Apple Watch

Privatesandbank · October 2019

For people who have one... how helpful has the Apple Watch been for your weight loss? Any cool features or apps? Is it worth getting cellular?

wifeoferp · October 2019

For me it’s mostly been motivational. The cellular would be nice but I didn’t feel like for the extra costs it was worth it for me.
I like being able to see my workouts, steps, and estimated calories burned. I don’t eat back exercise calories (I set them myself based on a different online calculator) so it doesn’t matter if the Apple Watch is accurate in that regard. But I do like to compete with myself from workout to workout.

springlering62 · October 2019

Long singing of praise to follow:

I absolutely love my Apple Watch. As @wifeoferp said, I find it extremely motivational. I take a kind of childish glee in seeing the rings close, and the little fireworks display when all three close. It also gives you silly little e-medals, which are fun.

It reminds me to stand up every hour, which is mildly fussy but actually not a bad idea. If I’m a scoosh short of closing a ring it will tell me “a fifteen minute walk will close your ring!”

I find that the calorie count seems to be fairly accurate for me (I use the walk, run, yoga and Pilates counters. I don’t use the counter for weight training because it’s so stop and go.). The step counter is accurate. I know because I have this OCD tendency to count steps and often compare to what my watch shows.

I just discovered the Challenges app last month and have enjoyed comparing myself with other users. It gives me a feel for how I’m doing compared to others. I wish there were more difficult challenges available, and andomly being assigned to a team can suck. Apparently some people register and then apparently don’t wear their watch or never get off the sofa. Motivation is only motivation if you actually move your *kitten*, ya know.

It took me a minute but I figured out how to put some music on it to listen to while I run and can connect Bluetooth earphones. I like that.

I like the cellular because I don’t have to carry my phone with me- most the functions I need are on my wrist. I can receive and respond (via dictation) to texts and also WhatsApp messages from a daughter overseas. I can read and respond to emails too, again, via dictation. I can also take and decline phone calls (via speaker) and it both identifies the caller (same as my phone) and lets me read a transcript of the voice mail.

It’s supposed to have Apple Pay on it but haven’t been able to get that to work. But that’s not such a bad thing since I’d probably hit the local coffee shop on the way home from every walk and run.

I love the calendar and that it buzzes me for reminders. I wear it out setting reminders with Siri because it’s so easy to do. And I use the timer frequently, especially when cooking.

Mapping was an awesome surprise. I can flick my wrist to see the next turn versus having to take my eyes off the road to look at a phone. It buzzes my wrist when a turn is coming up, too.

The Shazam function has been a hoot. There’s a voice recorder I just discovered which ought to be very useful.

It gives the weather. It checks my heart rate. My neighbor’s watch even automatically called 911 when she passed out and split her head open on the sink. It literally saved her life!

I sweat like a pig because I usually do one or two hot mat classes a day. Unlike a much mourned iPod back in the day, the watch is sweat proof.

As goofy and trite and childish as it sounds, I attribute a lot of my success to the silly colored rings.

The only negatives I have are negligible. I work out and walk a lot, and my battery often needs recharging around lunch time to keep it charged til bedtime. And if I forget to turn off haptics and get included in an epic group text, the constant vibrating can ruin all focus during yoga. Ugh. But that’s life with tech, and that’s totally on me.

Anabirgite · October 2019

I can only sing praises. @springlering62 has done a fantastic summary of its many uses, and even though I am a luddite I use all these features except Cellular. It definitely motivates me, I have closed all 3 rings now for almost 2 years. I am on my second watch because my face popped off several months ago and I was sadly most concerned I would lose my workout that day and break my record ( Apple store was great and impressed did not lose my data). Love the data for my long bike rides can just glance at watch for distance traveled. I have answered my phone while biking thru Ireland to expand the alarm system for our house to my parents while I continued to ride-unbelievable. No one seems to call me unless I am biking --but now I can answer and not stop. Obviously I do not ride fast at all.

Also love I can say hey Siri, while driving or riding, send massage to whoever is on my mind, dictate message and send - sometimes wording is humorous but shockingly pretty accurate.

amy19355 · October 2019

I absolutely LOVE my Apple Watch and find it much more useful than the Fitbit was at helping me stay focused and on track for both my eating and my workout goals.

One of my fave features of the Activity App is how it makes a little map of my Outdoor Walks or Runs, and it uses colors to show how my pace increases or decreases along the way. I use this to motivate myself to do better! (on the indoor run, it just shows that I'm at LAFitness).

I do miss the challenges on the Fitbit, and have seen some apple watch challenges here at MFP that I want to join in sooner or later.

Aside from fitness tracking, I like the Dick Tracy aspect of the watch and how I can answer a call (if I"m within in range of my phone), set a timer or alarm, call siri to take a note or make a reminder. Especially I like how it buzzes my wrist just before the Map app vocalizes the next turn info.

I did not get the cellular option and haven't wanted it yet.

springlering62 · October 2019

Oh and I love how it syncs to the Health app. I love looking at charts and numbers and being able to view data on my excercise, steps, distance, time worked out and more is very interesting to me.

Is mind boggling how much information these things sort out.

And I love that it calculates on the fly the average speed on walks and runs. I’m not a fast runner so not to that point yet but for walks I like trying to save seconds off per mile.

bearly63 · October 2019

Thanks for all the great info posted here. I have decided that my Fitbit isn’t cutting it and I need a more useful, accurate fitness counter. That is my question. I run, walk, do yoga, use the gym rowing, bike and elliptical machines etc. I don’t trust the machines calorie counts and I use Map my run, walk, fitness apps which I’m not sure are that accurate. I just take off a 100
Calories for my exercise count.

