Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Rochester, Minnesota, medical college, whose research has fueled some U.S. workers to spend their days on treadmills or indoor tracks, walking as they talk on the telephone, send e-mails and even hold meetings. Researchers at the Mayo clinic said that a walking worker can burn 100 calories an hour, 800 calories a day. The results of the research are published in the journal Science and medical journals. Levine said that this would save time, money and free a person from obesity-related health problems.
His research is named NEAT meaning non-exercise activity thermogenesis. He said that research has found that people burn energy on mundane activities. Levine has designed offices to keep workers on the move, with treadmills outfitted with desks, computers and telephones, and office walking tracks, marked by lines on the floor. By this way exercise and the work goes hand in hand.
AdvertisementThomas Niccum, president of Lancet Software in Burnsville, Minnesota, has created his office treadmill at the start of this year. He estimates that he has walked about 120 miles on the job losing about five 5 pounds without dieting. But he said that the sad state is that his colleagues think he is weird and have not signed up for an office treadmill.
Dr. Joseph Stirt, an anesthesiologist in Charlottesville, Virginia, who estimates he spends eight to 12 hours a day working and walking on his treadmill in his home office. He says that he is addicted to it. He says that he walks an hour a day in reverse. He says he is so used to it that he even plans to take it to the community hospital operating room and do his job there while he paces.