As I recall, the character in question was constantly at a brisk walking pace and was rather obese with bad eating habits.

I agree, Skeletor is an oversale of the health benefits but as common knowledge, the further you are from your ideal weight, the easier to is to lose weight and balanced with proper eating habits, its not unreasonable to suggest that a walking desk is would slim someone down, especially if aided in other exercise outside of work.

Very OT, but did you find REAMDE to be a bit weak? I found the plot became more and more contrived, and seemed to miss the imagination and scale of Stephenson's other books. The number of highly unlikely coincidences in the plot is incredible, and I got the feeling that he got bored writing it, and just wrapped everything up neatly in a ridiculously unlikely end-scenario.