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Treadmill Workstation
coondoggie writes "Did you know you could lose as much as 66 pounds by sweating on your PC? Well using the Mayo Clinic's vertical workstation, that just might be the weight loss wave of the future. The vertical workstation is basically a desk mounted over a treadmill that lets office workers to kill two birds with one stone — send emails, check invoices and write reports and burn calories at the same time, say Professors James Levine and Jennifer Miller of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who came up with the machine/desk. There are other things you can try as well. For example, the FPGamerunner, a USB full-size treadmill that works with any first-person shooter (FPS) game, has you covered. Walking on the treadmill moves your character through the game. Handlebars and buttons at the front of the $1,299 treadmill control your direction and fire your weapons." This seems like a lot better idea than me trying to collect Pokemon on an elliptical trainer which will no doubt one day lead to a very embarrassing obituary.
I lift 4 days a week and do cardio 3 days a week. One of those cardio sessions every week is actually done on a stationary bike while playing video games.
It works fantastically...I find that I will stay on that bike for a MUCH longer time (roughly 30 minutes longer) if I am actively engaged with something other than my legs moving
Living With a Nerd
I work for an Electric company. I suppose they will want to sell the power that is generated.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
I'd like to know whether this USB Treadmill is bus-powered, or if I'll have to deal with the inconvenience of plugging yet another power brick into my surge suppressor...
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
I wonder how many people will get wrapped up in the game, bust their ass and get shot across the room after they've been "PWNED".
"Well doctor, someone was spawn raping us and the next thing I know, I was trying to pry my head from under the sofa. I was pwned."
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
I'd love to see them walk on a treadmill and try to send email at the same time.
Granted, IT would get called to fix the treadmill if it broke.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Workout machines make noise, which would add to the normal office noise levels.
Some of us need a reasonable level of quiet to be able to concentrate and work effectively.
I dunno how effective it would be for me. I have to get up to a pretty decent run to get my heart rate to a point where its any real benefit, and I doubt I could type well at a run. As for FPS, most of them already reduce your accuracy when your toon is moving; compound that with the physical movement of your body and you probably won't be hitting much; this problem could be mitigated by just having pixel perfect aim in the game and letting the actual movement be the cause of inaccuracy, but I can see that being abused...
Imagine moving that treadmill controller around to LAN parties. Only the most dedicated to weight-loss would attempt it, but man would it be hilarious to see the 300 pound guy sweating his ass off getting that thing through the door.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I was on a training trip a couple weeks ago - and ended up using the elliptical trainer in my hotel. (Didn't feel comfortable running in the neighborhood) I learned not to set my ipod nano face up in the little holder on the machine. One morning some sweat dropped on it and got into the nano under the click wheel. It didn't really work quite right until it dried out. (It was working fine later - I left it sitting upside down to dry out)
The tv in the room had cnn on, so I read the little news ticker while I listened to music and worked out. Being able to check email would have been very cool. Though I think to read it easily, on a machine with a lot of up and down movement - I would need the text to be large and a decent distance away.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
For those that can afford it, the FPGamerunner looks like a cool idea, not for exercising (nothing beats a good solid 3-5 miles of outdoor running) but for enjoying the game itself more. Oddly, the Gamerunner site quotes the price as only $495 and not $1299 as quoted in the article.
My sig has been answered.
Think of all the exercise you'll get while mowing lawns to raise the $1299 to buy it!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I find it is hard for me to keep my eyes focused when I watch TV while using a treadmill. I'd think it would be even more difficult to try to focus on text on a monitor and use a keyboard/mouse too. There is the issue of sweat getting on the keyboard and mouse. A stationary bike might work though.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
According to xe.com, you lose 655 pounds straight away !!
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
I've been running 2mi 2-3 times per week on my treadmill while (attempting) to play various FPS games.
It's a blast, and it really takes my mind off the boredom of jogging far more than listening to music or watching TV does.
I'd suggest you wear a helmet if you're going to try this, though:)
If it's an urgent email do I have to run faster?
Why? Because the lardasses get medically excused for being, whatelse, lazy lardasses. They even get handicap stickers for being so big. We had 3 go for gastro surgery only to put 3/4s of the weight back on within 2 years.
The people who need to lose the weight are the last people who will try. Let alone at work, with medical insurance as it is with government inteference either my medical bills will skyrocket as they are entitled to these machines or my medical insurance will skyrocket to support continuance of their condition because it would be "hateful" or "discriminatory" to tell them they are fat and have to do something about it.
