I am the latest convert to the supposedly healthy trend of using a standing desk as opposed to a sitting one. I try to get in my 10,000 steps each day, but don’t always make that mark. I haven’t been able to make time for actual workouts lately, and despite that I want to do what I can to stay healthy and in good shape. One way of doing that is standing. I spent most of my weekdays sitting. I sit at my desk at work for 9 hours each day. I sit some more at home in the evenings. The desk I have at home doesn’t lend itself to converting to a standing desk, but the modular desk I have at work is designed for it. All I had to do was push a button and lift. And so here is my new standing desk:

To understand the difference, consider that previously, the surface of my desk was more or less level to the surface of the small table you see to the left of my desk. One I converted to a standing desk, I felt like my monitor was too low, so I set it atop a stack of books that I no longer use (because they are out of date).

My idea was to start using the standing desk on Monday, but I thought it would be much more difficult to convert it. Instead, it took about 2 minutes. So I started at 1pm and now, 80 minutes into this new experiment, I already understand why folks say the first few days are rough. Already I can feel the strain in my legs.

But I’m going to stick with it and see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted. But if anyone has suggestions for making a standing desk work–hurdles you overcame, tips or tricks, whatever–post them in the comments. I’d love to hear about them.