Sedentary jobs

[chloeedmonds]

Hello, doing some research for my dissertation. I was wondering if people believe their 

sedentary jobs can get in the way of reaching their daily step goals? How do some people overcome this?

Moderator edit: format

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

Hi @chloeedmonds - interesting project! I mainly agree with your premise, having had an office job. It COULD get in the way, but it did not HAVE to.  I worked around it a couple ways. 

• I took “smoking breaks” a couple times a day. No, I was not a smoker. The first time I was challenged, I respectfully told them that if smokers were allowed to get breaks, so should the non-smokers. It was a big office building. I walked for the same time it took a smoker to have 2 cigarettes. 
• I walked at every opportunity. Many of these “tricks” I learned here in the forums. 
  • Park at the back of the parking lot. 
  • Take a walking lunch when ever possible. 
  • I would get to work early and walk around the building, inside or out, depending on the weather.
  • We had two building with shuttle service available. It was only the equivalent of a 4 block walk, so, weather and schedule permitting, I walked to and from meetings in the different buildings. 
  • If I had reading or thinking to do, I did it while walking the halls whenever possible. 

I consistently met my goals.

[DavideFitbit]

Hi @chloeedmonds! It is a bit more difficult to reach out step goals while having a sedentary job. 

I've had a sedentary job for 8 years now, and I was only conscious of how little I was actually moving everyday until I started using Fitbit.

The best way to overcome this is to take advantage of every opportunity in our daily routines to take a few extra steps (taking the stairs, taking the dog for a walk, walking while listening to music, cleaning the house, going to the store, parking further away from the entrance at our jobs and many other things), this is how I was able to reach my daily step goal! 

[t.parker]

I've been working sedentary job for 21 years. The job certainly affected my fitness level (or rather unfitness looking a few years back). At my desk, I move very little. When I started taking more care of my fitness, I tried to reach my step goals at all cost and while being at work it was quite difficult. Fitbit was my very first fitness oriented device and I remember that receiving hourly reminder to move while I was sitting in the meeting was kinda stressful. Until now, I have days during which I don't meet my step goal (assuming "step goal" =  "default" 10k) but it isn't important anymore. I incorporated actual sports into my lifestyle and steps lost any meaning. It's not a measure of anything really. Migrating to another sports watches, first thing I turn off are any step-based notifications and goals. I don't want that, especially while being at work - they are distracting. Instead, I plan ahead. For example, this morning, after arriving at the car park, first, I did 5k run and then went to my office (we have showers, very convenient). Yesterday, I did 8k lunchtime run etc. Since I commute now (I had a luxury of living near my workplace, just a few minutes walk but not anymore) I need to prepare for my day but I find it kinda refreshing. Sedentary job is just that - sedentary job and rather than fighting it (I won't be changing my job anytime soon) I accepted it and built my lifestyle around it. I plan activities before work, after work, during work if possible (lunchtime). It really is easier than it sounds. I prefer to have one big exercise a day rather than think all day long whether I reached my steps goal 🙂

[Gallovidian]

It's easy now that I'm working from home all the time - I can just get up and walk around when the Fitbit buzzes. Even if I'm in a meeting I can turn off the camera and walk around the room whilst still listening. For me, that isn't about getting the steps in, it's about not sitting still without moving for hours on end - which wasn't good for me. I do other stuff outside of work hours (running, working out etc.) which are usually enough to get a daily 10k in but I don't stress if I don't hit 10k - it's an arbitrary number and as long as I've been active during the day and not sat still for hours on end I'm happy.

[DavideFitbit]

Thank you for sharing your experience with this @t.parker, and welcome to the Community forums @Gallovidian! 

It certainly is difficulty to organize yourself if you are required to be seated most of the time, but I totally agree, now that many of us are working from home it's much more easier and comfortable to stand up and just walk for a couple minutes, and it really makes a difference, at least it has for me (I have 3 hernias in my lower back 😞). 

[t.parker]

@DavideFitbit I find myself a lot more organized and motivated since I came back into the office. WFH was ok but with my current arrangements it isn't possible anymore. It was too easy for me to get lazy while working from home. I had days which were not just sedentary but depressive. I believe, WFH isn't for everyone. Also, being the only person on my office floor is pretty cool 😁

[cathm]

Hi @chloeedmonds 

I believe a sedentary job gets in the way of reaching my daily step goal.  