I cardio 3 days a week and strength train the other 3 days. I do this in the peace and quiet of my home, usually with a DVD playing. Considering how much I sweat I don't need a keyboard, mouse, or other sensitive device near me when I exercise.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I seriously doubt this with sell well. Not only is it expensive, but if you've ever tried to do anything on a laptop while moving from one room to another you know that the human body doesn't stabilize itself between bottom and top. If the bottom is moving, the top is too, and trying to do things that require some degree of non-movement, like typing for instance, would be difficult. Additionally, who's going to use this desk? Does it get moved around the office all day to whoever wants a go? Do you expect someone to use it all day? Even the most fit people aren't going to be interested in standing up all day for a desk job. As it goes, it's just impractical. They've got the right box, but they're thinking too far outside it. Personally, I would encourage activity at the office through things like frisbee during a break.
Geeks arguing about exercise. Yeah - this oughta be good.
I burn plenty of calories in front of my PC every day...
This guy's the limit!
I posted the above as kind of a joke, but I became curious and visited the official Gamerunner website.
Apparently the treadmill actually will sell for $495 plus S&H, once they get their store going.
And from looking at the actual manual for the thing (warning: PDF!) it looks like it uses two USB connectors (one for keyboard, one for mouse) and the display panel is powered by two AA batteries. You'd think there would be enough bus power in two connectors to power a low-end LCD display.
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
Some more info.....
BBC covered this in detail, one of their reporters tried it out. She was less then enthusiastic about office work whilst using the thing "Shame my hands can't keep up, it took me almost five minutes to key in the above without a single mistake." (from the linked article below).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6656631.stm?ls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6657305.stm
But I'm not a good enough geek to put it together. *sigh* You start off with one of the recumbant exercise bikes, the ones where you're sitting in a seat with the pedals out in front of you. The flatscreen monitor swings down to be right in your face. You replace the regular handgrips with joysticks with enough buttons to run the game.
:) Ok, maybe you might compromise and go with some hybrid type that mixes FPS and a vehicle like Descent. The peddling rate won't determine your max speed but max reactor output. You get to balance your power between speed, laser bank, and shield charge.
So, what's the game? Has to be a racing game.
The kind of game I have in mind is like Twisted Metal, cars going fast. Some parts would have proper racetracks to run around on, other parts would be like city streets. The goal is to blow up the other exercisers you're playing against in the gym.
If the combat angle isn't as fun, then you can just settle for a more conventional racing game where the pedaling rate directly translates to your in-game speed. I'd love to see a pedal-power flight sim with the kind of graphics we can push these days. That'll get people in the gym!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
In real money, that's 30kg. Or four stone ten.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Why would I want to loose £66, and why buy a device to loose it? I could just give the money to charity instead. How many Euro would it help me loose? Is it a fixed value or does it depend on exchange rate?
Until someone can answer these questions I don't think It'll be a success.
I already walk around while playing my DS, and get up from the computer at least every half hour. I've setting up my office to allow me to work while standing for a while now, but I get stuck on monitor configuration. How to switch from standing to sitting quickly without interrupting the work flow (still stumped there)?
Alternate ergonomics are unfamiliar, but not impossible. The thing is, we aren't made for sitting in front of a computer all day long, but we could fool our bodies into feeling we aren't. Treadmills, changing postures, etc.
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
Do the math. Brisk walking burns 7 calories a minute. A McDonalds value meal has 1170 calories. You have to walk briskly for 167.14 minutes to burn off those calories. That's 2 hours 47 minutes. Of walking. Briskly.
Exercise has important health benefits and you should be doing it. But to lose weight, you need
to control your food intake. All the fad diets and pills are bullshit and possibly harmful as well. Eat less calories, and you will lose weight. And while you are at it, cut out all the hydrogenated fats. Eating lard would be less harmful. If you are addicted to nicotine, get your fix thru a method other than smoking or chewing.
Yes I am ranting. But I hate to see people oblivious to the fact that they are
ruining their health and quality of life by ingesting obscenely excessive amounts of harmful "food" products and nicotine delivery systems. Know why all the old people you see on the street are thin like birds? Because most of the fat people died when they were 50 years old, and the rest of them are confined in a nursing home waiting to die.
Honestly, whenever I see people working out while reading or talking on the phone I feel sorry for them. This would be more of the same. It will only do a disservice to both activities. Neither will be given the proper energy or attention required to make effective use of time. If you're exercising to get in shape, then you should be working hard enough that it is not possible to do anything else concurrently. If you are on a treadmill or some other such machine just to lose weight, the same could be accomplished (while gaining time instead of losing it) by simply eating less.
My right wrist and forearm are in fine shape.
