Exercise is Not All or Nothing
Set Yourself Up For Success to Stay On Track
I wrote about the new Apple Watches last week and concluded that if you’re using a Series 5 or above, it probably wasn’t necessary to upgrade, a point that most tech reviewers agreed on. The Verge reviewed the watch and concluded that “if you have a Series 4 or later, you’re going to get the vast majority of what makes the Series 8 great. If you have a Series 5, 6, or 7, you also have roughly the same processing power. Upgrading to the Series 8 isn’t going to make things zippier or your battery last that much longer.” USA Today came to a similar conclusion, stating “if you own a Series 7 or even a Series 6, don't fear missing out.”
This week, Apple will release the Apple Watch Ultra and I sense that the reviews will be geared more toward comparisons with other extreme fitness trackers, such as Garmin’s fēnix® 7 versus comparisons to Apple’s other Apple Watches.
In any case, I received a ton of feedback from last week’s post and two in particular stood out to me. The first was from a reader who owns an Apple Watch, but doesn’t use it because he doesn’t necessarily know what to use it for. And the second was from somebody who stays active, competing in multiple sports, but doesn’t feel like they’re exercising consistently or regularly enough.
Fitness trackers and smartwatches have greatly evolved over the years. Early fitness trackers such as Fitbit focused mainly on steps because counting steps is a way to track how much a person is moving throughout the day. As this Mayo Clinic article points out, “Some Activity is Better than No Activity.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity exercise, such as brisk walking. But you don't have to jump feet-first into the 150-minute goal. Start where you are and gradually increase your activity week by week.
Apple Watch introduced the “rings approach” and I think these metrics and the way they measure activity can be more effective in keeping people motivated if utilized properly. Move measures the active calories you burn every day, regardless of the type of activity. House cleaning, yard work, walking to work, exercise, and pretty much anything else you do besides sitting count toward the move goal. Exercise of course, how many minutes of brisk activity you’ve completed, whether you’re just moving at a fast pace or doing a specific workout in the Workout app. All at once or a little at a time, you can earn Exercise minutes however it works for you. And the Stand ring is achieved by standing and moving for at least one minute per hour, though it tracks how many minutes per hour you’ve spent standing as well. Stand became a thing because research indicated that sitting for long periods of time can cause or exacerbate all kinds of health issues.
When you receive a new Apple Watch, the move goal is set by demographic data, while the exercise and stand goals are set at 30 minutes and 12 hours, respectively. All of these goals can be changed to meet your own personal fitness and move goals. Additionally, Apple Watch has a bunch of notifications that are turned on by default, that can seem annoying and even demotivating, especially if you’re just stating out.
Set Yourself Up For Success
You do not of course, need an Apple Watch, or any fitness tracker for that matter, to stay active, but if you do have an Apple Watch, set yourself up for success so that the watch becomes a motivational tool and not a nagging hindrance on your fitness goals.
First, change the goals to match your specific fitness goals. I would recommend sticking with the defaults for a period of at least a couple of weeks to set a baseline. Once you have a baseline, you can change the goals of each of the metrics.
On your phone, select the fitness app.
At the top of the app, you’ll see a summary of your move, exercise and stand activity. Click the summary.
Scroll down until you reach “change goals.” Click it and then you can set your new move, exercise and stand goals.
These goals are personal to you, but I would make a few recommendations when setting them.
Make the goals achievable, but challenge yourself to reach them. If 20 minutes of exercise is something you are regularly achieving, set the goal to 25 minutes.
The recommended amount of exercise and stand is based on medical research, so while you may not be there in your fitness journey, you should aim to reach those targets over time.
While the exercise ring is perhaps the ring you should pay the most attention to according to this Cardiac Surgeon, the inclusion of the move goal is motivational in that it takes into account all of your activity and not just exercise. It’s perhaps the most flexible and personal of the three goals, so set it as you would the exercise goal, making it achievable but challenging. For me, this means setting my move goal at a level where if I don’t spend time exercising a certain amount each day, I won’t hit it.
On the notifications front, if you find them to be nagging or annoying, I would recommend turning them off. To do this, follow these instructions.
On Apple Watch, go to settings.
Scroll to Activity.
