For the past year and a half I have mostly been staring at a computer and typing a lot. I went from a "road warrior" who used a tiny laptop to do all of my work to someone who sits in a chair all day and works exclusively on a desktop. I only need to walk from my bed to my desk, with most of my exercise coming from going downstairs (I live in an apartment where the bedrooms are over the living room and kitchen) to make food or pick up deliveries (which then involves climbing back up the stairs: the real challenge). I go outside to take out the trash (at night: the day is feeling stranger and stranger of a time to be outside). I have gained 80 pounds ("and counting"). I dunno: other than that I expect to die soon from this lifestyle :/, it isn't hard or particularly boring? ...and again: this is coming from someone who used to spend most of his time traveling to convergences giving talks in front of large audiences and swimming through crowds; there are truly an infinite number of things that one can do without ever having to even leave bed (and that's even if you ignore sleeping, which is like holding down the fast forward button on life ;P).

> I have trouble understanding[...] What do they do all day?

Sedentary activities? Look at your chair or couch or bed, and consider all the things you can do there.

Ever had a lazy sunday? Got out of bed late, watched some tv on the couch, played some Xbox, ordered in pizza, made some phonecalls, browsed some on the internet, went to bed?

Can easily be just 500 steps in the house on a day like that.

Replace that with working from home and not doing anything after work but the above (netflix, xbox etc) and you get the same thing.

To get to 4-5k steps you'd need to actively do something. Most people walk about 6k steps per hour, so to get to 4-5k you'd need about 40-50 minutes of walking. Say that day you visit a friend or do groceries and spend 15 minutes in the store but drive to/from the store and to your friend, you're not even hitting that 40-50 minutes of pure walking.

It's easy to walk 40-50min on a day, it's also easy not to, depending on your lifestyle.

My commute is 20ft, this increases by as much as 30% if i get out the other side of the bed.

I get a 30 minute walk every day in lockdown but you can only trudge aimlessly around the same grey/brown industrial estate so many times before losing the will.

WFH gives me the opportunity to be on a long streak of 100 steps a day.

I have to actively choose to go for a long walk in order to reach the 10k mark.

Taking a bus, riding a bike, going into the subway. It doesn’t add up to a lot.

Sit at a computer for work all day so that you can sit at a computer for fun all night.

We write code, unfortunately.

> What do they do all day?

The only reason I leave the house is to buy groceries, basically.

Drive instead of walk.