I prefer the ThighMaster. The price is more within my range, and the look on peoples' faces when they see me bouncing up and down at my desk is priceless.
What?
Geeks and exercise. Isn't that like cats and dogs. coke and pepsi. vi and emacs. You know that the combination exists in the wild, but the thought disturbs you on so many levels.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
300 lbs (you know it's true, regadless of the 175 you put on your drivers license) - the dead weight your company will shed when they fire your ass for the low productivity you can manage whilst bouncing around on a treadmill, unable to type quickly or use the mouse with any accuracy.
Treadmills are great things. I personally love them as they're about the one form of exercise where my getting distracted doesn't stop them from working (on stationary bikes, my ADD tends to leave me sitting on a now very stationary bike and wondering why I'm not getting fitter) as I fall off the back if I stop. Still, put one in front of your TV and make an hour or two's TV watching a night, where you don't need to co-ordinate fine motor responses, your source of exercise.
I spend a lot of time commuting. If someone came up with a way for me to get in an energetic game of racketball during it, it'd still be a bloody stupid idea as I need to keep my fine motor control and attention on what I'm doing. The same goes for computer use. Exercise is important - but stick to times when it doesn't force interference with other important tasks.
Just when I thought my boss didn't smell bad enough, we're going to go and sit him on a treadmill WHILE he lectures us. Perfect! Looking around my office, I can see atleast 20 people that could've fit in that study and I have to point out that while they can work, it does not talk about the reprocussions of the smells. No one wants to work in an office that smells like BO, unless you're maybe a Mechanic.
1) not practical to move and type at the same time 2) very simplistic: just a laptop mounted on top of it 2) noisy, I bet 3) _consumes_ energy rather then produce, why not mount it on a bike and produce some energy 4) expensive alternative to riding your bike to work 5) what's next, put this thing inside a car to keep moving while driving (and polluting)? 6) slownewsday? aargh...
C'mon, you know what I'm talking about slashdotters.
Anonymous Coward for obvious reasons.
While losing weight is a Very Good Thing, you need to do it in such a fashion that it doesn't endanger your health.
I had a friend who dropped over 100 lbs through sheer willpower. But it turns out that, if you lose more than 10 lbs quickly, your risk of developing protrate cancer goes up. Sure enough, he developed protrate cancer and is fighting it now.
Odd, I heard about this on NPR this morning. But before this report was a longish report about how the "business community" of France was annoyed that they weren't getting the profits they could get if the workers weren't restricted to 35 hours of non-OT work by law. Report also mentioned that by law, all workers had to get physical checkups in order to work. The report, trying to be "balanced", mentioned that actually French workers were more productive than Americans, per hour worked.
Then the report about the hamster wheel desk. No irony intended, I'm sure.
Thing about the workers with the shorter work week in France that they didn't mention? They aren't really all that overweight. Thin, actually. American workers are not. I'd have to come down on the side that would say that we're fat because all we f*ing do is work. I do fifty a week at a forty job, and get warned about even three hours of OT. Thanks jeebus I ride a bike to work during the summer, or I'd have a bypass operation by now. I'm too tired to exercise -- it't no fun when you get home at eight and all you want to do is drop into a chair, not from physical, but mental exhaustion. And no, the other jobs aren't better, all the coming anecdotes from star IT workers to the contrary.
Employer solution? Well, force me out and replace me with H1B labor, sure, or make two people do my job, which already is a composite of two people's jobs. But maybe, a Habitrail! That's the solution!
Or we can reregulate our work world and have a 35 hour week, or in reality a 40. Nah. That's communism.
But we are fat, dying too young of old men's diseases, overcharged by a factor of two for medical care for a crap lifestyle, have no free time, and are less productive and by survey a hell of a lot less happy than the French. And the French companies are by no means impoverished; they just want more profits. So they want to be more like us, eh? Alors, time to get the French Habitrail desk. I hope it has a nice winerack for lunch, at least. Another thing they can do is drink at lunch...
Life needs more saving throws.
How about a balance seat (same idea as a wobble board or ball) which requires the person sitting to maintain balance. It'd keep the legs, back and stomach active all day.
Deleted
I saw the guy who is organizing the research on this (NEAT), who gave a 90 minute talk at my institution last year (we study the genetics of diabetes.) I figured this might be an interesting place to share my notes. The notes are slightly raw, but might be of interest (and there's nothing that's under NDA in them.)
-----------
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Uses 2x-3x the calories of exercise.
Varies by up to 2000 calories between individuals
Note: most people of the world don't exercise
Neat explains why an active person can burn 2000 calories more than an inactive person of the same size.
