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Default is 400 calories I think, but what should I set it at?

To determine my calorie goal, I wore the watch for about a week and didn't reset the default goal (whatever that was). I just went to the gym and got a regular workout/run in with the Activity app running. Based on those daily calorie burns, including workouts, I then set my calorie goal (660 calories). But I don't consider the "Move" goal to be something I need to hit every day.

Over the past year or so, I have lost a solid 20 pounds. Before the Apple watch, I never exercised and I was north of 185 pounds. Now I hover around 165 pounds (6 feet tall). I can hardly believe how much the watch has motivated me. Over time, with a lower weight and better health and stamina, my calorie goal has become a lot harder to hit, but I have kept it at 660.

The challenge of hitting my Move goal EVERY DAY of one month almost killed me last month. I made it 14 days but honestly, a person needs some rest days! No more "every day of the month" Move challenges for me. I know I could reduce my calorie goal, but it is just high enough to motivate me to a good workout in 3-5 days/week.
 
I’m 5’4 and 127 pounds but very active. I have my move goal set at 550 but I’m thinking of lowering it because it’s difficult to achieve unless I run 4+ miles. It’s frustrating to not meet the goal even on a day I run 3 or so miles!
 
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Anybody know what defaults are if you don't set your height weight etc?

Light? Moderate? Active?


I don’t know. It probably set it based on your age, weight, and height. I am 31, 183cm and 95kg. My default for light is 430 Kcal and for moderate is 780 KCal.
 
You have 3 additional achievements: 200%, 300%, 400% of daily move goal achieved with a reason. You may not put your movegoal in heights where it becomes to hard to reach them. Mine is set to 330 cal (69kg, 173cm, 36years). I achieve it every day and mostly my day end around 600 active calories burned. My movegoal is more of a daily minimum. But what happens on the lazy days? Or when your sick? Then 330 is not easily reached for me.
 
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I've had to start new on my iPhone so for now, I have mine set at 360 which is what was suggested for this week after last week.

I've easily beat that today and it is my day off from work. I went on a three mile walk earlier and later, I'll take a shorter two mile walk after dinner. I'm at 441 calories burned for the day and am at 8,732 steps so far today. The last time when I walked for three miles and then worked, I had almost 14,000 steps for the day and burned almost 607 calories.

If I keep this up going back to work tomorrow, I will easily get 6,000-7,000 steps while at my job plus whatever I walk everyday which has been usually three miles. Last week, I didn't get out and walk any so the watches suggesting was low. I wonder what it will suggest next week.
 
I'm 5'10" and about 218lbs but it's not all flab.

Currently my watch has settled on a 600 cal program, I walk (fast) 40 mins at lunch time, maybe jog a little in the evening or go for another walk or swim solidly for 1 hour and smash that (so far today I'm showing 1750 cals) so it's probably going to up the goal soon but I've just got my replacement after dropping my previous series 3 last weekend :(

It's tricky at to squash that exercise in at lunch time. The swims (I'm not fast so I end up doing about 1800m each session) seem to be the best at getting that goal done as the nights are darker here. I probably swim fairly inefficiently but it's pushing my heart rate all the time and that's what I figure I need and averaged 118bpm for the hour tonight.
 
I've had the AW for 65 days and have closed all three rings each day (calories set to 500). The exercise ring is the first ring I usually close, either by a long brisk walk or a run. It's never been a difficulty to close it.

Over the week we were at Walt Disney World and I learned a little more about the exercise ring. It was 9:15 PM and I had walked over 18,000 steps, and I still had only 22 minutes of my exercise ring closed! Clearly if you are not walking at a brisk pace, no matter how many steps you have, the exercise ring won't close. I had to run while I was in the Magic Kingdom just to close the ring lol. But I closed it! :)
 
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I'm 5'10, 180 lbs and I have mine set at 420. I'm on a 67 day move streak that began when I started my new job. I work in IT so a lot of my job consists of sitting in front of a computer so I've taken to walking around the building at least once an hour and that gets me up and down a lot of stairs. If I were to work every day, this goal would be cake but I have it set where it's at to motivate me to move on the days that I'm not working. Because of this, looking back in my history I have not missed a weekend day at the gym since I started this job.

