I tried to fight it for so long.

I’d schedule exercise for 4pm every day. When the warm weather was around, it was pretty easy. By 4pm, I’d be itching to get out into the afternoon sun. Okay, I’d miss days, but it was still a lot easier.

But, then winter came…

And, while I do yoga, limitations caused by multiple surgeries don’t allow it to deliver the cardiovascular workout and calorie-burn I need to stay healthy. Plus, with more and more of my career requiring me to write for extensive periods of time, my level of “sedentary-ness” skyrocketed. But, that all ended a few weeks ago, when I set up my…

Rocking, calorie-torching treadmill desk at home…

Whaaaa??? You heard right! That picture below is little old me walking 1 mile per hour while blogging…at my desk. I’m there from 8:30am t 12:30pm, five day a week now. And, here’s the amazing thing…

It doesn’t even feel like exercise!

One mile per hour is the equivalent of a very slow walk. It’s slower than the pace I usually follow whenever I am on the phone (I have to move when I talk or feel like I’m gonna die). You don’t really get tired, you don’t sweat and, at my weight…

By lunchtime, I’ve already burned around 600 friggin’ calories!

And, here’s the other cool benefit, I actually work faster and think better when I am moving, so I end up getting more done faster. I wish this was my idea, but I have to admit to being turned on to this by one of my yoga students, Emiliya, who told me her and her boyfriend had been doing it for months.

Then, she turned me onto a very cool treadmill desk website/blog that not only showcased Steelcase’s new commercial treadmill desk, designed by a Mayo Clinic doctor, but had a gallery showing how a bunch of people made their own versions for next to nothing.

In the end, creating my treadmill desk came down to accepting that, because a big chunk of my career now revolves around writing, I pretty much have to spend a lot of time in front of a computer every day.

But, rather than assuming that working in front of a computer “required” me to be sedentary, by getting hyper creative (and shamelessly stealing and adapting someone else’s idea), I could transform my computer time into my active time, too.

There are so many ways to customize your own treadmill desk, but bere are two more pictures of my set-up. I kept is really simple as used as much bluetooth stuff as possible to keep it almost entirely wireless…

Screen View (Apple bluetooth keyboard and mouse, shelf from $19 Target shoe-rack and Dell monitor)

Does this all mean I’ll stop doing yoga or, when it’s warmer out, go trail running, hiking or mountain-biking?

Of course, not, but, now it’ll actually allow me to do those things out of pure joy 2 to 4 days a week, when I can fit them in and not have to feel guilty about the effect my career path is having on my body any more.

It’s amazing what can happen when you allow yourself to reexamine your fundamental assumptions, think outside the box…and go for a walk!

So, anyone wanna join me on the treadmill desk journey?

I’ve got this wild fantasy for a treadmill blogger walkathon to raise money for a cause!

PS – I still have a little more tweaking to do with the monitor position and I am looking for a way to feed the TV into my monitor, too (my rockin’ wife loves to watch Ellen while cranking out the miles, hehehe!).

If anyone knows how to do this, please share the details in the comments…