I have a desk treadmill. So I'm hip now.

I've no idea who the girl going in the other direction is.

Disclaimer!

Not a great start, I know...but I'm gonna start off by saying this article isn't as...scientific...as I hoped it would be. And I know my adoring fans flock to my blog posts for their unyielding scientific rigour.

I kinda hoped that I'd be able to track the use of the treadmill...and track my weight...and show a lovely correlation - that using the treadmill a bit made me beautiful and thin...but life got in the way:

The sun came out! I got the treadmill early in March... but this was also when spring decided it had sprung...so there was sunshine, optimism, a sense that maybe the world isn't all that bad after all. So, could I claim that the treadmill had single-handedly made me all energetic and happy? Nossir.

We finished a house project! I've been quiet on here for a long while, because we've been doing a house project (a little more on that later)... this project has taken far more time and energy than I ever expected...so being the other side of that, I finally have more time and energy than I've had in about a year...so again, my mood has been improved quite aside from the treadmill.

I went to Italy! And ate my body weight in pasta and pizza...so if I haven't lost weight, is that really the treadmill's fault?

It was Easter! As above, but with chocolate.

Most fundamentally, however, I've come to realise that my hypothesis was kind of a nonsense. I've not found the treadmill to be an effective tool (in itself) for exercise, so it's direct impact on weight loss will only ever be negligible. More on that later.

All that said, I'm contenting myself with being beautiful and festively plump for the time being. So, on with the blog post!

Why have you done this, James??

I'm traditionally very sedentary. I work from home. I get up, shuffle downstairs for breakfast, shuffle back upstairs to the office...sit...til dinner time, shuffle downstairs for dinner... you get the picture. I'd be confident that I manage a lot of days on < 1,000 steps... far less than the 10,000 everyone goes on about.

My daughter moved schools last year, so even my 10 minute walk to school and back has been replaced with a 20 minute drive.

And with a lot of stuff going on over the last year I've really struggled to fit in exercise.

Even when I'm on the wagon, exercise is very...binary. I'm either sat completely still, or running / cycling / climbing whatever. Big periods of sedentary, with the occasional burst of activity.

I want to be more active in general... Instead of having a flat heart rate with the occasional peak, I feel like it would be better to have it slightly elevated for a good chunk of each day.

I also worry about ergonomics, RSI etc, so like the idea of standing at my desk...but history has told me that I'm not very good at standing still at a desk...so I thought a treadmill might be a way of keeping my body in a bit of motion at the desk.

And yes, let's not sugar coat it...I weigh far more than I'm comfortable weighing...and my hope was that the treadmill would help me (either directly or indirectly) to start shifting a few pounds.

...but why now?

The aforementioned house project has resulted in me having a much bigger and better office. In my old little cupboard there just wasn't space for a standing desk... I was able to design the new office to make sure there was space for this.

Moreover, I'm now fortunate to have enough space for both a seated desk and a standing desk.

One of the things I know about myself is that I need to remove obstacles that get in the way of positive behaviours. One of the downsides of the treadmills, in general, is that they're pretty bulky to move around. I just couldn't see myself getting to the end of one call, pushing my chair to the side, elevating my desk, getting the treadmill out of the corner, dragging it into position, plugging it in, etc etc.

Being able to just leave the treadmill in place, though, and simply switch which desk I was working at between calls, felt much more like something I was likely to do.

And, of course, underlying all of this is the inescapable march of time. I'm not getting younger and the man in the mirror increasingly feels it is time to make a change.

So what does it look like?

It looks like this.

...and how is it going?

Let's get the data out of the way first:

#The red line and the blue line had a race...#

So, that's not bad right - between a few thousand steps per day and 25,000. Averaging around that hallowed 10k steps. But that doesn't really tell you how it's going, does it... so let's expand:

I'm doing it!

I think since I got the thing there have only been a couple of days when I've felt particularly low and not walked for at least one or two meetings.

It's better for meetings

I can type, use the PC etc while walking... but it's definitely much easier to focus on writing things (like this blog!) sat down...so I tend to walk when I'm in meetings and sit down when I'm not.

I'd also note that it helps me to focus more in meetings, as there's less temptation to send Teams messages, carry on with work etc...so it's a nice perk that I've been feeling more present in the meetings I attend.

It's also fair to say I get worse at typing etc the faster I walk, so

I tend to walk much slower than expected.

I guess my only basis for comparison going into this was...a treadmill. I have one in the garage that I use for running sometimes...

Based on my experiences with a full treadmill, I thought that I'd be walking at 3mph, something like that. In reality, I walk more often at 3kmph.

Vibration is one of the main reasons for this.... the faster I walk, the more the desk vibrates when I put my arms on it (to type, use the mouse etc) - and the monitor wobbles a bit and can become blurry to my ageing eyes...so keeping everything less violent is generally easier.

I also don't want to feel tired when I'm walking...that's not the point, I don't want my focus to be on "man, I'm knackered, when can I stop?". I want my focus to stay on whatever I'm supposed to be doing. I don't want to have to sit down in one meeting because I walked so fast in the last one...I want to keep going. And particularly when it's warm, it's amazing the difference another 0.5kmph can make.

So I've come to realise that the aim isn't to power walk along, burning up calories... it's to amble along, keeping my legs moving and just enjoying being freed from the desk for a bit..

