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I love these achievements. I’m going to run for 40 minutes later, then scoff an energy bar full of palm oil!
 
The issue with these monthly challenges is, who decided on them, what are the criteria, based on what logic?
For example, my last July’s challenge was to double the move ring 31(!!!) times in the month. That is EVERY! FREAKIN’! DAY of the month. (Managed to not kill myself while earning that)
Then 2 months later, September of last year, all I needed was double the move ring 13 times.
 
I actually sent a letter Tim Cook's email saying how much Apple Health and the Fitness app have helped me. Since August 2017 I've dropped 265+ pounds, from 444 to my last weigh in at 181. Hoping another 15 or so pounds. I've been perfect on my rings going over 1 year now. These challenges always manage to get me going.
Congratulations on your weight loss! Well, done.
 
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Is it just me, or is earning those badges extremely addictive?

Love them ... getting my AW4Nike+ today! (could not wait ... stock can for a month).

I love them and I agreed it is super addictive. Unfortunately some badges are not available outside of the US and I don’t really want to change the region in Settings.

Indeed. Apple really need to change this limitation. There is no real reason for most if not all fitness challenges to coincide on the same day. Holidays are perfect days to motivate people to keep in shape vs stuffing our faces with good food (Thanksgiving/Xmas) or junk food (Halloween, Easter, etc).
 
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I actually got robbed of my distance walk/run on Intl. Women’s Day a few weeks back. I’m loyal to Nike run club and completed the run there — didn’t want to use the stock workout app. This has to be an issue for other people too. I know folks are loyal to the Under Armour app or Runtastic and wouldn’t want to log a workout anywhere else but miss out on these achievements. Guess it’s a good problem to have.

I used the stock workout app and walked more than twice the required distance, and never got my badge for that. :(
 
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All those complaining about not really needing a watch don't really understand the audience. This isn't for those who are out there kicking butt every day with exercise, watch or no watch. Those people don't need motivation, they're born with it. It's also not aimed at the couch potato crowd who are quite happy to ignore stuff like this, watch or no watch.

The Apple Watch is for those in the middle who know they ought to be more active, but have a hard time finding the motivation. You may look down on us weak willed people and that's fine. What matters is Apple has gotten an entire segment of the population up and off their butts. It may not motivate you or you may not need the motivation. So what? That doesn't dismiss the wonderful work Apple is doing here.

FYI, I work at a health insurance company. If pay for your own healthcare, this is something you ought to be very happy about. When your risk pool suddenly becomes healthier, costs drop for everyone (though sadly I can't promise that every health insurance company passes those savings on to the customer). That's sort of how insurance works. And yes, I've seen my company drop rates on groups, so it actually does happen in real life.
 
WTF does an exercise challenge have to do with Earth Day? As if perceptions of the environmental challenges we face weren't confused enough already...
 
All those complaining about not really needing a watch don't really understand the audience.
Respectfully, you're wasting your time.

While you are completely correct in what you wrote -- those unable to envision that others have different use-cases and preferences will remain unable to see outside their own box.

Personally I don't give a whit about badges. I get why others are into them though, just not my thing. I have an Apple watch more for the non-Activity stuff but do like to see that I'm hitting my steps counts. I've also found it's able to replace my Garmin & old ipod nano for running (which frankly is just recreational as I'm in the grand-master category). Nice to have a decent all-in-one.

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Anyone else excited for that Giraffe badge?
Gonna stick my neck out and say... no.
 
I like the badges but they already did Earth Day and it’s not much of a fitness day. There are lots of holidays with better fitness correlation that they could use to add some variety.
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438 day streak and getting close to 1000. The gamification totally has me!

I’m going to try to achieve a 1000 day move streak. The only thing I see stopping me is all day travel or if I come down with something severe. I had the stomach flu last week but still closed my rings. Was rough but it really is a mindset!
 
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It's possible to respond "nah, it's not my cup of tea", "the Apple Watch is too expensive", or "I don't need this".

It's not necessary to insult people in the process.
If you consider disagreement "insult," then I think the problem lies more with you.
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Are you always like this? Even in real life?
Thanks for your feedback.
 
I probably the only one dont care about the badges, i use the AW extensively to get in shape and excersize daily. I love it but the badges themselves i could not care more about.
 
Respectfully, you're wasting your time.