In the Activity settings, turn off the reminders you do not wish to receive. These include coaching, stand reminders, goal completions and special challenges.
If you don’t want to receive reminders to breathe, you can turn these off as well. In settings, scroll to mindfulness and toggle off the reminders you do not wish to receive.
As for my friend who doesn’t know what he would use his watch for, the above suggestions are a good start, but the app ecosystem is such that there are apps for literally everything. He happens to be a golfer and with a third-party app like Golfshot, you can turn your watch into a full-featured golf watch that tracks your shots automatically, includes ranges to the green via GPS and a built-in scorecard.
Fitness is Not All or Nothing
On the comment of getting back on track, I hear this from folks all the time. I have written a ton about the importance of setting goals and building exercise into your daily routine, noting even in those early posts that fitness and exercise doesn't need to be an all or nothing proposition. We’re all at various stages of our lives, even at this age. I was recently exchanging texts with my college roommates, one of whom has a senior in college and is an empty nester while the other has a 4 year old. I know it’s not easy to stick to a regular fitness routine with family and work commitments and obligations, which is why I believe so strongly in daily planning. It’s not just about the intention to exercise on a given day. It’s about planning it with the information you have about work and personal commitments on a given day and figuring out where it fits into your schedule.
It also depends greatly on the goals you set for yourself. If you are training to run a marathon, your exercise requirements are certainly going to look different than for somebody that’s just starting out. This is an extreme example of course, but the point is that realistic goals, coupled with regular scheduling will keep you consistently more motivated to move every day.
In practice, that may look something like this:
Goal: Run/Walk for 30 minutes today
Kids to school - 7:30
Walk for 15 minutes - 8:00
Meetings from 9-12
Lunch at 12 (could walk for 15 minutes)
Meetings from 1-3
Pick up the kids from school 3-3:30
Meetings from 3:30 to 6
Walk or Run 6-7
I get there are literally hundreds of variables and permutations to take into account. Jobs that require you to be in the office, sports and after school activities, things you can’t plan for, home repairs, internet outages, etc. The list is endless, so I offer up a few tips to help you stay on track.
If possible, schedule multiple times when you could be more active. If I’m commuting for example, I’ll build in a workout that I can do in the morning as well as one I could do in the evening, based on my goals and schedule for the day. If your goal is to exercise for 30 minutes, you do not have to do it all at once. Set goals and times that work best for you on a given day.
Build rest days around your schedule. If you know you’ll be traveling all day and just won’t be able to workout, use that as a rest day and don’t schedule exercise.
Include everything that requires your time, not just meetings. Pickups, drop-offs, meal preparation, or anything else that requires your time should be included in your daily plans.
If you use a fitness tracker, use it as a tool in helping to set realistic goals. I’ve heard from a number of you that getting that early morning notification about how far along you are toward closing your rings can sometimes be disheartening. Turn them off if they annoy you, or, better still, if you already know your plan for the day, just ignore them.
Build the habit - This is especially important if you’re just starting out. Start small, carving out time to exercise and do your best to stick to it. Once you build the consistency of exercising at specific times or on specific days, it will become part of the routine.
Any exercise is good exercise, whether you’re walking, playing basketball or weight training. You don’t have to sweat profusely every time you workout to call it exercise. Just staying active and moving is key.
Along those lines, create workouts that you can do anywhere. If you can’t make it to the gym and have 15 minutes in the morning, there are plenty of workouts that don’t require equipment that are just effective as a session at the gym.
Give yourself a break - I’m not talking about rest days. Don’t be hard on yourself if you miss a day or two. We get busy. We have other things to do. If you plan to exercise on a given day, but don’t end up achieving that goal, move on to the next day.
Very early on in my working life, I sold life insurance and mutual funds. I had to give these goofy canned presentations to people that were much older than I and while I don’t remember most of what was in it, I do remember having to say, “they didn’t plan to fail, they failed to plan.” It frankly makes me cringe every time I think of being at somebody’s kitchen table uttering these words, but goal setting, planning and scheduling are the key components in creating a consistent routine. It helps keep you accountable while taking into account your obligations. And since it changes every day, I recommend doing it daily. It has worked wonders for me and helps keep me on track.