Treadmill Desk

Sitting kills more than smoking — the research behind treadmill desks

Tai Lopez breaks down Dr. James Levine's research showing that sitting is worse than smoking, and that gym exercise alone cannot offset a full day of sitting.

"did you know that sitting kills more people now than smoking? So, you know, the seat in your car, your desk at your work, you know, sofa watching TV. According to this doctor in today's book of the day, Get Up, he says these are the real killers in the world."

NEAT — why non-exercise activity determines body composition

Lopez explains NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) — how non-gym activity like walking throughout the day is the biggest factor in whether people stay lean, with farm workers burning up to 2,000 extra calories versus office workers.

"Alright, did you know that sitting kills more people now than smoking? So, you know, the seat in your car, your desk at your work, you know, sofa watching TV. According to this doctor in today's book of the day, Get Up, he says these are the real killers in the world. He makes a crazy bold claim. He says for every two hours sitting or every one hour sitting, you cut two years off your lifespan. So he's not a pseudoscientist. This is a guy who runs a Mayo Clinic at a big university. He's been doing research since the 1990s. This is actually my treadmill desk that I actually had before I heard of this book, even though I found out now this guy invented the treadmill desk so look the world now I think the US spends just past over three trillion dollars in health care costs per year you know for you and I everybody in the modern world's dealing with being overweight one in three people have high blood pressure about 25% of the US and a lot of the world is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. It's actually a big problem in China where you can eat Kentucky Fried Chicken all the time. Believe it or not, that's the most popular restaurant there. So here's the takeaways from this book that I got. Going to the gym will not offset you sitting all day. I thought that was interesting because a lot of of people's idea is like, I'll do 45 minutes at the gym, then go to work, sit six or seven hours, and then the gym is supposed to make up for that. But he says there's four major studies in the US and Australia that all concluded the same thing. You can't offset sitting all day, no matter how much you go to the gym. Okay okay so go to it and I actually saw the US government published something they're usually not publishing much on actually being healthy but they published something that said same thing you can't offset sitting by 45 minutes at the gym just jumping even on a treadmill like this it has to be long periods of time because this book talks about the way the human DNA is built. And our DNA doesn't change that fast. So we have the same DNA that our ancestors had 10,000 years ago and beyond. And they spent most of their time sitting or sleeping, right? So number two thing I thought was interesting in this book, he says they were trying to study why some people eat a lot and get fat and some people eat a lot and don't get fat. And basically it comes down to this NEAT, which is Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis."

Walking after eating cuts blood sugar in half

A 15-minute walk after eating can drop blood sugar spikes by half, making treadmill desks especially relevant for preventing diabetes and metabolic disease.

"if you go for a light walk, okay, right after you eat for 15 minutes, so this Dr. Levine, he says now, after he eats a meal, he just moves around. It'll drop your blood pressure, I mean, sorry, your blood sugar in half."

Practical treadmill desk usage — 10,000 steps while working

Lopez demonstrates his Lifespan treadmill desk at 1.2 mph, showing how at just 1.1 mph you can walk nearly 5 miles in 4 hours and hit 10,000+ steps while working normally.

"So basically you and I, according to this doctor, it says about 60% of the calories we burn every day come from just what they call your basal, your resting basal metabolism rate. So that's just like laying down, you know, breathing, your brain burns. Your brain, I think, burns about 20, 25% of all your calories just thinking. So then he says another 10% is from the actual heat process of eating. And then some of it's activity exercise. But he says the largest one, the biggest variable that makes a lot of people skinny, able to eat junk food and say skinny versus people that are fat, not necessarily junk food, but the same amount of food. He did a big study where they ate an extra 54,000 calories. He thought that was crazy. It was like a three-year study. And what happened is it's non-exercise activity that really matters, meaning going to the gym is exercise activity. He said it's hard to burn in 45 minutes enough energy. So if you look at a treadmill like you go to the gym, you run for a while, you only burn like 100 or 200 calories. So he said the difference is in this non-exercise thermogenesis, meaning a farm worker who walks all day when they're at work, okay, will burn like up to, they said, up to 2,000 extra calories versus a secretary who just sits in a chair all day. So he said focus on not what he called volitional exercise, like going to the gym. Like, oh, now I'm going to go to the gym for 45 minutes. He's saying focus on the rest of the day, which if you've heard my talk on, you know, I did one on holidays, it's the same principle. Don't optimize for the 45 minutes of your life that you're at a gym. Optimize the whole day. That's when you burn most of your calories, according to this. All right, number three. Sorry, I gave you the solution. Well, before I said that, he talked about education system, which you know I'm big on. Children, he was saying, this is bad, I'm going to read this. In the U.S. currently, 4% of elementary kids, 8% of middle school kids, and only 2% of high school kids have daily PE, physical education. So then he's talking about all these kids diagnosed with ADD and all this stuff. He says it's a huge part. It's because you can't take kids and have them sit all day. It makes no sense. It goes against human DNA. And like my mentor, Joel Salatin, told me, anytime you're looking at something and it's going against the grain of nature, he used to tell me, Mother Nature laughs last. And that's what the world we live in now, where 60% of people are overweight. 60%, first time in history, more people are overweight than malnourished. You know, 100 years ago, there were people on their deathbed because they didn't have enough food. Now it's the opposite. So, next thing he said that I thought was cool. He studied with this top diabetes clinic, and they were studying what happens after you eat. So, right after you eat, your blood pressure peaks, right? Because what's happening is your pancreas is producing insulin. Insulin pushes the sugar, the glucose, into your muscle so you get energy, basically. That's an oversimplification, but that's basically the process. So what happens is, or what they found is, if you go for a light walk, okay, right after you eat for 15 minutes, so this Dr. Levine, he says now, after he eats a meal, he just moves around. It'll drop your blood pressure, I mean, sorry, your blood sugar in half. So if you just eat a lot, especially if you eat a lot of junk food, and then you just lay on the couch and watch the game, he said those blood sugar peaks stay high for too long and that is a precursor to diabetes and it's interesting pre diabetes is a huge problem meaning you're not quite diabetic I read somewhere not in this book but by 2030 50% of kids in the US are going to show symptoms of either diabetes or. Man, I always say, you've got to wonder about the strength of any nation that poisons their own kids. Not that people do it on purpose, but if you get pulled over by the cops and you say you didn't know that you were speeding, they don't care. The way the law works is you are penalized whether or not you're doing it on purpose. If you're accidentally speaking, you still get a ticket."