While you are completely correct in what you wrote -- those unable to envision that others have different use-cases and preferences will remain unable to see outside their own box.

I've been around here long enough to know that most of the people won't even read it in the first place. So if they even read my reply, it wasn't a waste of my time and I thank them for at least reading it. They can agree or disagree. It really doesn't matter to me. When you read a post like saintstryfe's earlier in this thread, it doesn't really matter what we think. They've lost more than half their body weight and credit the Apple Watch for helping with that. That's incredible. Someone laughing at people for being motivated by virtual medals kinda pales in comparison. Real life success story (stories as I've heard other success stories over in the watch forums) beats contrary opinion every day of the week.
 
All those complaining about not really needing a watch don't really understand the audience. This isn't for those who are out there kicking butt every day with exercise, watch or no watch. Those people don't need motivation, they're born with it. It's also not aimed at the couch potato crowd who are quite happy to ignore stuff like this, watch or no watch.

The Apple Watch is for those in the middle who know they ought to be more active, but have a hard time finding the motivation. You may look down on us weak willed people and that's fine. What matters is Apple has gotten an entire segment of the population up and off their butts. It may not motivate you or you may not need the motivation. So what? That doesn't dismiss the wonderful work Apple is doing here.

FYI, I work at a health insurance company. If pay for your own healthcare, this is something you ought to be very happy about. When your risk pool suddenly becomes healthier, costs drop for everyone (though sadly I can't promise that every health insurance company passes those savings on to the customer). That's sort of how insurance works. And yes, I've seen my company drop rates on groups, so it actually does happen in real life.

Exactly! It also helps quantify exactly how little or how much activity you are doing, which can be a real eye-opener. Metabolic disease is a worldwide epidemic and set to keep on growing for the foreseeable future. Soon most people will be overweight. No-one sets out to be overweight but food is cheap and plentiful and work is increasingly done sitting down. I was fine up to my forties then activity slowed right down.

With first the iPhone step counter then the Watch, I've managed to go from averaging about 2000 steps to about 8000 with great health benefits. I don't have health insurance so I feel it's even more important for me! I think this is just the beginning for how wearables can improve our health. It's the 40-90 crowd that are going to get the most immediate benefit.
 
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I've been around here long enough to know that most of the people won't even read it in the first place. So if they even read my reply, it wasn't a waste of my time and I thank them for at least reading it. They can agree or disagree. It really doesn't matter to me. When you read a post like saintstryfe's earlier in this thread, it doesn't really matter what we think. They've lost more than half their body weight and credit the Apple Watch for helping with that. That's incredible. Someone laughing at people for being motivated by virtual medals kinda pales in comparison. Real life success story (stories as I've heard other success stories over in the watch forums) beats contrary opinion every day of the week.

Well, to the fair, the medals are just fun trinkets. The real motivation was not dying or having appendages cut off due to diabetes. The rings do a lot to keep me honest though, and they do encourage and remind me.

But yeah, I do credit Apple Watch a lot - it keeps me more honest than anything else. I do sometimes wish I could give it a few days off without feeling like I'm breaking something. Right now I know tomorrow I'm going to be busy and I'm tempted to go run in the dead of night so I don't have to tomorrow, which I know isn't going to be very helpful and I'm just filling a ring.

That's just my issues though. Since I made that post I actually have weighed in a few pounds down - 178 now. And I'm only 13 pounds from my goal weight of 165, which is just more and more remarkable the more I think of it.

The only bad part is I don't really know how I'll adjust to not being in "lose weight" mode and I'll admit to being a little scared of losing ground after cutting back the exercise and some of the diet. That said, I think I'll learn, just as I did with the weight loss.
 
I’m not actually upset but if you think about it this challenge will increase CO2 emissions on earth day.
Probably not when you consider that more active people use and consume less resources that generate CO2. But I agree that Apple should also support a "put down your phone" day or something to encourage more balanced use of screen activity.
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You must not pay attention to your special monthly challenges or complete them regularly? If you do, they increase in difficulty, quite substantially if you normally clear your rings daily...but judging by your comment I guess you aren’t being challenged and set the bar low for yourself?

Come chat with us over in the Apple Watch sub forum!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/april-challenge-killer-or-not-to-bad.2175952/
I didn't know that. Are the challenge difficulties directly related to your daily calorie settings?
 
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