Occupational NEAT:
chair bound:300
seated work: 700
standing: 1000
active: 1400
agricultural: 2300
Women work a heck of a lot more than men. (peak 500 minutes/day women vs. 320/day men)
A test that overfed people by 1000 calories a day:
Some people didn't gain weight, they just increased their NEAT.
Some central mechanisms may be regulating NEAT.
There are chemical ways to induce neat (Central Orexin)
Spontaneous physical activity may not be spontaneous!
People who fail to increase NEAT: maybe they have a NEAT defect?
They built sensors integrated into clothing to see what body postures were like.
Looks like lean people stand up more, and obese subjects sit a lot more.
Overfeed underweight people, underfeed overweight people ->
Starting obese people still sit more, Starting lean people tend to stand more.
Perhaps fat people just have 'poor NEAT adaptation'
Think about this: there's no inherent reason why we ought to be sitting all the time.
Are there ways to get us all out of our chairs?
1) Persuade them to stand (behavior modification)
2) Get rid of the chair (environmental change)
------1------
STRIPES
Targeted goals help people change behavior.
Select->Target goals->Reward->identify bariers->Plan->Evaluate->Sustain->Target Goals
Lady starts at 3 5 second walks a day.
She's working up to 5 5 minute walks over time.
Barrier: if you decide to walk your dog in the rain,the rain is the barrier. If you're massivly fat, tying shoes might be the barrier.
Planning is representative of prioritization.
------2-------
The way you change the environment - do a walk and talk meeting program (at least you get something out of it!) "Walk and talk tag - you are not to be interrupted"
Make this competitive so that the more times you have meetings that are walk and talk, the more you are 'winning'. Yet, the number of meetings will decline.
--------------
They now have a small unit that can measure your posture, etc and measures NEAT every 10 seconds.
Allows complex phenotyping of people moving, etc.
Ipod earpiece that detects activity level of the user - for each mile they walk, they get a free download. Kids get into the competition to get free downloads.
Imagine computers that are on treadmills (or exercise bikes), so you can stand and walk all day instead of sitting, People pick 1 mile an hour to work out, and burn 100 calories an hour.
If you design a school so kids can stand, they will move around a lot.
Now, there are Soda machines that say "Thirsty" - this is a cue to your brain to make you think about it, then purchase -also snack machines that say "hungry"
I guess you don't know much about genetics, do ya? :-)
It's a simple formula: calories in - calories burned = fat stored.
If calories in - calories burned = fat stored * magic_genetics_modifier then you've invented energy creation from nothing or destruction without release.
In either case, the genetics excuse for obesity is incompatible with the conservation of energy. The genetics track really means some people have faster metabolisms and burn the calories or don't have as efficient a gastro system to extract calories from food. Other people have slower metabolisms or more efficient gastro systems to get every bit out. People in the latter group need to eat a lot less and/or find a way to burn off more (exercise). Convincing people of formula #2 above is just more helpless victim mentality.
Apparently, where you are is so unique it only has six days in a week...
My BMR totally sedentary 24/7 is over 3kCal/day, so I just have to sit completely motionless for nine hours to burn off that value meal...
Up 'til now, no animal breeder has developed a calf that will walk into an enclosed pen of its own free will, tenderize itself while eating rich foods, then demand that it and its mates be slaughtered in the name of the free market.
We are a special breed, we American workers.
to control your food intake. All the fad diets and pills are bullshit and possibly harmful as well. OK. 2 things...
1: Don't worry about your weight, it isn't what matters. What matters is your size. Muscle is five times more dense than fat. You exercise, you physically shrink though you may well stay the same weight or even put some on.
i.e.
Use a tape measure, not scales.
2: When you exercise, the muscle you build requires energy to run it 24/7 day. You may only expend 200 calories during the exercise itself, but if it makes your body consume 5% more calories while resting you are going to lose weight automatically if your intake remains constant.
Deleted
They're too fatty - I'm on a diet!
I don't see a treadmill workstation as a workable idea. I can't read when I run, no matter how nice the treadmill. I can when I ride the stationary bike. So I just don't imagine a bunch of business folk standing for 8 hours a day walking on a treadmill bouncing up and down. I would go for the idea if it were a stationary bike or something I could just kick back on when I'm exhausted.
What I'd really be interested in is a recumbent bike generator, something that I can pedal at while slouched at my desk (and is ergonomically designed to support my slouch), gives me on-screen feedback for motivation, and turns my pedalling into power.
And go get some fucking exercise.
All it requires is a pair of shoes and some fucking willpower you lazy ass nerds.