My buddy bought my old Series 1 when I upgraded and he has his goal set at 1100. He meets that goal if he works AND hits the gym but never does if he doesn't do both. I don't see the purpose of this as it's pretty much unattainable on his off days and he'll NEVER see the 200, 300 or 400% achievements.
 
I'm 5'10, 180 lbs and I have mine set at 420. I'm on a 67 day move streak that began when I started my new job. I work in IT so a lot of my job consists of sitting in front of a computer so I've taken to walking around the building at least once an hour and that gets me up and down a lot of stairs. If I were to work every day, this goal would be cake but I have it set where it's at to motivate me to move on the days that I'm not working. Because of this, looking back in my history I have not missed a weekend day at the gym since I started this job.

My buddy bought my old Series 1 when I upgraded and he has his goal set at 1100. He meets that goal if he works AND hits the gym but never does if he doesn't do both. I don't see the purpose of this as it's pretty much unattainable on his off days and he'll NEVER see the 200, 300 or 400% achievements.

I agree. Set the move ring at a level that requires a bit of extra effort on a non-workout day.
 
Default is 400 calories I think, but what should I set it at?

Mine is set to 730. It’s a goal I meet fairly regularly unless I elect not to go to the gym on a given day.

It serves it purpose: rewards me when I exercise, harasses me when I don’t

This number might be different for a given person but I think that’s what the purpose of the goal should be.
 
I set my daily move goal at 500 calories. I hit that goal 50% off the time, corresponding with days off and having time to exercise. I’ve not been suggested a new goal yet.
 
Mine is set at 390 and even if I don't go out walking like yesterday, I still beat it. Last week it suggested I up it to around 670 or so but I left it where it was. This week, it gave no goal suggestion.
 
Don't know the default, but I have mine set at 650 which I always exceed on days I go to the gym (I've reached 959 so far today) and come close to or meet on my off days.
 
Agreed - I got my watch on Saturday with my wife. I defaulted to Medium (836? calories). To meet this goal on Sunday, I had to run 2 miles, walk 2 miles, and be fairly active throughout the day. I also work an office job and I doubt I'll be able to even get half of it today unless I go on a 3 mile run+.

Like other posters said here - I'd rather have a hard goal instead of meeting it and not getting anywhere so I think I'm going to leave it. I'm interested in how much my watch is affected by typing (calories burned, etc...). Typing for an hour yesterday I was happy to see Apple registered 0 additional steps unlike my Fitbit which would give me hundreds of free steps just for typing.

I think I see a lot of brisk walks and runs after work in my near future! (A very good thing because I've let myself go over the last few years - heavier than I've ever been). Already this watch has spurred me to make a lot of healthy changes - I've given up my weekly pizza, given up going out to eat and promised to cook with my wife at least once a week, and I've run 3 times in the last 3 days - can already feel the change happening.

I guess I'll leave it at 830+ but it is not going to be easy. But I'd love to get back to my 180 pounds I used to be (225 now).

That’s great. I hope it’s still going well!! When you say your Watch helped you give up certain foods, etc...was it just the added physical activity that spilled over into motivating you to make healthy choices with food, or was there anything Watch-related that helped you?
 
I just set it to whatever it suggests me to set it on monday morning. Some weeks it goes up, some weeks it goes down. I've been lazy as f!ck these last weeks (it's cold, leave me alone!) and it lowered to 320 a day.

Now where's spring so I can start running again?! Damn winter and your rain and snow and coldness and *keeps mumbling like a grumpy 80yr old*
 
That’s great. I hope it’s still going well!! When you say your Watch helped you give up certain foods, etc...was it just the added physical activity that spilled over into motivating you to make healthy choices with food, or was there anything Watch-related that helped you?