Do you all feel like it’s accurate enough or should I find a different way to track my exercise calories? Thanks for any input.

springlering62 · October 2019

The Apple Watch seems to recognize different intensities of workout. For example my neighbor’s knee is troubling her so our morning walk was quite a bit slower than usual, so it recorded fewer than usual calories for the exact same route.

If I do a hot yoga class on Monday I might get a specific number of calories, but if I repeat the class Wednesday but run two or three miles immediately before going into the class, it seems to recognize that my heart rate is still up and awards far more calories.

Same if I do back to back classes. The second class gets more calories than if I’d done it by itself.

However, if I don’t “start” an excercise on the watch I get no credit unless it happens to detect a walk I haven’t started and then it will ask me “do you want to record this walk?” I often get that when I walk the half mile to mat classes or the gym a couple of times a day, but I don’t count those walks. I don’t start it for weight training either, and it doesn’t seem to detect the extra effort when I don’t start it.

I also notice that the Apple Watch records way fewer calories burned than MFP automatically reports some of my “friends” have recorded. I’ve seen some doozies, like hundreds of calories for housework or the one that struck me the other day, when someone got 300+ calories for a 30 minute 3mph walk.

The watch seems “honest”, and intuitive about what it records. I try to be brutally honest about the foods I record, and appreciate a device isn’t trying to pump my ego with inflated counts. I read here that’s an issue with some gym equipment that records suspiciously boosted burn rates.

bearly63 · October 2019

@springlering62
Thanks and agree....I would rather be given lower calorie counts than higher. Until I get my apple watch (gotta hit my first goal weight to earn it lol) I just shave off 100 calories. 300+ calories for a 3 mph walk does seem out of whack. I treadmill walked today for 60 min at 3.5 mph and only got 263. Yesterday I walked for 90 minutes with a ton of big hills outdoors using Map My Run, and got 427. I guess with the gps, you get credit for elevation changes? Who knows.....I am new to all of this and just trying to focus on moving and measuring.....

kksmom1789 · October 2019

I received an Apple Watch last week as a gift from my husband. I have worn a fitbit daily for almost 5 years. I have been wanting an Apple Watch for about 6 months. I was surprised but nervous to switch. I have been sooo surprised with how much I am loving this watch. It gives me way less calories then my fitbit gave me for workouts. I am okay with that I rather it give me less then me over eating like I feel I have been doing for awhile (no weight loss)
I love looking at the health app and seeing all the numbers it gives me. I am starting to get used to not having to have my phone attached to me because I can call and text from the watch. The battery life is still an adjustment I am used to wearing my fitbit all day and night with my Apple Watch I have to charge it at night because its usually only at 40-60 percent. I had my husband who has had an apple watch for over a year change my settings to conserve as much battery as possible but I still can't wear it to bed.
All in all its an awesome device and I can't wait to explore it more and figure out some of the other features I haven't yet figured out.

Privatesandbank · October 2019

I just wanted to say thank you so much everyone for all the incredibly useful information!

StatChicBayes · October 2019

I love my apple watch !!! The previous posters have summarized lots of the great features. I got the 4th generation last November, and those little reminder to move, stand, helped me get moving. Since February I have been serious about getting back in shape/lose weight and it has been fantastic. It seems to provide a much more accurate estimate of resting metabolic rate, so combining that with the activity calories and calories in from MFP I have found it tracks really well with my realized weight loss, and has been really useful in figuring out how to adjust my calories. (and my RMR seems to be higher than what MFP and other online calculators suggest so I get to eat more!!!) I think the estimated calories for workouts are pretty accurate! (the machines all report higher levels that I don't believe given my size)

I use Gymaholic to track strength training at the gym (it has a little VR image to remind me about the lifts etc if I forget, but I can track sets, increase weights, add sets all from the watch!) It syncs to teh phone, so that you can see which muscles have recovered or need to recover (what %) and is great for building different workouts (dumbbells, body weight, barbells, TRX, various machines)

I use Zones to track heart rate zones for cardio (cycle classes, step, HIIT, Xtrain, running and walking) in place of the default exercise app. Great for intervals where you want to target a HR

I use Seconds for creating my own HIIT or tabata workouts - (actually I use that on my phone as it doesn't use the HR and give calories but you can sync music from your library for different intervals (high intensity/recovery) so combine that with Zones to target HR

I love that I can play music from the watch to AirPods and can skip carrying my phone around with me at the gym.

I do have the cellular feature and like that as I can quickly respond to texts answer phone calls, see alerts without being tethered to the phone.

I do have to charge every night and sometimes early evening if I have worked out a lot and have played music. But all in all love it!

As for Challenges @bioreplika announces an apple watch team challenge that runs each month that uses the Challenges App (also need to install LoseIt)- you can create your own team or just join random teams of 4, but also seems to provide (me at least) some more motivation to close all the rings and get bonus points for the team!

naomi8888 · October 2019

Anabirgite wrote: »

I can only sing praises. @springlering62 has done a fantastic summary of its many uses, and even though I am a luddite I use all these features except Cellular. It definitely motivates me, I have closed all 3 rings now for almost 2 years. I am on my second watch because my face popped off several months ago and I was sadly most concerned I would lose my workout that day and break my record ( Apple store was great and impressed did not lose my data). Love the data for my long bike rides can just glance at watch for distance traveled. I have answered my phone while biking thru Ireland to expand the alarm system for our house to my parents while I continued to ride-unbelievable. No one seems to call me unless I am biking --but now I can answer and not stop. Obviously I do not ride fast at all.

Also love I can say hey Siri, while driving or riding, send massage to whoever is on my mind, dictate message and send - sometimes wording is humorous but shockingly pretty accurate.

You've closed them every day for almost two years?? Wow...

Apple Watch

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