Work out and get paid for it

Burn calories at your computer.

Sounds like a come-on, doesn’t it? But there’s a plan afoot to put computers atop treadmills and exercise bikes to help you do just that.

It’s called a NEAT office, and it has more to do with getting your body in shape than your cubicle. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis -- the scientific term for burning calories at your desk job and in other nontraditional workout settings.

“We lead an unbelievably sedentary existence,” says James Levine, a Mayo Clinic physician and professor of nutrition, who created the office idea. “We are screen-tied.”

Levine has built NEAT offices and a research lab to test his theories at Mayo’s headquarters in Rochester, Minn. His computer sits atop a $350 Sears treadmill that he bought nearly two years ago. Levine walks on it while answering e-mail, writing grant proposals, analyzing data and talking on the phone.

There’s no danger that he will break a sweat. How could he, walking at a pace that never exceeds 1 mph? That’s about as fast as most people can go while still being able to read easily. But even that leisurely speed burns about an extra 100 calories an hour, according to Levine’s research. It’s enabled him to shed 15 pounds this last year. “And I wasn’t overweight to start with,” he notes.

The weight-loss potential for the two-thirds of adults who are overweight or obese may be even greater. Obese people typically spend 2 1/2 more hours sitting per day than do lean people. In a recent report, Levine found that obese office workers who used NEAT office set-ups burned an extra 120 calories more per hour than they did sitting. In an eight-hour workday, that could add up to up to 1,000 extra calories burned -- or potentially 1.5 pounds lost per week.

He draws the line at incorporating stair climbers and elliptical trainers into the NEAT design. “Conceptually,” he says, “it doesn’t make sense to me, because of the head-bobbing. It is that head-bobbing that makes looking at a computer screen quite difficult.”

But is this approach practical outside the research lab? Lois Yurow of Westfield, N.J., thinks so.

Inspired by a news report of Levine’s work, she commissioned a carpenter to build a desk for a treadmill in her home office. Yurow bought a 19-inch flat-screen monitor for her treadmill and got a wireless keyboard and mouse. She spent a total of about $2,000.

The treadmill is too loud to allow Yurow, a freelance editor, to use while talking to clients without feeling self-conscious. But it’s fine while she’s editing or chatting with friends. “It certainly makes me feel more comfortable and keeps me awake on days that I am groggy,” she says.