We all know that, as Americans, we spend too much time watching TV and not enough time exercising. Some ambitious multitaskers try to have their cake and work it off, too, by setting up a stationary bike or elliptical machine in front of the television. Unfortunately, for many of us that translates into about seven minutes of sweating and then a solid hour (or more) of slouching and staring at back-to-back reruns of Yes, Dear.

Well, now there’s a solution to this problem. D Squared Technologies gives us an ingenious fitness product for killing two birds with one stone: the TV Pedaler, a portable exercise machine that plugs into your television and keeps the picture clear only for as long as you continue to pedal. It’s for the sort of people who keep a lot of low-fat ice cream in their freezer—provided the freezer is at the top of a 30-foot climbing rope.

The TV Pedaler is really nothing more than a pair of pedals attached to a small but sturdy base, and a wire that connects to your TV, which will, in theory, work only for as long as you do. (Different attachments or versions are available for PCs and video-game consoles.) The TV Pedaler comes packed in a small box, and assembly truly takes about five minutes, even if you catch yourself watching TV while you do it. There’s nothing electrical to plug in. Just connect one end of the Pedaler’s wire to your incoming cable or antenna line and the other to the input on your TV or cable box, pull up the chair of your choice and pedal away for as long as you can stomach Stone Phillips.