Some things I do to overcome it:

Print to the printer the farthest away from my desk

Take the stairs instead of the elevator

Instead of a lunch break, I take 4 15 minutes breaks throughout the day to take a power walk

When I am on a phone meeting/call, I walk back and forth in front of my desk

I hope this helps with your project 😊

[DavideFitbit]

I do miss going to the office and I was definitely doing more steps when I wasn't working from home @t.parker @cathm 😔, what I definitely don't miss is the traffic and commute to work 😁. 

[Ennay]

It was a lot easier when my sedentary job was in an office rather than home.  I have noticed that just working at the office is 3-4000 more steps than working at home because of lots of little trips.  I go in 1-2 days a week and it is a big difference on those days.  Although some of that may even out if we ever do go back to full time at the office because I am scrambling on the days I am there to do all the things that can only be done at the office. Lots of walking back and forth to the printer. 

OTOH at home it is a lot easier to eat lunch while I am working and then use my lunch hour to walk.   But I used to walk to work 2-3 days a week and I have a much harder time making myself "walk to work" for 20-30 minutes when my work is just in the next room. 

I wish I noticed the hourly alert, I just don't even feel it anymore. 

[SunsetRunner]

I also bought a undertable elliptical machine and place my Fitbit device in my sock when peddling. It can skew your other data but steps are what’s most important to me. Granted, I’m not coordinated enough to type and peddle at the same time, but if I’m reading/listening, I’m peddling. 

[shipo]

Interesting thread, the easy answer to both of your questions is, "It depends".  Yeah, yeah, I know that's a copout, but it is also the truth.

I started in a "sedentary" job back in August of 1978 and since then have never had anything but.  Needless to say, for the first 35 years of my career there was hardly such a thing as a "step goal", and there were indeed times during that period with virtually no activity as well as stretches where I was extremely active (running marathons, doing triathlons, and just general fitness running and other activities).

Since I got my first Fitbit at the end of April 2015 I've had good periods of heavy running, logging upwards of 350 miles in a single month, and periods when I was down to basically zero with various (non running related) broken bones and then COVID last year.  I think the key thing is to just keep getting back on the horse every time you get knocked off.

[JuanJoFitbit]

@jjuliajul11 @shipo, I've been working from home as you guys and I've been recommended by some friends and family members that we need to stand up at least every 20 minutes. Fill the water bottle, going to the bathroom when necessary or just walk by the desk and do some stretching exercises so we can avoid serious complications with our health.

Stress, glucose and high blood pressure can affect us all, no matter our age.

Hope you guys are finding a way to fight sedentary time and staying safe.

[shipo]

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@JuanJoFitbit wrote:

I've been working from home as you guys and I've been recommended by some friends and family members that we need to stand up at least every 20 minutes. Fill the water bottle, going to the bathroom when necessary or just walk by the desk and do some stretching exercises so we can avoid serious complications with our health.

LOL, that wouldn't cut it for me; since recovering from a broken leg two years ago this week, and then COVID a year ago, I've gotten out and hiked and walked literally 2,000 miles, and still I gained over 50 pounds of weight and still my RHR gradually climbed from the low 40s to the high 50s.  I figure my body could care less what forms of activity I engage in, with the exception of running, it is going to gain weight and get out of shape. I have just recently recovered enough from both of those health issues to gradually start running again, and *finally* my weight and RHR are coming back down; but I still have a long way to go to get to pre-broken leg levels.

Quite honestly I marvel at folks who can walk a few miles per day and lose weight and get fit.

[t.parker]

@shipo I think, for people who just walk and lose/maintain their weight it's not about the type of activity they do but simply because they are better at controlling what and how much they eat. They are less likely to be overeaters. Additionally, some of them may have won a genetic lottery. Same here, for me walking doesn't do much. When I walk it very rarely elevates my HR is over 100bpm and the power produced by the walk (tested it with Stryd) is so little that as well I could just stay at home. It is insignificant when it comes to losing weight. On the other hand, while walking outdoor, let's say 2 hours hike. It means that those 2 hours are without access to a fridge 🙂 I may not be burning much (or even almost nothing at all) but I don't consume anything - this may help. In fact, the way I see it, it's not about walking (which anyway it's a good thing) but about staying away from eating 🙂 This is one of the reasons why I decided to go back into the office despite the lockdown in the UK. I can work from home but I don't want to. The fridge is too near at home.