My wife and I have had a gym membership for 2 years and we went maybe 5 times. The watch has spurred a new change - we're cooking our own meals instead of going out to restaurants, we're going out for walks or doing anything we can to close the rings on the Activity application. We tried a few apps to track calories but found them more of a bother than a help so we just use activities (Apple) for now -- not counting HeartWatch and Autosleep. I think because we made an investment of $325+/each - that helped motivate us more than anything.

To answer your question - physical activity spilled over into motivating I think.
 
Last Saturday, I went to bed thinking that it was another day of meeting my Move goal. After all, I had run up and down a basketball court (coaching 2nd grade boys) and paced the sidelines at a soccer game (coaching 4th grade girls).

I went to take my watch off and noticed that I did not meet my Move goal. In fact, I was off by about 125 kcal.

So I put on a pair of socks and went down to the basement for a 30 minute walk on the treadmill. My wife thinks I'm crazy.
 
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Last Saturday, I went to bed thinking that it was another day of meeting my Move goal. After all, I had run up and down a basketball court (coaching 2nd grade boys) and paced the sidelines at a soccer game (coaching 4th grade girls).

I went to take my watch off and noticed that I did not meet my Move goal. In fact, I was off by about 125 kcal.

So I put on a pair of socks and went down to the basement for a 30 minute walk on the treadmill. My wife thinks I'm crazy.

I've found that doing jumping jacks is a GREAT way to advance the move and exercise daily rings :). This really gets the heart going and at first my ribs and arms were sore - now I feel much better.
 
I've found that doing jumping jacks is a GREAT way to advance the move and exercise daily rings :). This really gets the heart going and at first my ribs and arms were sore - now I feel much better.
A big THUMBS DOWN to BigMcGuire!!!!!

Nah, just kidding. But not really.

Just this past Friday, we had a power outage that extended into the next morning. As I was lazy in the afternoon (when we still had power), I hadn't gotten my Move ring completed. After getting the kids off to bed, I was still about 350 calories away.

Normally, I would just get on a treadmill for about an hour or run a few miles (if it's a run day). But without power, there's no 'mill.

So I recalled McGuire's suggestion of doing jumping jacks. Sure, why not? JJ's are pretty simple and we've all done them when we were kids. No sweat.

Well, I'm here to tell you that 35 minutes of JJ's got me 357 calories on the Move ring. I would do a set of 30, then rest for 10 seconds or so. At least that's how I started out. Towards the end, it was more like 30 jacks, then 30 seconds rest ...

2 days later and my shoulders and calves are still sore.

So yeah, JJs are a great way to advance the Move ring, but goddam they hurt.

ft
 
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A big THUMBS DOWN to BigMcGuire!!!!!

Nah, just kidding. But not really.

Just this past Friday, we had a power outage that extended into the next morning. As I was lazy in the afternoon (when we still had power), I hadn't gotten my Move ring completed. After getting the kids off to bed, I was still about 350 calories away.

Normally, I would just get on a treadmill for about an hour or run a few miles (if it's a run day). But without power, there's no 'mill.

So I recalled McGuire's suggestion of doing jumping jacks. Sure, why not? JJ's are pretty simple and we've all done them when we were kids. No sweat.

Well, I'm here to tell you that 35 minutes of JJ's got me 357 calories on the Move ring. I would do a set of 30, then rest for 10 seconds or so. At least that's how I started out. Towards the end, it was more like 30 jacks, then 30 seconds rest ...

2 days later and my shoulders and calves are still sore.

So yeah, JJs are a great way to advance the Move ring, but goddam they hurt.

ft

LOL Yes - the first time I did 15 mins of JJ - I was so sore I couldn't cough or laugh and my ribcage felt like I got kicked by a horse and my neck felt like whiplash.
 
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old school stuff ain't always bad... Jumping Jacks, planking, squats, suicides, ...

No need for equipment and they will burn calories and make you sore for days...
 
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