How the Apple Watch made me active again
Background
It’s no secret that a while ago, I lost a lot of weight. My total drop was about 135 lbs (over 60 kg) in under 6 months, between December 2012 and June 2013.
Losing the weight was was tough (to say the least), but I always feared that maintaining it would be just as hard once I cut out the exercise. I was wrong.
My metabolism adjusted surprising quickly and I managed to maintain almost the exact same weight for over a year, without once going to the gym. And I took it for granted.
Late in October 2014, I damaged a kneecap playing recreational soccer with my friends. I was a little uncomfortable for a few days but I shrugged it off, and it ostensibly fixed itself soon after. I ended up completely forgetting about the incident until I went home for Winter Break. I usually don’t have a lot to do in Ghana so I spend a lot of time on the Indoor Bike, but I soon noticed that biking for just 5–10 minutes made my kneecap start clicking. Confused, I kept trying again every day, until eventually I invariably pushed myself a little too hard and clicked my kneecap out of place.
That was December 2014. It’s now June 2015 — half a year later — and I’ve only just fully recovered.
So what happened in the meantime? Well, I let it get to my head that I had this super-fast metabolism, so I put my regular diet on pause and ate. A lot. And, before I knew it, I gained 25 lbs (over 10 kg).
Truthfully though, even with the injured kneecap, I could have started going to the gym at least a month ago. And even before that, once I noticed I was gaining weight (and fast), I could have cut down on the ridiculous amount of food I was eating.
But I didn’t. I think a part of me was enjoying being free from the diet again — it reminded me of just how much I love food — but the bigger problem was the injury left me with a mental block with working out. I was scared. I’ve strained every single lower-body muscle there is to pull — that happens when you do 4–6 hours of cardio every day for 3 months — but this really hurt, and I didn’t want to go through that again.
I knew I wanted to lose weight. I hated that I actually allowed myself to gain that much after already working so hard to lose it. But I was doing absolutely nothing to stop it.
Enter the Apple Watch
So where am I going with this? Well, as you might know, I got my Apple Watch on April 24. A month in, I wrote this:
Ever since the Health app came out in iOS 8, I’ve obsessively tracked my Steps and Flights Climbed counts and have tried to maintain a good daily average. Now, with the Watch, I simply glance at the Activity ring on my Watch Face and I have a quick snapshot of how active I’ve been today. If I’ve been sitting down for too long, it gently taps me and reminds me to walk around for a minute, and it updates me every 4 hours with how I’m doing towards meeting my goals for the day.
For the uninformed, the Apple Watch has a Move Ring, an Exercise Ring, and a Stand Ring. I’ll focus on the first two: the Exercise Ring wants you to get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day (measured by the pace of a brisk walk or more), and the Move Ring wants you to hit a certain Active Calorie goal every day (through walking or otherwise).
Every Monday morning, the Watch takes a look at how you effectively you kept up with your Move Goal over the last week, and suggests a new goal for you to target. This goal has harassed my life for as long as I’ve had the Watch.
I like to think I’m a fairly active person. Boston University has a large campus and you can find me all over it throughout the day. I’m also obsessed with closing my rings every day, which has sometimes led to me frantically walking along the Charles River or in the pouring rain at 11pm trying to hit my goal in time.
A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that I was walking north of 20,000 steps a day just to hit my Move Goal. That’s a lot of time spent walking; time I could have spent studying or doing homework. I still kept trying to close my rings by walking, but after failing a couple of times I realized that going forward I’d have to start working out again.
In that moment, I completely forgot about my fear. All that was on my mind was closing my Move Goal for the day. So I went to the gym.
That was 8 days ago. I’ve gone each day since, continuously pushing myself harder and harder.
After a long, long hiatus, I genuinely feel like I have my old determination back. I’m eating much more reasonably and logging calories again, and working out now holds a fixed time in my calendar.
The Watch did that. Slowly, with 7 weekly incremements, it took me from walking 10,000 steps a day to doing an hour of high-intensity cardio. And I couldn’t be happier.
I’m now more confident than ever that I’ll be back to my best before the summer ends. And I have the Apple Watch to thank for that.
I’ll be giving a brief talk at the Apple Store on Boylston St., Boston on Wednesday at 6pm on behalf of LoseIt!, discussing my weight loss journey and the process and effect of logging calories.
If you live in the area and would like to know more about my story, feel free to reserve your seat here.