Walking makes me feel more positive

I've always felt mental fitness is like a flywheel...when one thing's going well in your life, other things tend to go better too...I just need to start somewhere... and walking in a meeting is a really nice small, positive, decision I can make for myself... and having made that positive decision I seem more likely to read a few pages of my book in the evening, or exercise at lunch, or book some time in to see a friend.

Have I become "the treadmill guy"?

Honestly, there have been more discussions about my walking on the treadmill than I would have expected...a lot of people seem interested in it... I've had a lot of "I've always wanted to try that..." comments and plenty of questions, which is nice. But I don't really like being the centre of attention. Thankfully, the curiosity seems to have burnt itself out after a couple of months.

I was also somewhat worried that my little head bobbing along in the corner of the screen might get distracting for my co-workers. But I asked a bunch of them (who I think would answer honestly) - and none of them said they found it distracting. So that's good.

About my treadmill

So, the "hey, are you walking on a treadmill?" conversation often ends in the same question "could you send me a link to the one you bought?"

It's clear that this market is becoming very saturated and people are struggling to see the wood through the trees.

In retrospect, maybe I should just set up an affiliate link and chuck it anyone that asks the question... but I normally share the link with a couple of my thoughts about the model I bought...so I thought I'd share those thoughts here, too.

I bought a Walkingpad Z1

It looks like this!

Why did I buy that one?

As I mentioned, it's a heavily saturated market, with a lot of noise. Amazon discount these things left, right and centre...and basically every group test declares a different model as the best...so it's hard to know what exactly to go for.

I was getting close to analysis-paralysis, so I thought I'd just rip the plaster off and just buy one, based on a couple of sensible criteria:

It's a relatively well known brand... models from this company are often listed there or there abouts in group tests.
It's not very expensive... this whole thing was an experiment and I didn't feel like going in two-footed on this investment.
It's suitable for heavy people, like me...a lot of the pads have what seem like pretty low weight limits.
It can move reasonably fast.... I think a lot of people think that these things will do the one thing a normal treadmill does...ie let you run on it. But that's really not what they're for....it's called a Walkingpad, afterall. But I did want one that would get me to a fast walk, and this one will do that.

What's good about it?

It works, and is pretty nice to walk on.
It's not super noisy... I'm lucky that most of the time I have the house to myself... but I still wanted something that wouldn't make a huge racket or disrupt calls etc.
Easy to fold in half for storage (and flatten out again).
It comes with a really nice remote control that works well

What's bad about it?

In terms of hardware, there's not much wrong with the thing. It's pretty heavy, so moving it from place to place isn't a doddle....but some might view that as a by-product of it's rugged construction.

I've also had the impression once or twice that the treadmill has slowed slightly over the course of a longer walk - but don't really have any way of validating if that's actually the case.

The software, however, it's...well, it's not good.

I made the bold assumption that in 2025 when you buy a treadmill that's marketed as being Bluetooth, "smart" etc - that it would remember how much you've used it. I thought I'd be able to pair with the app and it would sync up and show me how much walking I'd done - and maybe I'd be able to push this data on to elsewhere - Strava, or MyFitnessPal, or whatever.

But no, it doesn't do that.

The only way of getting the app to record information about your activity is to start and stop the treadmill from the app itself. It's a few clicks, and not too bad when you're actively trying to collect the data, but if you're not that bothered it just feels more burdensome than is necessary. And it completely defeats the point of having the nice remote control.

And once the data's in the app, you're done. No integrations, not even a way to export a dump of the data. Pretty disappointing. I had to manually copy all the data into excel just to make my little graph above!

The app is also pretty flaky, with tracking stopping at random sometimes, some activities being recorded twice and some not at all.

So if you're interested in data and stats I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

What's the plan now?

Firstly, I want to keep using the thing. That's the most important thing.

Beyond that, I'm thinking about trying to walk in shoes - I've been barefoot so far. I enjoy walking barefoot, but I don't think it's great for the skin on my feet long-term, so will try and find something light and comfy to slip on.

Secondly, I want to try and be OK with the lack of data. I want to be the guy that walks in some meetings and that's that. No data to show for it, no graphs, no bragging rights, just a positive habit. This is easier said than done...I really do like data...

...so I have another plan... how could I bodge something together that would get me the data I want without having to actively record it? I have a plan, more on that in another post.

Wrapping up

This has been a good experiment. I've enjoyed using the treadmill and feel generally more positive as a result. The treadmill itself is good, if some distance from perfect. And I am now, of course, hip.

My final thought is that I genuinely believe I'd have used the treadmill much less were I not able to leave it in place...so if you're thinking of giving it a go, figure out how you can use it while minimising the number of times you'd need to get it out and put it away.

And we're done. Phew. Thanks for being along for the ~~ride~~ amble. I will catch you on the next one.

Edited to add

After a little more use, I've found another benefit!

I should probably have mentioned at some point in this blog post that I hate walking. I think my family and friends think I'm a bit of a paradox - even when I've been fit, running a marathon or whatever, I've always moaned after about 100 yards of walking. I just don't like it...it's slow, boring....not for me.

I mention this now, because I guess I'm starting to learn the benefits of walking in itself- not really anything to do with the treadmill as such.

I've found that walking is really good for supporting other forms of exercise.

I've increased my activity levels a lot over the past few weeks, with plenty of running and cycling. Consequently, it's now common for me to wake up with pretty stiff, tired legs. Half an hour walking on the treadmill, however, and they feel so much better.

I've also found that doing a decent amount of walking before a run really helps to warm the legs up and makes running easier and more enjoyable. Being able to look after my muscles like this while I'm working really is a great bonus.