[shipo]

@t.parker I suppose food might have something to do with it, but oddly enough, when I'm running, I eat a heck of a lot more than I do when not; in fact, when I'm running regularly, I eat very nearly twice the volume of food, and yet, I still lose weight rather rapidly.  Go figure.

Thinking about the difference between running and walking, albeit, walking on a dry paved rail trail compared to "running" an uneven snow covered surface which was partially melted and refrozen, yesterday I ran the exact same course I did on 27-Sep-2020; the similarities and the differences are a bit surprising:

Date	Miles	Steps	Minutes	AVG BPM	Calories
27-Sep-20	6.58	13,100	115:33	88	959
23-Feb-21	6.55	11,966	74:57	128	983

Like you, my BPM stays pretty low during the walk, the calories consumed are very close, surprisingly close in my mind, the step count is also close, however, that has more to do with the fact running on the snowy/icy/rutted surface yesterday dictated a very short stride length; I typically log fewer than 10,000 steps for that distance when running on a dry surface.  Back to the calories; my theory regarding why I lose weight when running but not when walking has to do with the energy burned during recovery; the assumption here is my body continues burning calories for upwards of 24 hours after a run whereas walking doesn't require much recovery.  My daily heart rate graphs pretty much bear this out as once my walk was complete last September, my heart rate quickly went back to pre-walk levels, however, after my run yesterday my heart rate didn't get back to pre-run levels for roughly 6 hours.

Date	Pre Exercise	End Exercise	5-minutes post exercise	Time until Pre-Exercise BPM
27-Sep-20	53	91	53	N/A
23-Feb-21	47	147	73	Plus-6 hours to return to sub-50

One final thought; per my Fitbit Activity logs, I burned 2,929 calories on 27-Sep-2020, yesterday, which was spent at my desk with the exception of my run, burned 3,951 calories, over a thousand more.  Definitely a big difference.

[t.parker]

Well, burning calories happens also outside of the scope of the exercise. If you did run then your body will stay in, what I call, "alert mode". The nervous system is ready to pick up more stress. However, calling it "alert mode" or EPOC for me has rather a marginal effect. "Plus-6 hours to return to sub-50" - this sounds a bit strange. My HR returns to normal within 1-2 minutes if I start cooling down. I always check my RHR (recovery HR) after runs and it drops down really quickly. My HR never stays high for a longer period after any activity. Here's something about RHR (maybe Fitbit should consider such a feature):

"Your heart will recover quicker as you become fitter. A recovery heart rate of 25 to 30 beats in one minute is a good score, and 50 to 60 beats in one minute is considered excellent. You should monitor your one-minute and two-minute recovery heart rate at least twice weekly to gauge whether your fitness level is improving. If it’s not, then you may need to alter your workouts so they are more demanding."

What is different, however, is that if I pick up another activity my HR can climb a lot quicker than before my run so walking around, even standing up may make HR jump up because the brain expects more stress and it's ready for it (technically, this is also how normal warm-up works).

Well, everybody is different. The problem is relying on the numbers which are just estimates. Because the watch tells you you burn this much it doesn't mean that you actually do, hence it is easy to overeat, while when you run you burn more than the watch estimates. With Ionic and Sense, I noticed exactly that. My HR is higher by 20-30bpm during the walk, which gives me estimates that could easily lead to overeating but when running or cycling or during HIIT, the HR was always lower from reality. Hence, numbers may be very tricky to interpret. For my runs and cycling, I started using power rather than calories which is a lot better indicator of energy spent on the activity. Yet, even trying to get as much accuracy as possible, the body knows better what to do and may act in some unexpected ways. Until now, I'm surprised that despite lockdowns, closing gyms, reducing my activity level, and eating a lot more junk than before (which I try to fix now) I gained only 1kg during the whole year (and still wearing the same size of clothes). I can't explain that. I would expect to gain 10kg but somehow it didn't happen.

[shipo]

I think you missed the point regarding my heart rate when I run, my heart rate drops well into the "normal" range for a mid-60s male like me, which is in the mid-70 bpm zone, within five minutes.  That said, my RHR typically hovers a point or two either side of 46 bpm, and to get that low it typically takes between two and six hours, depending upon what else I'm doing.