Forum Moderators: open
1. I am gaining weight. One year ago I weighed 72 kilo at 181cm. Now it's 78. And there is a small ring of fat around my waist that keeps growing.
2. While working at the computer there is a lot of idle time. Waiting for websites to load, waiting for programs to start. Waiting for someone picking up the phone. Waiting for someone to answer a Skype message and so on.
So I thought the perfect thing would be some kind of office bike. A kind of exercise bike attached to the office chair or standing below the desk so you could use the idle time to exercise a bit without leaving your chair. Preferably with USB connection where you could see how many kilometers you made or a program thats running in the background and dims your monitor when you have not completed a certain distance.
Does such a thing exist? And what is it called? I searched for exercise bikes but could only find the normal exercise bikes and nothing that matches my description.
What I am looking for would be a common exercise bike - but only the pedals, without the seat that just fits under the desk.
A bit more low tech than you were asking, but it's a start.
[edited by: LifeinAsia at 6:03 pm (utc) on June 6, 2007]
I have been working on a treadmill desk for about the last 5 months and while it's not for everyone it's a lot more reasonable than many people think. Shoot me a sticky and I'll send you a pic of the setup and tell you the pitfalls I ran into.
BTW - I'm using a two monitor set up with the treadmill.
I ended up getting a cross/eliptical trainer. I certainly feel like it's doing something, however, i've yet to set up a schedule.
Firstly, of all the major cardio-vascular exercises you can do (treadmill and cross-trainer are two others), cycling will burn the least calories.
Secondly, you won't be concentrating on it very much, so whereas in the gym you might pedal for 45 minutes non-stop, you are unlikely to pedal for that time non-stop while you are working.
Thirdly even if you do pedal non-stop while thinking and working at the same time, you won't be pedalling anywhere near as fast or as hard as you might be in the gym.
All things considered, after a couple of months of trying this method I signed up for the gym instead and found that spending an hour in the gym at the end of the working day three times a week was dramatically more effective than cycling-under-my-desk.
i'm happy to help anyone here out, you guys are giving me all kinds of info, and i happen to be an expert in this area.
it's only fair inmho.
feel free to pm and ask away!
But eventually I'll have to do something now because it will probably much harder when I wait another year and weigh 85 or 90 kilos.
When I was in my twenties I always laughed about people gaining weight because I could eat as much as I wanted and would not get any fatter. Now I have just passed the 30 and - boom.
Good luck with your pedaling!
likewise i never put on weight untill my thirties and i only just keep it under control with 4 very active 5 a side soccer sessions a week - even then year on year i'm getting heavier.
I didn't see a huge dip in my weight when I started walking at the tread-desk but I did see some body fat turn into muscle which I was pleased with.
