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January Activity Challenge

TheSkywalker77 said:
Haha! I’ve been walking up and down my stairs for 5 minutes 6 times per day to fill my exercise ring. It’s too cold for a 30 minute bike ride right now. :p
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If my house were big enough I'd be all for it. If I tried to walk down the hallway back and forth long enough to fill my exercise ring each day, I'd be needing a new carpet in a matter of weeks from the rut I'd make in it.

Either way, just got my award.
 
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nickdalzell1 said:
If my house were big enough I'd be all for it. If I tried to walk down the hallway back and forth long enough to fill my exercise ring each day, I'd be needing a new carpet in a matter of weeks from the rut I'd make in it.

Either way, just got my award.
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Congrats! Once I close all my rings tomorrow I’ll get the Ring in the New Year award.
 
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TheSkywalker77 said:
Congrats! Once I close all my rings tomorrow I’ll get the Ring in the New Year award.
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My Ring in the New Year Award was just closing all the rings in 7 days. It was done and done long before my monthly award, which was to close all rings n 23 days. I've been consistent at closing all three this entire month so the 23rd was when my January Award completed.
 
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After a fun day at my local amusement park I got my Ring in the New Year Challenge!!
 
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This is my first month owning an Apple Watch, I didn't have a January challenge this month (other than the New Years one everyone got). I'm assuming I'll get a February challenge next month? Or will the watch still need more time to learn my activity habits?
 
TheSkywalker77 said:
This is my first month owning an Apple Watch, I didn't have a January challenge this month (other than the New Years one everyone got). I'm assuming I'll get a February challenge next month? Or will the watch still need more time to learn my activity habits?
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It also depends how well you are doing the daily and weekly goals.
 
TheSkywalker77 said:
This is my first month owning an Apple Watch, I didn't have a January challenge this month (other than the New Years one everyone got). I'm assuming I'll get a February challenge next month? Or will the watch still need more time to learn my activity habits?
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It should be next month. I didn’t get one the first month I had mine either, but I did the very next one.
 
As for the 'learning' aspect, I find myself having to keep dialing back the 'smart move goal' that it attempts to shove on me every week. I don't need to do more than 350 calories if I intend on maintaining my current healthy weight. Obviously dialing back the goal isn't teaching the darned thing, so does anyone know what I need to do to not make things harder than they need to be? I'm trying to just maintain my weight and be active, not trying to build huge muscles or become an athlete.
 
nickdalzell1 said:
As for the 'learning' aspect, I find myself having to keep dialing back the 'smart move goal' that it attempts to shove on me every week. I don't need to do more than 350 calories if I intend on maintaining my current healthy weight. Obviously dialing back the goal isn't teaching the darned thing, so does anyone know what I need to do to not make things harder than they need to be? I'm trying to just maintain my weight and be active, not trying to build huge muscles or become an athlete.
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Lol, unfortunately Apple takes no pity on those who want to maintain. Like yourself, I am happy with my current daily Move goal, so every Monday morning when it recommends that I up it by 10%, I have to say "nay nay" and dial it back to my usual 1,000 calorie mark.
 
If they keep 'upping the ante' and I blindly accept it, I'd be P.T. Barnum's "Skeleton Man"!

Apple needs to rethink the A.I. behind the health system. Or at least have it adapt to any stats it records like heart rate, age, BPM, BMI, calories burned vs. calories consumed, sleep and so on. Otherwise we might hear news of some poor 87 year old who died trying to close their exercise ring! Then we'll see folks saying 'OK Apple is doomed!' again.

If folks keep following Apple's recommendations, we'll be consuming Big Macs to get back any calories lost, or worse, literally running ourselves to an early grave.
 
Jason Hensley said:
Lol, unfortunately Apple takes no pity on those who want to maintain. Like yourself, I am happy with my current daily Move goal, so every Monday morning when it recommends that I up it by 10%, I have to say "nay nay" and dial it back to my usual 1,000 calorie mark.
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I turned off the smart Move goals a long time ago. I've just kept it on 1,000 since the beginning of 2019, and I never get any suggestions to change.

nickdalzell1 said:
If they keep 'upping the ante' and I blindly accept it, I'd be P.T. Barnum's "Skeleton Man"!

Apple needs to rethink the A.I. behind the health system. Or at least have it adapt to any stats it records like heart rate, age, BPM, BMI, calories burned vs. calories consumed, sleep and so on. Otherwise we might hear news of some poor 87 year old who died trying to close their exercise ring! Then we'll see folks saying 'OK Apple is doomed!' again.

If folks keep following Apple's recommendations, we'll be consuming Big Macs to get back any calories lost, or worse, literally running ourselves to an early grave.
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You can set a static Move goal and never be bothered with a suggestion to up the ante again.

I've never seen anyone run himself or herself to an early grave. Or cycle. Or row. Or walk. Or swim. I have seen many folks eat themselves into early graves.
 
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jhfenton said:
I've never seen anyone run himself or herself to an early grave. Or cycle. Or row. Or walk. Or swim. I have seen many folks eat themselves into early graves.
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Haven’t you seen the stories of these very healthy runners that collapse near the end of a race and die of a massive heart attack? It happens.
 
