MY GIRL SCOUT GOLD AWARD PROJECT

What if I told you there was a fairly simple and inexpensive way to work or learn from home during these isolating, challenging times that would not only increase your stamina and attention span, minimize back pain and lose a few pounds in the process, all while giving you a feeling of accomplishment?

A do-it-yourself treadmill desk could be part of your new normal. The process comes down to an investment of about $20 in materials, less than an hour of labor and a few personal modifications to make sure it’s all safe and secure.

Let me walk you through this...step by step. It’s really no sweat.

When COVID restrictions first sidetracked all of us in March of 2020, I quickly realized my senior year at South Torrance High school would come with some challenges none of us may have been prepared for.

I’m a very active person, performing with the school’s color guard team, and throwing both the discus and shot put for the track team. Also having done 12 years of Girl Scouts, my Gold Award Project ideas had been brewing.

If COVID-19 was going to turn everything upside down, I needed to find a right side up. Not just how to keep up with my grades heading into college, but also feel physically, mentally and emotionally balanced.

If this is what they were calling distance learning, I was inspired to reflect on my own needs.

My own experience working from my bedroom – actually lying in bed a lot of the time – made my own anxiety levels go up. I was reading more about that data of obesity rates climbing, depression and anxiety at its highest levels, and teenagers like me struggling just to keep our sanity.

Doing more research, there was data showing obesity rates increasing. It was already at 42.8 percent in 2018, the highest in 20 years. In the last 30 years, obesity was twice as much in children and four-times as much with teens. New and quick delivery services that let us access cheap and easy fast foods was increasing rates of diabetes and chronic heart disease, connected with an inactive lifestyle. It was now more apparent than ever that these rates will see an increase for the year 2020.

Ever hear of the “Quarantine 15”? That’s the term some are using to explain all the new pounds gained during our shelter-in-place experience from stress eating and cravings for a normal life. Comfort foods are our way of fighting off stress hormones pumped into our blood stream, and our cravings for fats, sugars and salts increase after the stressors hit our bodies.

More research shows our bodies are connected with our minds that our ability to focus on difficult cognitive tasks is directly linked to inadequate physical activity. It’s “healthy body, healthy mind.”

Watching my dad and brother as office-type workers trying to find the right balance working from home. Most of the time they looked ill-equipped sitting on a sofa, or working hunched over at their desk for up to 10 hours a day and not able to go to their local gym for any physical outlet.

For many of us high school athletes, afterschool practices and athletic training programs have been reduced to zero. It’s a change in our lifestyle that has us longing for anything to get us moving.

Walking on a treadmill one morning, the pieces were coming together. Why couldn’t we do some multitasking?  Learn or work while walking.

The idea of a treadmill-desk hybrid isn’t necessarily new. But it has never seemed to be more necessary than now especially with so many of us at home and unable to run over to the gym for the most basic workouts. Online searches for specific treadmill desks over the last few years seems to have become more of a fad, and an expensive one at that. They can range from a $300 attachment to a $3,000 investment.

I started out using a skin board as my first prototype to start working out the ideas and designs I wanted and sketching them on ruled notebook paper as I walked on the treadmill. My dad – as my handyman – then helped me create a prototype. Drilling holes, sanding things down and making everything level, it may not have looked much different than building a surfboard merging functionality and mobility. Plus, it gave us a reason to reclaim my mother’s treadmill that had been just sitting there acting as a clothesline for years.

For my own desk, I figured out ways to make it more fitting my needs, adding charging outlets, and even an elevated platform for note-taking.

Did you know: Just walking 1 to 2 miles per hour increases focus, concentration, blood flow and oxygen. Although it may be tempting to pick up the pace, but that only allows the good oxygen to start flowing more to the muscles instead of the brain.

And doing things standing up, rather than constantly sitting with poor posture, shows back pain can be reduced by as much as 31 percent.

Also interesting is that studies show walking is a great solution for those who may be struggling with staying focused or rely on medications to stay focused.

At this point in my Girl Scout Gold Award process, I am happy to say I have been working with Beach Cities Health District project advocates and advisors. I have built a prototype for its Center of Health and Fitness and have developed video tutorials, as well as conducted small group classes to show how to do this.

Right now, it is just putting one small step in front of the other, and keeping it moving forward.