Why Every Office Should Switch To Walking Desks

Post by mertd » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #15

ojbyrne wrote: post #4

"I lost 3 lbs and a percent of body fat in a week" I always wonder when I see this - are other people's weights that stable? I can lose (or gain) 5-10 lb in a week without doing anything different, other than weighing myself at different times of the day, drinking more or less water, various other things.

I'm skinny, and other than the weight of the food I eat / defecate, my weight will not fluctuate at all. I can eat whatever I want, however much I want, and not gain weight. I was able to gain 5 or so pounds, but only after I ate whey everyday and did a lot of lifting. I might be able to gain if I tried some ridiculous whey / protein diet and workout regimen, but I don't care that much. However, for the past 5 years,…

Post by raverbashing » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 8:56 PM UTC

goodside wrote: post #25

raverbashing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Not the glicose thing really, walking uses very little energy, it would take a lot of exercise to deplete glicose, not walking slowly but the fact that you can't concentrate while exercise is a huge deal breaker. Not to mention the fact that while you are walking your head keeps bobbing up and down making it harder to read things.

It's not how much energy is burned in your muscles, it's how much energy is burned in your brain. Walking at any speed requires more mental processing than you'd expect, just to make sure you don't trip on your own feet. E.g., here's a study showing that even very slow walking (1.77km/hr) prevents you from typing quickly on a cell phone: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1085798

Post by aggie » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

s_baby wrote: post #33

aggie wrote: post #30

Walking desks are inefficient and overkill for the ergonomic concerns of desk work. The practical solution is to have a properly adjusted [1] workstation and get up to walk around for ~5 minutes every hour. On a treadmill, you will lose more than 5 minutes due to inefficiency anyway. And the 5 minute break you take can be used productively (meet with a co-worker, make a phone call). Having a standing desk in addition…

>The key is movement: there is no active blood flow to your spinal disks, they need movement or microtrauma will accumulate. There are also no nerve endings in your discs, so you don't feel anything until there is already serious damage. That's why a walking desk is preferable. I can walk at a slow pace for hours but standing in one place becomes tiresome after 15 minutes.

Post by Cthulhu_ » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

goodside wrote: post #25

raverbashing wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Not the glicose thing really, walking uses very little energy, it would take a lot of exercise to deplete glicose, not walking slowly but the fact that you can't concentrate while exercise is a huge deal breaker. Not to mention the fact that while you are walking your head keeps bobbing up and down making it harder to read things.

It's not how much energy is burned in your muscles, it's how much energy is burned in your brain. Walking at any speed requires more mental processing than you'd expect, just to make sure you don't trip on your own feet. E.g., here's a study showing that even very slow walking (1.77km/hr) prevents you from typing quickly on a cell phone: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1085798

Post by JohnTHaller » Sun, Mar 03, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

goodside wrote: post #19

Keep in mind that physical exercise and mental concentration both deplete a common resource pool of glucose in the brain. There are robust, well replicated experiments that show it's significantly harder to perform any mental task while exercising. Daniel Kahneman has a great everyday demonstration of this: While walking with a friend, ask her to multiply two two-digit numbers and see if she slows down. (You can also…