Bballrob said:
Haven’t you seen the stories of these very healthy runners that collapse near the end of a race and die of a massive heart attack? It happens.
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Yes. It happens. Most are a result of undiagnosed hyperpertrophic cardiomyopathy, screening for which is now becoming routine even for high school athletes. Our older son's public school brings in a medical group every year to offer athletes ECG and echocardiogram screening for hyperpertrophic cardiomyopathy and other heart conditions at a nominal cost. (We took advantage of the screening after he started running track and XC.)

And the other sudden deaths are due to a different undiagnosed ailment, not simply the running itself. Running does not cause sudden death in healthy hearts.

I have heard of a few ultrarunners running themselves into rhabdomyolysis and kidney function issues, but those are extreme cases in extreme races usually with extreme conditions. (I've had friends run--and in one case win--a race like the Badwater 135 in extreme condition with no adverse effects, because they were well-trained and prepared. Badwater and many other well-run ultras actually require runners to weigh in at aid stations, and if you lose too much body weight, you are pulled.)

Most of us have things we'd tweak with Apple's somewhat mindless Activity challenge algorithm, but it's silly to argue that it's dangerous. We can change our Move goals and choose to disregard monthly challenges that don't fit with our goals for the month. (I do wish we could change our monthly challenges, either by giving us a choice or allowing adjustments within a brief beginning-of-the-month window.)
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My monthly challenge is going to come down to the last day. I missed another evening run one day last week because of an unplanned school activity, but I did get in my long run yesterday to even it out. I need 1,400-something every day this week, which is about what it was at the start of the month.
 
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To be fair, the Apple Watch hasn't been out long enough to find 80+ year old men/women dying from attempts to close all three of their rings. Maybe in 40 years or so?

How does one set a 'static' move goal? I don't see any such setting on the watch or the Watch app, and the only things I can 'turn off' are useful stuff such as the daily coaching. I just keep dialing the stand goal back every week, annoying as it is. It's like they don't realize I'm tiny

EDIT: Confirmed. You can disable daily coaching but there is zero mention of forcing the move goal to 'static' according to the Apple Watch User Guide. If I can force it to stick to 350 calories and not nag me to go farther each week (it keeps wanting me to go 400+ which is too much for my body and If I let it go that far, it recommends 500+ the next week--by then I'm eating tons of processed high-calorie junk to make up the lost calories unless I want to dip below 130 lbs) I'd be all for the tip.

Either way what's the point of entering in your age, weight, gender, etc in the Health app if it doesn't even factor that into the recommendations?

I basically want to disable the recommendation of a higher move goal each week. 350 is more realistic given my body type. I don't want to do more than simply maintain my current active life. I don't want to be an athlete. What I'm talking about is the 'weekly summary' I get every monday where it tries to offer an unrealistic goal each week. I keep dialing it back hoping it'll 'learn' but it never does. I can set the move goal manually but it still tries to up the ante each week.
 
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nickdalzell1 said:
To be fair, the Apple Watch hasn't been out long enough to find 80+ year old men/women dying from attempts to close all three of their rings. Maybe in 40 years or so?
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Yes. I'm sure the Apple Watch will be driving folks to early graves with their frenzied efforts to close their rings.

nickdalzell1 said:
How does one set a 'static' move goal? I don't see any such setting on the watch or the Watch app, and the only things I can 'turn off' are useful stuff such as the daily coaching. I just keep dialing the stand goal back every week, annoying as it is. It's like they don't realize I'm tiny
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I had to look through the settings, but I believe it was the "Daily Coaching" toggle. It's the only thing I had turned off in the Activity settings.

nickdalzell1 said:
EDIT: Confirmed. You can disable daily coaching but there is zero mention of forcing the move goal to 'static' according to the Apple Watch User Guide. If I can force it to stick to 350 calories and not nag me to go farther each week (it keeps wanting me to go 400+ which is too much for my body and If I let it go that far, it recommends 500+ the next week--by then I'm eating tons of processed high-calorie junk to make up the lost calories unless I want to dip below 130 lbs) I'd be all for the tip.

Either way what's the point of entering in your age, weight, gender, etc in the Health app if it doesn't even factor that into the recommendations?
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It does factor that data into the recommendations. Initial suggested Move goals vary widely based on your age, weight, sex, and self-reported activity level. And then they adjust from there based on your actual activity. And of course your age, weight, and sex factor into the calories-burned calculations. You're going to burn slightly fewer calories at 130 than I do at 160 (or eventually back to 150).

nickdalzell1 said:
I basically want to disable the recommendation of a higher move goal each week. 350 is more realistic given my body type. I don't want to do more than simply maintain my current active life. I don't want to be an athlete. What I'm talking about is the 'weekly summary' I get every monday where it tries to offer an unrealistic goal each week. I keep dialing it back hoping it'll 'learn' but it never does. I can set the move goal manually but it still tries to up the ante each week.
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At this point, the only option is to turn off Daily Coaching. In the future, I also hope they will offer smarter coaching modes, perhaps adding a "Maintain" mode or a "Build to xxx by xx/xx/xx" mode. The Trends feature is a step in that direction. They could easily tie coaching and suggested Move goals to your longer term Move trend rather than just last week.
 
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