The Standing Desk and Getting 10K Steps at Work

Over the last month, just about every aspect of my life has been altered in some fashion. I moved to a new city, a new bedroom, with new roommates. I am the new girl (one of many) in my singles ward, with two new callings and all new people to meet (so far, they are wonderful and far too athletic). I got a new (to me) car, a new commute and a new monthly budget for gas (hint: its lower!). New running routes and a decided lack of new running partners. My job also moved to said new city and new building. Most importantly, my work gave me a new convertible standing desk. (The word new is starting to look weird now … New. New. New. See? Weird.)

Now, with everything in my life being so new, it has been difficult to adjust and find a new normal. I’ve been understandably stressed and miraculously only had one panic attack of uncontrollable sobbing and . Usually I carry stress in my lower back. But not anymore! I have had a standing desk for all of eight days and after only two days my low back pain is gone. I’ve had low back pain caused by stress and laziness for about ten years so this is kind of a big deal. And the best part? I’m only standing about an hour and a half daily, spread out into three chunks throughout the day.

Having a desk job is hard on your body. Everyone knows this so I won’t go into detail about how sitting is killing you. But I will say that I am so very grateful that I was given a standing desk. Its amazing how much better my whole body feels, like dropping the giant bag of rocks you didn’t know you were carrying.

Another new things in my life is my FitBit Ultra. Like many of my possessions, I bought it second at a bargain and it has been working great as the previous owner never really used it. And now that I’ve become part of the FitBit madness and the 10K Steps a Day Program at my work, I have a new goal: to get 10K steps just at work. And so far, I’ve done it twice. Next week, I’m going to try to make it the whole week.

I have been walking on my morning and afternoon breaks regularly for a few years now but it wasn’t nearly enough to reach 10K steps in 8 hours. Cue the standing desk! I have found a way of “walking” at my desk by trying to imitate the motion of walking while keeping the balls of my feet on the ground. That’s the best way I can explain it. Anyway, I can get about 100 steps per minute while at my desk. So I only have to “walk” at my desk for about an hour a day (spread out, of course) to reach my 10K steps a day at work. It takes a bit of disciple and I can’t do all of my tasks while bouncing at my desk but there is enough mindless work that this is very possible to do every day.

So here’s to walking to Mordor, ten thousand steps at a time.