Why even fit people need a treadmill desk

Stefan explains that despite working out daily and doing fitness competitions, Dr. Levine's research convinced him that gym exercise cannot offset hours of sitting. The history of the chair and sedentary work is a product of the industrial revolution.

"what really inspired me to invest in a treadmill desk was actually a book. And the book is called Get Up. And it's called Get Up, Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Should Do About It."

More productive walking than sitting — the opposite of what you'd expect

Stefan reports that walking at 1 mph while working actually increased his productivity. More oxygen and blood flow activates the brain, making him feel more alert and focused compared to sitting.

"What I've found is that I've been more productive because when you're actually moving and you're breathing, you're taking in more oxygen, what happens is it activates different parts of your brain. You feel more alert. You feel more focused. You feel more energetic."

Treadmill desk as a life-changing investment

Stefan considers the treadmill desk one of his top two investments ever, noting his body is getting leaner and he can't imagine going back to sitting after experiencing the benefits.

"Once you read this book, especially, I don't know how you can continue sitting once you know the research and the information and the effects of it. Now that I have this and I use it every day, going back to sitting is insane."

How an exercise physiologist designed a better treadmill desk

Rob Jacobs explains how observing Dr. James Levine's treadmill desk on TV led him to design a wider, shorter, quieter version specifically for office work, drawing on his background at the Pritikin Longevity Center.

"I saw Dr. James Levine on, I think, Good Morning America with a treadmill desk and being a fitness instructor and a fitness trainer, exercise physiologist. I thought it was, you know, it wasn't enough exercise to cause any real health effect. So I didn't pay much attention to it."

Typing adaptation period and improved focus

Jacobs describes the 2-3 week adaptation period where typing speed and accuracy drop before returning to normal. He now has zero chairs in his home office — even his kids do homework on a treadmill desk.

"My emails had a lot of typos in it. I was having to go back and make corrections. I couldn't type as fast. But after a couple of weeks, I started getting used to that. My typing speed, my typing accuracy returned."

The physiological cascade of prolonged sitting

Jacobs explains the full physiological damage chain from sitting — feet signal the brain to shut down alertness, circulation drops, spinal discs compress, nerve pain develops, and insulin resistance begins.

"when you stand up and put weight on the bottom of your feet, put your whole body weight onto your feet, it sends a signal right up to your brain that we're awake. There could be threats out there that we have to watch out for. There could be opportunities that we might want to take advantage."

Stanford study — creativity increases 60% while walking

Jacobs references the Stanford creativity study and historical examples of walking fueling innovation, from Nikola Tesla inventing the AC motor on the beach to Steve Jobs taking walking meetings.

"Nikolai Tesla invented the AC induction motor while walking around on the beach. And Steve Jobs was famous for taking engineers out on walks in his backyard to think of new solutions. Reagan Gorbachev ended the Cold War on a walk in Reykjavik, Iceland."

Walking pads vs standing desks — which to buy first

If you can only afford one piece of gear, a walking pad may be more impactful than a standing desk because it introduces actual movement, not just a change of posture.

"The most important thing is just not sitting all day. If you only have the budget for one thing and you have the ability to get away from your desk for 10 to 15 minutes every so often, getting the walking pad first gets you to that goal much faster."