Being caught in an elevator with one person with B.O. is bad enough, now they're trying to populate entire offices? This should only fly if you work for Hawaiian Tropic or Victoria's Secret, and they happen to have co-ed showers.
I'm cucreantly oon a traedmill worksttatioan and I mu8tgst say that6y I lovwe it. It makeeks lossigsn weight so easty. Ittsw a littlwe buumpy but I dootn' think anyoeonq2 nottices.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
I eat about 1,500-2,000 calories a day. I should be losing weight at a steady but slow pace, but instead I often find myself gaining weight? What gives?
Simple. My body gets used to the 1,500-ish calories a day. I don't lose any weight, but I start feeling tired and stiff. On weekends or drinking nights perhaps I go up to 2,500. I still feel like shit, but I just gained 1,000 in excess calories.
Exercise may not be particularly useful for buring calories, but it is vital in keeping your metabolism up and ensuring that your excess calories are burned away rather than stored away. Plus it keeps you fit and makes you live longer. I recall a section of "The Hacker's Diet" explaining that a scant 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day extended your life by about 150% of the time you spent exercising.
100 calories (kilocalories, really, as food "calories" are really kilocalories of actual energy) an hour is 116.22222 watts. Average retail electricity price in 2/2007 was $0.0874:KWh. An hour burning 100KCal is worth about $0.01 in electric costs.
If the treadmill could power my PC, I'd be more interested. Because though the actual cost savings are small, the motivation from saving the electricity might actually overbalance the idea that I'm the first generation of humans powering the Matrix.
--
make install -not war
I built a setup like the one featured in the article over a year ago. The noise isn't that bad and I'm sensitive to noise. I use headphones to drown out cubicle noise so treadmill noise isn't a problem.
The bigger problem is learning to type and mouse while you're moving. I had to start with the treadmill running at its lowest setting and even then it was tricky.
A second problem is your feet hurt after standing all day. The treadmill has some give to it so it's not like standing on concrete but my shoes are tighter than they used to be and I've lost weight.
If you build one of these setups, get a good treadmill. Since I was paying for the refurb, I cheaped out and bought mine at Walmart. The treadmill has been a constant nuisance with belts slipping, random speed changes etc. None of those issues would bother you if you're holding the handrail when you're using the treadmill but if you're typing when it happens, it can dump you on your ass.
In Bananas .
Uh, this is Doctor Brody at the Mayo Clinic. There's a
passenger on your Chicago flight 209er, a little girl
named Lisa Davis, en route to Minneapolis...
Excuse me. This is the operator, Captain Oever. I have
an emergency call on line 5 from a Mr. Hamm.]
Alright. Give me Hamm on 5, hold the Mayo.
I'm seeing a lot of BS flying around about the idea of a walking desk, and having built my own, I thought I should de-FUD the conversation a bit.
.7 mph, which is crazy slow. Slow enough, in fact, that its almost hard to walk at that speed. The point is to just move and burn a steady trickle of calories over a long period of time, not "work out". If you're sweating or even breathing hard at all, you're doing it wrong. I can talk on the phone and the other party has no idea that I'm on a treadmill. I personally vary my speed between 1.2 and 2.0 mph. Basically, the speed is inversely proportional to the amount of concentration required by the current task. If I'm just reading, I can do 2.0 with no problem. If I'm writing code or doing any real amount of typing, I'll usually keep it around 1.4 - 1.6.
9 ve8.jpg 0 jr6.jpg l r5.jpg 2 rk7.jpg 4 wt9.jpg
You're not running, or even walking quickly. James Levine, the guy spearheading all this NEAT stuff, recommends
Which brings me to an important point: typing speed is nearly unaffected. My error rate is probably a little higher when on the treadmill, but not enough to be an issue at all. I can still out-type nearly everyone on IM, so if the walking slows me down at all, it's a moot point anyway.
It took me a couple days to really adapt to it, but once you're used to walking and working simultaneously, it's pretty mindless. Your legs basically go on autopilot while your mind does what it needs to do. I would compare it to [car analogy alert!] driving a manual transmission in heavy city traffic. It sucks at first, but eventually it's all muscle memory and you don't have to think about it at all. You just do it.
Here are some (old, crappy) pics of the treadmill set up in my old office:
http://img476.imageshack.us/img476/7197/091806120
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/9194/091806121
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/898/0918061211
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8043/091806121
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/6964/091806121
It looks somewhat assy, but it works really, really well. The keyboard/mouse platform is ultra-stable and does not move at all or even vibrate at the speeds I walk. With the monitors positioned the way they are, my eyes never have trouble following even small text, and I'm older with very bad vision. If anyone is considering doing this, don't even bother with a treadmill that retails for less than about $1500. You need a high quality treadmill to achieve the necessary silence and stability for office use.
