Walking to Work

Blame Vanity Fair. Damn, Christopher Hitchens. Perhaps this all started from a reading of his VF article August 2008 Believe Me, It’s Torture where Hitchens undergoes waterboarding and lives write a first person account of it as well as delving into the Bush administration's official assent.

Don't get me wrong, I approve of torture too, so long as it is self administered. But what with my self indulgent inclinations, sometimes it's hard to tell where discipline crosses the line into unbearable abuse. Perhaps that's why I have avoided a membership in the local gym.

But back to the ground work for this twist of fate. It comes inexplicitly, tangentially via former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.  Who would have thought a pacifist would be impressed by Rumsfeld? 

Basically it was an "action memo" which now stands at the Bush's administration's first official justification for U.S. sanctioned torture. This memo was drafted by William J. (Jim) Haynes II, the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense and it later became to be known as Haynes Memo. On December 2, 2002, Rumsfeld  “Approved" it. Scrawled in the margin his words remain decidedly historical in my mind. “I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”

Yeah! Partly inspired by the man, yet fueled with a significant dose of oneupmanship, [the French say a course à l'échalote], I'm determined to go a step beyond Mr. Rumsfeld's work ethic. He just stands at his desk. In my mind, I could go one better by creating a "walking desk".

So it's a sort of "perversion" of Mr Rumsfeld's work ethic style, a walking desk became my little project toward self improvement. Ever ready to adapt, I'm aiming to transform my lifestyle a la Hitchins in another Vanity Fair article (see On the Limits of Self Improvement Part II) ).

In sharing this walking desk with you, I am not claiming to have invented it. It's only the sheer inspiration by way of Hichens and Rumsfeld, which, I believe, has caused me to stumble on a more sophisticated form of torture, walking to work.

Checked with my very best friend, Google, I straight-away found several fine examples. Here's one called WalkStation at Steelcase, for roughly $6,000.



Nice for "golden-parachute" executive types. Another is a "Treadmill Workstation" But what about the DIY (do-it-yourselfer) like me?

Remarkably a lot of folks have already jumped on this innovation which is phenomenal. The father of the movement (pun intended) is a Mayo Clinic obesity researcher, James Levine, M.D. In a 2005 interview, he suggested people "walk to work" and hold meetings by walking around a track. He told USA Today, "I hate going to the gym, which may be partly why I'm so interested in this," all the while keeping up 1 mph pace on his treadmill and multi-tasking, checking e-mail, while simultaneous answering questions from a reporter." Who says you can't walk and chew gum at the same time!

Front view of walking desk

side view of walking desk

According to Jay Buster, "The Treadmill Desk really works! For 10 years I had been trying to lose 10 lbs with absolutely no success (I actually gained 5 lbs during those 10 years). After just four months of working/walking at my office Treadmill Desk, I lost 16 lbs! Now I have the wonderful problem of trying to eat more every day. Details below in "Is it possible to walk Across America..." Check out his site http://www.treadmill-desk.com/ to learn basic set up and practical tips:

Here's another man's pictoral of how to set up of a treadmill desk.

I've been using this for a couple of weeks and I know I feel better. I'll keep you posted on my progress.