanted to start this year off with an update on my desk treadmill/walking update.  I intended to do more frequent progress updates, but it’s hard to do that and blog on technical topics as much as I’d like.  But this kind of update is better than none at all.

As I am drafting this, I’m compiling a list of all my weekly progress of steps tracked by my Lumo Lift, which helps me keep good posture that helps avoid neck pain, but also tracks the number of steps I take surprisingly accurately.  Roughly, 2,000 steps = 1 mile.  My Lumo Lift did break however the last week of the year.  It wasn’t the product’s fault.  It inadvertently got smashed, let’s just say in a manner that it was unsurprising that it didn’t work thereafter.  I just got my replacement today, so I’m back to tracking my steps!

Obviously, not all walking was done on my desk treadmill, but a lot of it was.  When you see dips in weekly steps, that’s likely a business trip, vacation, or I exercised some other way other than anything that would trigger detected steps.  I’m pretty sure before I compile this data there’s going to be some insane amounts here.

Also, for some stupid reason, I deleted some weekly progress emails that I used to track this at the beginning.  I was able to salvage some from when I began, but you’ll see a large gap until I consistently saved them starting in June.  Bottom line is I walked actually a lot more than this.

First off, there’s quite a few funny things in the table.  By far is the fact that I walked 80 miles my first week with the treadmill, but never exceeded it, although I did come close on the week of June 1st.  I was pumped to use it, and I was doing work at home conducive to allowing me to walk without issues, and I was excited to get going on it even into the night.

But reality does kick in.  The thing I’ve learned about using the desk treadmill is it’s hard to walk and concentrate REALLY hard on something, like training, unless it’s an urgent thing.  If I’m working with a customer interactively, I’m fine.   If I’m troubleshooting a problem, I’m also fine walking on the treadmill.  If I’m learning something new?  Not fine.  And that’s why the crazy 70+ mile weeks stopped to keep up my learning and lab stuff I did.

But even with me reducing some of the miles I walked, I still pretty darn consistently walked A LOT.  I knew I was racking up miles, but it’s really eye opening tallying it up and seeing almost 2000 miles.  There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind I well exceeded 2000 miles in 2015 walking considering all the weeks I didn’t save the emails for, and I would never have come close to that without the desk treadmill.

I also lost weight, but not nearly as much as I would like.  I did in all drop about 15 pounds, but considering I walked over 2000 miles, that’s disappointing, and I know it’s because I snack too often.  I need to get a better grip on not eating while maintaining this level of physical activity.

But all in all, the desk treadmill has improved my health, and I’m very glad I did it!