I know people who claim they instantly get headaches trying to read in cars while I've spent decades reading everything from Descartes to my mail on a commuter bus. But put me on a stationary bike and even watching TV is severely annoying. Believe me, you wouldn't want me as an employee in that setup.
Nonetheless, it's an appealing concept. I always thought Hemingway was on to something.
If you don't want to be part of that world, then don't be.
I work freelance. I set my own hours, I invoice $100/hr, and I work about three billable hours per day (average), plus another hour or so for administrative tasks and paperwork. That makes me a tidy/satisfactory income and leaves me plenty of time to spend on staying in shape and doing non-earning and hobby work, or just studying to stay up on the latest tech. And I have no commute; even though I live in Los Angeles I almost never wait in traffic.
It's 9:07am on a Wednesday. I just finished breakfast while reading Slashdot, now I'm off for an hour-long mountain bike ride before I start work for the day.
Y'all work as if there's nothing else in life. I don't get it. There's more to life than making buxx for somebody else's company. Everyone else I know who has traditional 8-5 jobs working for the man is disillusioned and constantly exhausted. I don't want to be part of that soul-sucking treadmill, so I'm not.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Pobably less than 1% of overweight peoople have some sort of genetic condition/hormonal problem that causes them to be overweight. Almost all familial obesity is from learned behavior, and from being a fat kid (fat cells tend not to die off).
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) had an article were they looked at obese and thin people and the amount of food and exercise they did. The obese people tended to underestimate the amount of food they ate by half!, and overestimated the amount of exercise they did by twice!. This was a well designed study - randomized groups, etc, and the conclusions were significant (p0.05) in that the study groups (obese vs thin) had differing amounts of food and exercise.
Anecdotal information - my friends mom (overweight) always joked about me (skinny) having a hollow leg, and remarked that she could never eat as much food as I could. However, the big meal that I ate was often the only meal I'd eat during the day, while I often saw her snacking though out the day.
People do have differing basal metabolic rates (BMR), which is usually a function of how much muscle mass they have, among other things. So people with a higher BMR burn more calories a day do to their higher needs (think car engines - a V8 uses more than a 4 cylinder engine). Thus the people with the higher BMR can eat more and not gain weight.
Obese people usually have poor nutrition (Significantly lower blood albumen levels) than thinner people. The relatively decreased muscle mass also makes it more difficult to exercise, since the poor muscle get overworked too easily, and they can't exercise enough(hard to lug a boat up a hill with a Honda Accord).
..........FULL STOP.
I wish someone would make a USB DancePad (like the DDR ones) that you could use with an RPG like Oblivion, with a wireless gamepad for the combat/spellcasting/etc controls. That would be a lot of walking!
Plus it would be a lot cheaper and more portable than a gaming treadmill. I don't have the programming chops for it, or I'd do it myself. Any takers?
One good office design idea is to make stairs more appealing than the elevator. Stairs are a good work-out but in most American buildings, they are ugly and hard to find, whereas the elevator is right there in the center of the lobby. It should be the opposite: stairs should be primary way of getting up and down in a building, whereas the elevator should be there mainly for accessibility reasons.
if the treadmill powered the LCD or the computer such that if you stop running / walking the system turns off. I had an idea to build something like the FPGamerunner ..might get one for myself to play UT2K4!
Controlling one's diet is at least as hard.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
I'm an avid gamer, and I figured that I could sit on my ass and play Mariokart, or I could jump on the bike while I played. Not the best exercise, but exercise none the less.
Well, I was hit with a bad case of 'controller lean' That sensation that if you just lean a bit, your character will make those turns just a little bit tighter. I also ended up with the odd sensation that if I just peddled a little faster, my racer would pull a bit ahead. I've played games for years, and thought I had broken myself of the habit, but as soon as I introduced the bike to gaming, I ended up with a bad case of it.
It was nearly so bad that I had to put down the game because I was breaking my rhythm and ended up biking a lot harder than I intended to.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
"Well, let me just piss you off then. When I was on the Atkins diet I lose 90 lb in 9 mo, 10 lb/mo, without exercising."
That's because you lowered your caloric intake, a fairly common misunderstanding about the Atkins diet. Had you measured it, you'd notice your total caloric intake was less on Atkins. People think otherwise because of the common fat=high calorie meme.
And all that weight you lost? Mostly muscle. So you may weigh less, but you're fatter overall.
