Treadmill Desk for Food Bloggers |Cooking With Amanda

Life as a food writer can be exciting, creatively inspiring, and can mean hours on my feet each day running around the kitchen testing new recipes. On the other hand, it can also mean there are times when I am chained to my desk writing recipes, composing blogs and updating social media.

I love the days when I am "out and about" and I have begun to dread the days where I had to just sit in my office for hours at a time. By the end of the day my knees were stiff and my back was sore from all that sitting. I knew there had to be a solution to these "desk days."

So, I started googling and came upon the LifeSpan Fitness Treadmill Desks. Could a treadmill desk be a tool for food writers and bloggers like myself? Could it be the solution to anyone who spends a significant portion of their work day behind a computer screen? I decided to check it out for myself.

Keep reading to learn more…

The idea is simple – a traditional treadmill specifically designed to be attached to a stand-up desk surface. This particular design has a large work surface, a soft pad to rest your wrists while typing and a non-obtrusive control panel.

I kept reading that for maintaining a healthy (aka non-sedentary) lifestyle, we should make it a goal to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. At first that sounds like quite a bit, but with this treadmill desk, I found it was a BREEZE to attain.

Here is a snapshot of a typical day in "The Daily Dish" office: A laptop, a few cookbooks and room to take notes.

There is one very important thing to remember when it comes to incorporating a treadmill desk into your daily lifestyle. This is not an alternative to exercise, it's an alternative to sitting! Your heart rate doesn't rise, and you don't sweat. And that's a good thing! You are moving… pure and simple.

I found work on the treadmill desk was best for moderate to low focus activities. Perfect for checking email, taking calls, updating Facebook (come on, you know you can hit 10,000 steps a day just in the time you spend browsing Facebook!). I even took conference calls with my phone on speaker while I was walking and no one ever knew a thing!

On the other hand, work that requires a higher level of focus is not suited for the desk. I found myself hitting pause when I needed to finely edit photos or compose an important email.

Because this desk is specifically designed for walking, the speed only goes up to 4 miles per hour. For me, the perfect work and stroll pace was 1.5 mph. At that pace I could keep moving, but also keep my focus on work. Your pace might be faster or slower, but it is easy to experiment and find the right pace for you.

There was one very exciting observation in my treadmill desk experiment. When I would "walk and work" I found I got more done than when I would sit at a desk. There was something more purposeful about the work. Maybe it is because once you get your blood pumping, it helps your brain work more efficiently!

I even made a quick insagram video of the experience, check it out! http://instagram.com/p/cCTdy1tvrL/

From start to finish, it took me about 2 hours to compose this story. That includes editing the photos, writing the content, and posting it all to social media. In that time I took 9,600 steps, walked just under 3 miles, and burned 291 calories.

Do the math: 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (everyone gets a vacation) that's 72,750 extra calories burned, or 20 pounds a year just writing The Daily Dish!

If you ask me, those numbers are staggering. And that's just writing one blog entry. When you add in the time you spend paying bills online, browsing Pinterest or just checking email, it is easy to log even more steps each day. As for me, I am completely sold on the LifeSpan Treadmill Desk!