I mountain bike a TON. There is no way you could do any serious off-roading without using your arms. Sometimes rocky hills or just the right hills themselves require you to stand to pump your legs, and you use your arms for extra power. Your arms often times are just as tired by the end as your legs are.
"Actually, I did not significantly lower my caloric intake, or at least, did not bring it down anywhere near what I "should" be eating."
Yes, you did. Had you taken a simple physics class you'd know that, or perhaps you've found some way to overcome conservation of energy?. Frankly, there are many examples of what I am talking about regarding Atkins that are freely available, read them and you'll see.
"reakfast: 4 eggs, 4-8 link sausages. 4 eggs fried in fat (butter in this case): 105*4=420kcal. 4 link sausages (farmer john's maple, my favorite) have 300 kcal.
Lunch: Gigantic salad smothered in bleu cheese dressing, usu. with a hardboiled egg. Salad greens have negligible calories. Assuming I had 4 tbsp of salad dressing (probably a quite conservative estimate) that's 340 kcal alone. A hardboiled egg is 78 kcal. A half-cup of grated cheese (pretty typical) is 228 kcal.
Dinner: Very large steak (over 1lb) carved from a tri-tip roast, not defatted at all. Over 1000 kcal. Usually fried in butter, add a few more. Typically associated with some broccoli."
Completely irrelevant. You cannot lose weight without decreasing your caloric intake. And honestly, given your tone, I'm fairly certain you'll make up whatever numbers you need to in order to "prove" you are right.
"Add to that the fact that I was sitting on my ass for those nine months, and there is simply no way to explain my weight loss by reduction of calories."
Um, no, since you got no exercise by your own admission, there is no OTHER way to explain it.
"Perhaps you should learn something about ketosis before you make ignorant statements like this again. During ketosis, the rate of lean muscle loss is reduced; normally you lose one pound of muscle for every three pounds of fat. Not so on the Atkins diet."
Perhaps you should learn about glycolysis, and the body's inability to burn fat in the absence of carbohydrates. Muscle is burned instead. Coupled with your own admission of no exercise, I stand by my assertion.
"Your willful ignorance impresses no one."
Listen dick, you are the one claiming that your diet violates the law of conservation of energy, while ALSO claiming you lost weight without exercising, but that COULD NOT have been a reduction of calories (what was it, the fat fairy?). So save that stupid "I'm a big fat internet bully" shit for someone else, all you did was show off how easy it is for one person to be stupid several times in a post.
You are a fucking idiot.
Again, if you knew anything about Ketosis, you would know that this is not true.
Perhaps you should learn about Ketosis, and the fact that the body explicitly burns fat in the absence of carbohydrates, and will even manufacture some glucose from the process for those parts of the body which cannot run on ketones. But you and the majority of nutritionists out there are clinging desperately to what you learned first so that you do not have to make your poor pathetic inelastic brains contain a new concept.
Remember when they said that salt was the leading cause of heart disease? Then it was eggs, then it was butter, and margarine was your salvation. Today we know that eggs and salt are not that bad for you, and that the hydrogenated fats in margarine are many times worse for you than butter. This is another such situation, and you are stupidly parroting the antiquated party line instead of coming up to speed with the people who are living in the now and not the twenty-years-ago.
No, you are claiming that. I am claiming that you don't know one fucking thing about Ketosis.
In fact, you don't know shit about food and digestion! Let me help you: Not all of the energy in the food you eat is used by your body. A substantial portion of it is simply not digested, and the result is passed out of your body as waste (indistinguishable from your slashdot comments.)
During Ketosis, your body does not store fat. It's just that simple. It doesn't matter if you eat 4 kcal worth of fat, or 4000 kcal worth of fat. While it is in your system, your body will convert it into ketones and run on it. When it is not, your body will run on the stored fat reserves.
If you should consume carbohydrates while on this diet, your body is hungry for them - but any unused energy WILL be stored as fat.
It is your lack of understanding of the state of Ketosis that leads you to make these idiotic fucking statements. It is your willingness to speak when you don't know a fucking thing that makes you a stupid fuck.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Or should I say WoW? Can you imagine all the WoW players using a treadmill to run through the game?
When they switch into pet mode, would they be required to run on all fours?
You cannot lose weight without decreasing your caloric intake.
... yes.
Well, that all depends on how you define intake. You can eat the exact same amount of the exact same food at two different times, and your body may very well handle the food differently in terms of how much energy it take in from the food versus how much it lets you flush down the crapper. So, did you decrease your caloric intake there? You put the same content into your mouth, so no. But your body did different things with what it was given, so
Also, the body can do different things with the nutrients it's given depending on a whole host of situations. Are those nutrients being used to build muscle? To store as fat? To replenish muscle glycogen supplies? To replenish liver glycogen supplies? It all means something very different in terms of your body composition (which in turn affects how you will process future nutrients).
You seem to have a very simplistic view of the way the body works. Yes, it always obeys the laws of thermodynamics, but there is plenty of play in the way it obeys those laws, and your ignoring them is not doing you any favors.
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"You are a fucking idiot."
Says the guy who thinks his magic diet violates the laws of physics., and that his energy intake magically vanishes.
Don't get pissy with me because you're too fat to see your dick, fatty.
Listen, you're fat and stupid. Don't take it out on me.
I wonder if my testosterone level is too high, cause I'm sure enjoying watching you made a big fat idiot of yourself, fat man.
"Yes, it always obeys the laws of thermodynamics, but there is plenty of play in the way it obeys those laws, and your ignoring them is not doing you any favors."
I didn't ignore them, and claiming I did makes you seem like you have poor reading comprehension.
You body uses an amount of calories. If you take IN more than you USE, you gain weight. If you USE more than you TAKE IN, you lose weight.
Nothing else you said matters.
In Soviet Russia, computer powers treadmill!
When someone is going to wire an Exercise Bike to MAME for playing Prop Cycle :)
And your use of "take in" here is highly nonstandard. When used with nutrition it's generally taken to mean what is ingested, not what is used by the body, because what is used by the body is highly variable. And unless you can come up with a good way of not just measuring, but predicting how much energy will be absorbed by the body, and how it will be used (generally, people care about losing fat, not weight), your observation is utterly worthless, despite its correctness. It's like the old joke about the helicopter pilot and Microsoft.
How does it feel to be a tired old joke?
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Why did I think of this when I read the summary?
a rchives/031.html
From June 1999:
http://www.joyoftech.com/geekycomics/Aftery2k/y2K
Ramen
This truly is a stupid idea, and, having learned if it's existance, I feel even stupider.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Saying that fat people stay fat because it's easier than the alternative is meaningless. Everything we humans do we do because we perceive it to be easier than the alternatives.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Well said. It is possible to lose weight (despite many naysayers), but the journey is not as simple as drawing a line to your destination and following it. It's a hard, hard problem to solve, and it's not surprising that many take years to solve it, or give up in despair.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
"And your use of "take in" here is highly nonstandard."
I NEVER SPECIFIED WHAT "TAKE IN" meant, so how can it possibly be "nonstandard" since I never defined it?
"How does it feel to be a tired old joke?"
How does it feel to have a total lack of reading comprehension?
It's highly meaningful, as it speaks to a behavioral motives, and behavior is much easier to change than genetics.
"Everything we humans do we do because we perceive it to be easier than the alternatives."
Funny, but I don't think going to work, school, doing chores, or exercising to be easier than that alternative. Oh right, it's not.
I thought anyone who's ever owned both has tried this. Heck, I did this a few years ago. It's fine for light-impact walking, but you're much better off taking less time and using it smarter on an elliptical, stair, or an incline treadmill. Of course, since I don't do any of that, maybe I shouldn't talk :)
I'm sorry, but this statement alone: "If you take IN more than you USE, you gain weight. If you USE more than you TAKE IN, you lose weight." either indicates that you are specifying the nonstandard usage of "take in", or it highlights that you're an idiot that's ignoring the fact that the body doesn't use all of the caloric content that is "taken in" in the standard sense thus making your statement only half true -- your second part holds under either definition.
So... would your rather be considered an idiot for not knowing what you wrote, or an idiot for not understanding some of the more basic aspects of the human body?
You may want to ponder that for a while.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energ y
And argue with that fatboy.
"If you take IN more than you USE, you gain weight. If you USE more than you TAKE IN, you lose weight." either indicates that you are specifying the nonstandard usage of "take in" or it highlights that you're an idiot that's ignoring the fact that the body doesn't use all of the caloric content that is "taken in" in the standard sense thus making your statement only half true -- your second part holds under either definition."
HEY MORON, THE AMOUNT "TAKEN IN" DOESN'T CHANGE BASED ON HOW MUCH IS USED BY THE BODY UNDER ANY DEFINITION.
SO, would you rather shut the fuck up because you can't read worht a fuck, or shut the fuck up because you're too stupid to comprehend that simple fact?
"Oh, so the answer is "stupid"? Thanks for the clarification."
Yes, and the question was "How does the entire human race rate Drinkypoo's posts?"
Now go have a Twinkie you fat loser.